In a striking revelation, Australian businesses face escalating costs of digital incidents, with the average downtime incident now exceeding $1 million. Research by PagerDuty, a global leader in digital operations management, highlights a 41% increase in such incidents over the past year, underscoring the urgent need for automation in maintaining IT infrastructures and consumer trust.
PagerDuty’s comprehensive study details the severe financial impact of these disruptions. The average incident takes two and a half hours to resolve, costing an estimated $7,011 per minute, translating to an alarming $1,036,327 per incident. This significant increase is attributed to the rapid expansion of complex digital services within organizations, exposing automation gaps in the digital operations ecosystems of Australian enterprises.
The frequency of high-priority incidents has also surged, with respondents reporting an average of 23 incidents in the last 12 months. The cumulative costs of these disruptions are staggering, totalling nearly $24 million annually.
Natalie Fair, Regional Vice President for Asia Pacific and Japan at PagerDuty commented on the findings: “Emerging technologies, growing consumer demands, and legacy systems are straining Australian organizations, impacting their financial performance and adding to broader market pressures. Automation has become critical in maintaining IT infrastructures and ensuring that business leaders prioritise sufficient investments.”
The study’s findings also indicate a significant disconnect between IT leaders and organizational management. A striking 71% of Australian IT leaders believe their boards and management fail to protect customer trust during outages adequately. Additionally, nearly a third (30%) reported that outages have negatively impacted their company’s share prices.
Employee burnout is another concerning consequence of these digital incidents, with more than a third (38%) of IT leaders observing higher levels of burnout among employees. The lack of automation in remediation, mobilizing responders, and internal communication further exacerbates the issue, with over 70% of IT leaders reporting these processes are yet to be fully automated.
Despite these challenges, there is a silver lining. The survey revealed that 85% of IT leaders believe their organizations are making significant progress toward fully automating the end-to-end incident response process. Jeffrey Hausman, Chief Product Development Officer at PagerDuty, emphasized the transformative potential of automation: “Digital incidents occur, and front-line responders are too often hindered by fragmented IT environments and inadequate processes. Automation can be a key enabler in achieving resilience in these increasingly complex environments. With automation built into the PagerDuty Operations Cloud, businesses can streamline critical work across incident response and service management, reducing the staggering financial costs of incidents.”
The survey, conducted by Censuswide on behalf of PagerDuty, involved 500 IT leaders and decision-makers from companies with more than 1,000 employees across Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The comprehensive findings and methodology of this survey are available here.
In conclusion, the rising cost and frequency of digital incidents in Australian organizations underscore the critical need for strategic investment in automation. As businesses grapple with the financial and operational impacts, it becomes increasingly clear that automation is not just a luxury but a necessity for maintaining resilience and trust in today’s digital landscape.
Written by: Jill Walsh