Let me describe a recurring situation in almost every organization. When companies deploy critical business applications requiring 99.9% uptime, it’s because users expect this level of delivery. But this is not the reality. The system is up and running and it is close to 99.9% uptime, but the end users are still complaining that the application delivery is delayed.
Monitoring end user experience is vital because the main objective of any application is to enrich the user experience. This is crucially important in banking and financial services companies which are highly dependent on technology and are characterized by
• Large networks with branches reaching tier III and rural areas
• Real time operation and transactions that take place 24*7
• Increasing customer demands
• Constant compliance to regulations by RBI, SEBI and IRDA
• Increasing competition
• Multiple modes of service delivery (technology drivers)
However, in a recent study carried out by ValueNotes and Anunta among CTOs and CIOs of bank and financial companies, we found that less than half could establish the link between IT and end user measurements.
It is clear that IT heads understand the importance of end user monitoring, and most of them are attempting to measure end user metrics. Most of the metrics defined were vague while others had no objective measures but relied on user feedback. A CIO at a public sector bank had an interesting view on the reliability of metrics. He said,” If I look at the no. of problem tickets as one of the metrics, then we cannot gauge the end user experience correctly, as all the tickets may not be relevant.”
Some of the trends observed in our study were:
• Application performance measurements are very broad and the assessment is not detailed
• Most of the metrics signifies a reactive approach towards monitoring and they are not monitored regularly
• The metrics around user experience are gathered for incident reporting and problem solving rather than performance improvement
• Difference in IT and end-user measurement is a clear sign of end user dissatisfaction
• In case of companies who had outsourced their application delivery, very few vendors promised SLAs around application performance from the end user side
I believe that the Indian banking and financial services sector is way past the debate of ‘End user monitoring- a necessity or a beneficial option.’ Application performance management is getting more complex by the day while the expectations of the end user are rising exponentially. End user monitoring has to become an integral part of application performance management. I think that the job doesn’t end at measuring the end user metrics but it should further expand to
• Approaching end user monitoring proactively and on a real time basis
• Linking the end user metrics to business metrics
• Isolating problems and resolving them immediately before the end
users are affected
• Ensuring continued business process
Not monitoring end user performance is not an option. An IT Head of a brokerage firm said,” We are in an industry that needs to be active 24*7, if we don’t monitor end users metrics, it is like we are sitting on a ticking bomb.” Unhappy users’ means unhappy end customers and no financial services company can afford that.
To download a complimentary copy of the white paper, “State of application performance management in the Indian BFSI sector”, please follow this link