Business and IT leaders often look forward to application development or deployment. They are viewed as major steps forward for the organization. Yet, an application is only as good as the quality and reliability of its day-to-day operations. Application performance monitoring (APM) is a recognition of the central role an application’s performance plays.

But while many business and IT leaders have been quick to install APM solutions, there isn’t always a clear understanding of why APM is so beneficial. Here’s a look at the most important benefits of APM.

Reduced Downtime

Technology is the engine that drives the success of modern enterprises. In today’s hypercompetitive world, each extra minute of downtime has a tangible, real world impact on the enterprise. Therefore, the lower the frequency and length of downtime, the better for the business overall.

APM reduces downtime by ensuring core services maintain their expected availability, improves the quality of troubleshooting, promotes smoother changes, and enables safer upgrades. For instance, organizations that have deployed Ruby monitoring tools can identify a problem much quicker than those that haven’t.

Improved End-User Experience

Users don’t always realize they are settling for a sub-par experience. And even when they do know, they won’t necessarily tell IT support. This can be particularly problematic for applications that are Internet-facing and whose users are your business’ customers. Poor performance only increases user angst and the number of support calls.

Improved quality of application performance due to APM creates not just a better end-user experience but also more productive interactions between IT and users. The ability to preempt or rapidly diagnose end-user problems enhances user productivity and satisfaction.

Reduced Reliance on Expensive Experts

APM decreases an organization’s reliance on expensive experts. The business doesn’t need to hire as many highly skilled employees or contractors. APM tools do all the heavy lifting by navigating the spiraling complexity and numerous silos of a large organization’s technology environment.

End-to-end controls and visibility afforded by APM lead to an intuitive work system that ensures even junior engineers can stay on top of a sophisticated ecosystem.

Reduced Operation Costs

APM allows businesses to fine-tune their systems, policies, and processes continually. That minimizes the impact of application underperformance and highlights hidden efficiencies you can leverage to bring down overall operational costs. The cost savings can subsequently be applied to more growth-oriented units of the business.

Whereas there’ll be a cost to procuring APM software, that expense pales in comparison to the long-term cost savings derived from avoiding fixing recurring problems.

More Time for Innovation

When enterprise applications run smoothly and are managed well, technology teams spend less time troubleshooting and fire-fighting. The knowledge sharing and collaboration between application development, application operations, and the service desk leads to quicker resolution of recurring problems.

This gives IT staff the opportunity to spend more time on the process improvement and innovation that culminates in better decision-making.

Increased Sales

Today’s businesses are heavily dependent on technology for everyday operations. The performance and availability of these applications have a direct impact on the bottom line. Whenever the systems aren’t performing as they should, they impair the business’s ability to close sales.

System degradation or unavailability leads to dissatisfied customers, diminished credibility, tarnished reputation, and lost revenue. APM empowers companies to proactively identify problems, apply appropriate solutions, and meet performance objectives. These create a consistently stable platform for lead conversion and provide valuable insights that can boost future sales.

A Necessity

The scale, complexity, and diversity of the systems that power modern organizations is growing every day. Without APM tools, monitoring application performance and availability is a tedious, time-consuming endeavor. APM delivers these six benefits and much more.