8 Major Incident Management Trends Worth Noticing

Are companies taking IT major incidents seriously enough? Dimensional Research surveyed more than 400 IT and business professionals to get an idea.

Executives seem to accept that major incidents are the new normal, but they still aren’t hiring staff or investing in preventative technologies necessary to prevent and manage critical events that disrupt their respective businesses. Survey results suggest management may be placing more emphasis on being kept informed during an event than on ensuring timely resolution. Maybe that’s why major incident resolution teams break SLAs much too often.

In this slideshow, Troy McAlpin, CEO, xMatters, Inc., provides insights into the results of the survey commissioned by xMatters.

Troy McAlpin brings more than 20 years of experience to his leadership role at xMatters, with expertise in process automation, strategic initiatives and corporate strategy. His domain experience includes IT strategy and vertical market expertise including technology, banking, consumer and retail industries.  Prior to founding xMatters, he managed marketing, sales, development, M&A and financial aspects at two successful start-up companies and also worked at AT&T Solutions and Andersen.

Critical Incident Management Trends

Click through for findings from a survey looking at how major incidents are handled by companies, conducted by Dimensional Research and commissioned by xMatter.

Major Incidents Occur Regularly

Application downtime and service degradation are not once-in-a-blue-moon events. More than two-thirds of companies say they experience a major incident at least several times a year, and more than a quarter experience one at least monthly.

What Is a Major Incident?

Service outages and security breaches are recognized as major incidents almost universally. But as expectations for always-on services continue to grow, businesses more frequently consider intermittent service availability and performance degradation to be major incidents as well.

Target Resolution Times

Companies may not be keeping up with the always-on expectations of their customers — more than a third don’t have target resolution times at all. Of companies that do, nearly half have SLAs of more than an hour, and one in five has an SLA of more than 90 minutes.

Breaking Promises

More than three-quarters of respondents say they exceed their target resolution times either some of the time or most of the time. Only 24 percent of survey respondents said they never or rarely breach their target resolution times.

The Stakes Are High

Companies may be exceeding their SLAs, but they understand the consequences. An overwhelming majority, 82 percent, said business application downtime has a significant impact on revenue.

Keep Me Informed

More than half of respondents said lack of timely communication during an incident is more frustrating than the occurrence of an incident itself. In fact, 87 percent said business stakeholders and management are not okay with being uninformed during a major incident, even though most acknowledge that major incidents are a normal part of doing business.

Major Incident Teams

Barely half of companies say they have a major incident team. Of that half, only 44 percent have any staff dedicated full-time to major incident management.

Technology Matters

Only 49 percent of respondents use an automated communication platform to engage resolution teams and other stakeholders during major incidents. In fact, 40 percent use mass notification systems instead of targeting communications to key individuals.