Financial Services leading other sectors in DevOps adoption: Study

Businesses in Financial Services are ahead of the healthcare and government sectors in adopting DevOps to increase their speed of development and free up developer time. This is a major finding focused on sector by sector analysis of the data from Redgate’s 2020 State of Database DevOps Report.

“At the heart of what makes the financial services sector so interesting is its willingness to adopt a generative culture, which focuses on breaking free of siloes and promoting a proactive, collaborative atmosphere,” notes Kendra Little, Redgate DevOps Advocate and author of the report. “It’s what makes DevOps adoption work so well. This is a far cry from the culture and structure we saw from respondents in other sectors, which were often marred by little to no cooperation, and an inability to adapt to change.”

Nowhere is this more important than Financial Services. While features need to be delivered faster in order to meet heightened expectations from customers looking for added value, regulatory requirements need to be complied with and data privacy needs to be protected.

To give businesses in the sector a deeper understanding of the particular challenges they face, a special edition of Redgate’s 2020 Database DevOps Report presents a deep dive into the survey data from Financial Services respondents.

It highlights the differences and similarities that exist for businesses in the finance sector compared to other sectors, and give a valuable steer on where they should focus their digital transformation initiatives.

Key findings for Financial Services respondents include:

• 77% of respondents have adopted DevOps across all or some projects, or have a PoC in place, compared to 69% across other sectors
• 34% of respondents think increased speed of delivery is the biggest driver for automating the delivery of database changes compared to 26% across other sectors
• 66% of respondents believe the move from traditional database development to a fully automated process for deployment can be achieved in a year or less. This rises to 69% in the US and compares to 61% across other sectors
• Financial Services businesses are ahead of every other sector in adopting automation across the database development process
• 54% of Financial Services businesses now deploy database changes daily, weekly, or on demand, compared to 49% across other sectors

“What’s fascinating about the deeper sector analysis is the way businesses in Financial Services are innovating faster and further than any other sector,” added Little. “The data shows they face the same obstacles and challenges, but most are still surging ahead. Those who are lagging behind may need to revisit their digital transformation plans in order to remain competitive.”