Maximizing Business Resilience: How Observability Transforms Downtime Reduction into Competitive Advantage

By Carsten Krause, Chief Editor, February 20th 2025

Organizations across the globe are under increasing pressure to keep mission-critical systems running seamlessly, secure customer data, and maintain an edge in a fiercely competitive digital market. In this environment, the concept of Observability has emerged as a critical enabler for operational excellence and continuous innovation. By turning real-time data into actionable insights, Observability empowers leaders to preempt system disruptions, optimize performance, and align IT initiatives with core business objectives. In this article, we delve deep into the strategies, metrics, and real-world applications of Observability—highlighting three detailed case studies from Splunk, a Cisco company: Progressive Insurance, Heineken, and Singapore Airlines.

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Why Observability Matters in a Complex Digital Ecosystem

In today’s digital economy, enterprises run on interconnected services, microservices, APIs, and cloud environments that span across multiple regions and providers. As these systems grow in complexity, traditional monitoring approaches—designed primarily to react to incidents—prove insufficient. Observability, by contrast, focuses on inferring the internal states of a system based on the data (logs, metrics, traces) it generates. This shift in perspective empowers teams to not only detect problems but also diagnose their root causes quickly and effectively.

1. Enhanced Proactivity: Observability platforms enable IT and security teams to anticipate disruptions before they escalate. Instead of waiting for an alert, teams can observe data patterns that signal anomalies, preemptively resolving them.
2. Reduced Downtime: Even a few minutes of downtime can result in substantial revenue losses and customer dissatisfaction. Observability significantly shortens mean time to detection (MTTD) and mean time to resolution (MTTR).
3. Data-Driven Decisions: Observability integrates data from multiple sources into a unified view, ensuring every strategic decision is anchored by real-time insights. This fosters alignment between IT initiatives and business objectives.
4. Continuous Improvement: Because Observability tools track performance metrics over time, organizations can identify recurring bottlenecks and refine processes on an ongoing basis.

A report from MarketsandMarkets projects the global observability market to grow from USD 4.5 billion in 2021 to USD 10.7 billion by 2026—at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.8% [source]. This rapid expansion reflects the growing recognition of Observability as an indispensable tool in the modern digital arsenal.

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Common Challenges in Adopting Observability

Despite its clear benefits, many enterprises encounter obstacles when rolling out observability strategies:

1. Tool Sprawl: Disparate monitoring tools often exist in silos, each capturing fragments of data. This fragmented approach hinders a holistic view, making it challenging to see the full picture.
2. Data Overload: Modern systems generate staggering volumes of logs, metrics, and traces. Without effective data management and analysis, critical signals can be lost in the noise.
3. Skill Gaps: Observability requires specialized expertise, from configuring data pipelines to interpreting complex dashboards. Upskilling teams or hiring talent can pose hurdles.
4. Cultural Resistance: True observability calls for close collaboration between business and IT units. In organizations with entrenched silos, adopting a shared observability platform can meet internal resistance.
5. Aligning With Business Outcomes: Observability initiatives must be tied to measurable metrics—like revenue, customer satisfaction, or compliance—to demonstrate tangible ROI to executives.

Overcoming these challenges often involves partnering with technology providers that offer integrated solutions. Splunk, operating as part of Cisco’s broader portfolio, exemplifies this approach by combining best-in-class data analytics with network and security expertise. As we will see in the following case studies, a unified observability strategy can drive impressive outcomes across diverse industries. Personally, my team has used Splunk to improve visibility of order tracking at Breville connecting disparate systems.

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Progressive Insurance: Protecting $120 Billion in Market Capitalization

The Stakes: Real-Time Responsiveness in a High-Stakes Industry

Progressive Insurance, with a market capitalization exceeding $120 billion, serves over 30 million policies worldwide. Customers rely on the insurer during critical moments—car accidents, house fires, natural disasters—making reliable, real-time digital services essential. In the high-stakes insurance industry, even minor system disruptions can lead to substantial financial and reputational losses.

“When you have a company the size of Progressive, approaching 65 billion in annual revenues, with 10 minutes, one hour, two hours of outage, there are real dollars there.”
— Jon Moore, Domain Architect, Progressive Insurance

Key Challenge: Progressive was grappling with edge failures and latency issues that impacted customer interactions. Their existing tools could not effectively pinpoint all request failures, especially in complex cloud environments. This created data blind spots that could lead to revenue loss and degrade customer trust.

