2023 Technology Adoption

Roadmap for Software Engineering

More than 140 software engineering leaders from large enterprises shared
their plans to map deployment timelines, enterprise value and deployment
risk for 47 notable technologies and practices.

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Design Deployment Container iPaaS
Analytics GitOps
Software Bill Systems Management
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Feature Engineering
Autonomous Management Public Tools
Software Testing Tools Tools APIs Observability
Composition Tools
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Enterprise Value Deployment Risk Adoption Phase

The value factor awarded to each technology The risk factor awarded to each technology The adoption phase is determined by the
is based on analysis of value drivers, including is based on analysis of potential risks current deployment plans for a majority of
improved speed and agility, enhanced posed, including cybersecurity risk, a lack organizations. Technologies placed on the
developer experience or productivity, increased of available talent, high or unpredictable border between phases are on the cusp of
cost efficiency or savings, delivery of superior costs, and technical incompatibility or moving into the next deployment phase.
capabilities to the business or customers, architectural complexity.
and enabling resilience and reliability.

Low Medium High Low Medium High

CI/CD = continuous integration/continuous delivery; fPaaS = function as a service;

IDE = integrated development environment; iPaaS = integration platform as a service

Key Takeaways
Software Engineering

Delivering superior capabilities and providing cost efficiency are the primary
value drivers of software engineering technology adoption. Software engineering
leaders cite “delivery of superior capabilities to the business or customer” and
“providing cost efficiency or savings” as the primary value factors for the majority
of the technologies in the roadmap. Each of these responses represents the primary
value factor for approximately one third of the included technologies.
Software engineering leaders cite high or unpredictable costs and talent
availability as the primary risk factors when adopting technologies. “High or
unpredictable costs” is cited as the primary risk factor for 68% of the 47 technologies
included in the survey. While cost is perceived as a primary risk for more technologies,
talent availability risks are perceived as particularly acute. Fifty percent of
technologies that have talent availability as the top risk factor were rated high-risk.
Organizations are deploying technologies to manage increasingly complex
application architectures. Despite including the most high-risk technologies
compared to other categories, 67% of the technologies in the architecture and
integration category are planned for deployment in 2023.
Organizations are investing in select, high-value platform technologies despite
concerns about significant upfront costs. Despite citing “high or unpredictable
costs” as a top risk factor, software engineering leaders are currently deploying
several platform technologies, including API management PaaS, iPaaS, and cloud
management platforms — all of which are perceived as high-value.
The need to improve developer experience and productivity is driving
technology adoption. High-quality developer experience has become a critical
priority for software engineering leaders, with 58% reporting that it’s very or
extremely critical to the C-suite at their organizations. Enhanced developer
experience or productivity is the top overall value factor for technologies
and practices in the developer platforms and tools category, which includes
performance engineering, internal developer portals, and browser-based IDEs.
Organizations are adopting security and verification technologies to improve
resilience and reliability throughout the software development life cycle. “Enabling
resilience and reliability” is cited as the primary value factor for 50% of technologies
and practices in that category. API security is a notable priority, with respondents
ranking API threat protection and API security testing tools among the highest value
technologies that enable resilience and reliability.
User experience and design technologies are seen as low-risk ways to
deliver value. Organizations plan to deploy multiple tools in 2023 to support
user experience and design. Sixty-seven percent of the technologies in the
experience and design category are considered low-risk. “Delivering superior
capabilities to the business or customer” is cited as the primary value factor for
the majority of technologies in this category.

Actionable, objective insight

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