The newly-released Digital Intensity in Australia Study by ManageEngine, a division of Zoho Corporation, and conducted by technology advisory firm Ecosystm, reveals that 54 per cent of SMEs identified infrastructure modernisation as the primary focus of their organisation’s tech strategy.
Because of this, the report found that Australian SMEs are compelled to innovate and leverage AI-powered insights and digital engagements to modernise their technology infrastructure. The study underscores the urgency for SMEs to adopt advanced technologies to ensure relevance in an evolving market.
However, the report also highlights a significant barrier preventing organisations from adopting a digital-first mindset, which is the challenge of managing complex IT environments and the lack of visibility over them. And despite the investments in cloud and AI, nearly 60 per cent of SMEs still rated themselves as ‘traditional’ or ’emerging’, while less than 10 per cent considering themselves ‘transformative’ or ‘digital-first’.
“There’s been a strong push from the IT and business corridors for data-driven decision-making, as the region is strained with austerity measures amidst growing IT requirements so that organisations have actionable insights for maximising productivity and powering resilience,” Srinivasa Raghavan Santhanam, director of product management at ManageEngine Site24x7, said. “The power of AI on a platform that enables data-driven decision-making will catapult businesses with a competitive advantage in a digital-first turf.”
The study also reveals that the surge in digital intensity within organisations has encouraged them to seek out new providers and suppliers for technology, with 51 per cent using three to five cloud environments, while 14 per cent manage up to 10. Meanwhile, 90 per cent of Australian organisations expect up to 60 brand-new applications, tools, or platforms to be implemented in their infrastructure over the next 12 months, heightening the demand for IT support.
This complexity was noted to have resulted in increased costs, security risks and scalability challenges that has hampered SME agility and innovation while jeopardising positive customer experiences. In particular, 52 per cent has identified cost reductions as the top business priority for the next 12 months.
The study also highlights the critical issue of insufficient monitoring, with technology leaders recognising the importance but struggling to establish comprehensive visibility and control over their technology environment. In the survey, most SMEs noted they are actively monitoring their servers (75 per cent) and networks (70 per cent). However, the low rates of end-to-end business process (14 per cent) and infrastructure automation (18 per cent) monitoring reveal worrying visibility gaps.
In particxular, technology leaders continue to be challenged by limited visibility (30 per cent) and alert fatigue (25 per cent) despite using IT monitoring tools/platforms. Tech teams are also inundated with constant alerts, including false positives, diverting their attention from critical issues and leading to important alerts being overlooked.
To overcome this, 48 per cent have adopted additional data prioritisation and filtering methods to differentiate critical alerts from noise. ManageEngine says that organisations need to adopt a more proactive approach to IT monitoring to mitigate these challenges.
“IT observability isn’t just about monitoring systems,” Tim Sheedy, principal advisor at Ecosystm, said. “It is about understanding them. By bringing together logs, metrics, traces and events with advanced analytics, tech teams can proactively pinpoint root causes, spot anomalies before they disrupt service and keep systems resilient. Ultimately, IT observability allows organisations to deliver consistent digital experiences for customers, while also empowering teams to confidently explore new technologies.”