Splunk’s Role: A Unified Observability and Security Platform

Progressive turned to the Splunk Observability Suite and Splunk Enterprise Security for holistic visibility across security, IT, and engineering. By correlating logs, metrics, and traces, Progressive gained real-time insights into system performance. This proactive stance helped them minimize downtime, optimize transaction speeds, and ultimately protect daily revenues in the millions.

1. Cloud-Native Monitoring: Splunk Observability Suite provided targeted cloud-platform insights, helping Progressive identify and remediate latency issues before they escalated.
2. Risk-Based Alerting (RBA): Implementing Splunk Enterprise Security allowed the Security Operations Center (SOC) to prioritize critical threats, reducing alert fatigue and ensuring the most serious issues received immediate attention.
3. Granular Data Visibility: Progressive correlated multiple data points to form a complete risk narrative. This holistic view made it possible to spot suspicious patterns early, rather than reacting too late.

Outcomes:

• $120 Billion in Market Capitalization Protected: By preventing costly outages and service disruptions, Progressive safeguarded its massive valuation.
• Significant Reduction in SOC Noise: Risk-based alerting streamlined security workflows, allowing analysts to cut through the noise and focus on real threats.
• 8 Million Traces and 50 Million Spans Captured Effortlessly: Progressive could ingest vast volumes of data without impacting compute performance, ensuring real-time observability at scale.

“Security should always be a story. If you’re not telling a story with security, you’re completely doing it wrong. With RBA, we can stitch together a bunch of events to form the story of risk to our environment.”
— Dru Streicher, DevOps Lead Engineer, Progressive Insurance

Read the full Progressive Insurance case study:
https://www.splunk.com/en_us/customers/progressive-insurance.html

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Heineken: Brewing Operational Excellence and Global Transparency

The Challenge: Synchronizing a Global Brewing Giant

Heineken, founded in 1864, is one of the world’s largest brewers, producing nearly 50 billion liters of beer annually. Operating in 117 countries and managing over 300 brands, Heineken depends on complex processes that extend from barley fields to bottling lines to bar tops. Every bottle must maintain consistent quality—no small feat when technology spans fermentation tanks, warehouse robots, and order processing systems.

“We’re evolving to become the best-connected brewer — and Splunk helps show us where things go right and wrong across markets so we have both global transparency and local responsibility.”
— Ronald den Elzen, Chief Digital & Technology Officer, Heineken

Key Challenge: With thousands of applications and multiple middleware platforms, even a few hours of downtime could halt production lines in multiple countries. Heineken needed a unified observability solution to stitch together data from various digital integrations and provide real-time insights across the entire value chain.

Splunk’s Role: Transforming Data Into Global Business Value

Heineken deployed the Splunk platform to gain holistic visibility into its brewing, supply chain, and financial processes. Working with specialized partner Rojo Consultancy, Heineken created XOMI (eXtreme Observability of Monitoring Integrations), a Splunk Cloud dashboard that translates real-time integration data into actionable insights.

1. Integration Monitoring: The digital integrations team used Splunk to connect five middleware platforms and 4,500 applications. This provided real-time data on everything from warehouse stock levels to credit card payment processing.
2. Predictive Alerts: Splunk’s machine learning capabilities allowed Heineken to prevent incidents before they occurred. Automated alerts now notify brewery managers if a packaging system is about to fail.
3. Global Transparency, Local Responsibility: Teams in different countries can access relevant data, enabling them to respond to local issues quickly while maintaining a global standard of operational excellence.

Outcomes:

• Fewer Incidents, Faster Response: Heineken significantly reduced downtime events by detecting potential bottlenecks early.
• Data-Driven Innovation: Weather APIs, pricing strategies, and warehouse logistics are now integrated into Splunk dashboards, allowing Heineken to optimize stock levels, predict demand surges, and refine its go-to-market approach.
• Enhanced Customer Experience: By ensuring that every step of the brewing and distribution process runs smoothly, Heineken delivers the same high-quality product to consumers worldwide—whether they are in bustling city centers or remote beach resorts.

