New Global Research Reveals an Astonishingly Passive Approach to Website Performance

Research has shown that even minor delays to website response times can have a sizable impact on customer satisfaction, page views, conversion rates and site abandonment1. Despite this, an astonishing percentage of organizations (32%) do not or don’t know if their website is monitored on a 24x7 basis. That’s according to an independent global research study undertaken by Vanson Bourne and commissioned by Borland, a Micro Focus company (LSE: MCRO.L).

Proving that many organizations still haven’t got the basics covered since the birth of first generation websites in the mid 1990s, a shocking 26% of CIOs from 590 organizations across the globe admitted they are not or don’t know if they are monitoring response times for mission-critical uckansactions. These include transactions such as shopping cart and database record retrieval on their websites. Financial services, retail and media, leisure and entertainment companies all confess to poor figures given they would typically have large scale e-commerce transactions, with 23%, 24% and 25% respectively.

80% risk customer experience and satisfaction

When it comes to trouble-shooting:

• 72% of respondents confirmed they are not always alerted at the first sign of a problem on their web services
• 80% are not always able to resolve a problem on their web services before a customer becomes aware of it. The UK scores particularly poorly with a huge 86%. From a sector perspective, media, leisure and entertainment companies and financial services organizations are the worst culprits, with 90% and 87% respectively

The situation is even worse for web apps on mobile

• 34% of CIOs are not tracking how quickly their own website loads on mobile devices and 36% are not tracking how quickly their web application loads on mobile devices
• That’s despite the research respondents confirming they would only wait an average of seven seconds before abandoning a website due to lack of responsiveness

Testing and preparing for heavy traffic peaks is poor

Although 79% of CIOs are conscious of the events that drive peak traffic volumes, such as seasonal events or holiday periods, 44% do not simulate website performance with heavy load testing to see if they can handle the increased pressure on their websites. This is compounded by a communication breakdown between marketing and IT departments:

• 69% of CIOs are not made aware of their marketing department plans well ahead of schedule, which means they can’t plan for and test to ensure optimum website performance
• 73% of respondents are not always made aware of specific launches before they happen

Archie Roboostoff, Borland Solutions Portfolio Director, at Micro Focus, said: “Users have very little patience with poor performing websites today so these insights are pretty astonishing. 88% of online visitors are less likely to return to a site after a bad experiencei so taking a passive approach to website performance is a massive risk to reputation, and for e-commerce sites, revenue too. It just goes to show that a solid performing website is still a competitive advantage, and that any company delivering an equally good web experience on mobile is likely to win the customer retention and acquisition battle.”

1A one second increase in website response time equals 11% fewer page views, a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction and a 7% loss in conversions. For example, a one second decrease in Amazon’s page load would annually cost $1.6 billion in sales (Aberdeen Group)

iEquation Research

Notes to Editors

The independent research survey was undertaken by Vanson Bourne in February 2013. It covered 590 IT decision makers in nine countries including UK (100), France (100), Germany (100), USA (100), Brazil (100), Australia (35), New Zealand (15), Hong Kong (15) and Singapore (25). The respondents were from mainframe organizations with 501+ employees, covering multiple industry sectors.

Of the respondents, 56% have both a ‘main’ and a ‘mobile’ version of their website, while 43% have a single site serving both mobile and traditional browsers.

About Borland

Originating in 1983, Borland Software Corporation is a world-class provider of requirements, test and change management solutions. As part of Micro Focus Ltd, a member of the FTSE 250, Borland offers tools that are open, agile and work across the entire Application Development Lifecycle to enable customers to build better software, faster. For additional information please visit www.borland.com.

To find out more about the Borland Silk product set visit: http://www.borland.com/silkportfolio.

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