“Splunk Cloud Platform now sends a Nigerian brewery manager an automated alert, saying, ‘One of your packaging systems isn’t working correctly, and you’ll have a problem at the end of your packaging line in seven minutes.’”
— Guus Groeneweg, Global Product Owner for Digital Integrations, Heineken

Read the full Heineken case study:
https://www.splunk.com/en_us/customers/heineken.html

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Singapore Airlines: Elevating the Passenger Experience with Full-Stack Visibility

The Challenge: Delivering Seamless Service Across Complex Systems

Singapore Airlines (SIA), consistently ranked among the world’s best airlines, prides itself on top-tier service standards—both in-flight and across digital channels. As the airline expanded self-service kiosks, mobile apps, and in-flight connectivity, maintaining continuous availability became more challenging. Customers expect instant updates on flight statuses, easy check-in processes, and reliable in-flight entertainment.

“With full-stack visibility thanks to Splunk, Singapore Airlines can now find and fix issues faster — maximizing service uptime, optimizing customer experience and keeping the brand’s reputation sky-high.”
— Singapore Airlines Customer Story, Splunk

Key Challenge: SIA’s digital transformation introduced multiple systems that needed 24/7 uptime. During peak travel seasons or major rollouts, even minor disruptions could create cascading customer service issues. The airline required a unified observability platform to centralize real-time data, quickly identify root causes, and streamline resolutions.

Splunk’s Role: Operational Data Analytics (ODA) at Scale

SIA deployed Splunk as its Operational Data Analytics platform, aggregating logs from customer-facing applications in real time. This platform allowed the IT support team to correlate data, detect anomalies, and troubleshoot issues with unprecedented speed.

1. Proactive Monitoring: SIA monitors self-service kiosks, website, and mobile applications in real time, minimizing downtime and boosting customer satisfaction.
2. Centralized Dashboards: Splunk’s intuitive dashboards eliminate manual log searches, enabling the IT team to rapidly pinpoint the source of disruptions.
3. Rapid Iteration: Developers can focus on building new features rather than getting bogged down by operational issues, thus accelerating the pace of digital innovation.

Strategic Observability: Best Practices and Key Metrics

Observability, as demonstrated by these three global brands, is not merely a technical upgrade—it is a strategic enabler for long-term business resilience. While each organization’s path to observability may differ, certain best practices and metrics consistently emerge as crucial for success.

1. Unify Data Streams
   A cornerstone of observability is aggregating logs, metrics, and traces into a single platform. This consolidation ensures that IT teams, security analysts, and business stakeholders have a single source of truth. When data is scattered across multiple tools, critical insights can remain hidden, delaying both detection and resolution of issues. Progressive Insurance’s success in capturing 8 million traces and 50 million spans daily without taxing compute resources exemplifies the power of a unified data pipeline.
2. Prioritize Risk-Based Alerting
   As Progressive’s case shows, risk-based alerting (RBA) cuts through the noise by assigning a severity score to incidents. Instead of drowning in alerts, security and IT teams can focus on the most critical threats first. This strategy is particularly beneficial for large enterprises dealing with billions of data points each day. By filtering out low-risk anomalies, organizations can maintain a sharper focus on high-impact vulnerabilities.
3. Implement Real-Time Dashboards
   Real-time dashboards serve as the operational nerve center. Teams can watch for anomalies, track performance trends, and pivot quickly if issues arise. Heineken’s XOMI (eXtreme Observability of Monitoring Integrations) dashboard illustrates how real-time analytics can be presented in a user-friendly format, bridging the gap between highly technical data and actionable insights for stakeholders across different functions.
4. Embrace Predictive Analytics
   A mature observability framework extends beyond reactive troubleshooting. By applying machine learning algorithms to historical and real-time data, enterprises can predict potential failures before they happen. Heineken’s brewery managers receive automated alerts when a packaging line might fail within minutes, preventing costly downtime and maintaining uninterrupted operations.
5. Track Critical KPIs
   • Mean Time to Detection (MTTD): How long does it take to spot an incident or anomaly?
   • Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR): Once identified, how quickly can the issue be resolved?
   • Service Uptime: Percentage of time systems are fully operational.
   • Transaction Throughput: Volume of successful transactions processed within a given timeframe.
   • Security Incidents: Frequency of critical security alerts over a defined period.

By monitoring these KPIs, executives can tie observability efforts to tangible business outcomes—such as revenue protection, brand reputation, and compliance adherence.

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Impact of Observability on Incident Resolution Time
Organizations implementing observability solutions report a 65% reduction in Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) for incidents, falling from an average of 6.5 hours to just 2.3 hours.

Key Takeaways:

• Observability platforms significantly reduce downtime by enabling proactive monitoring and root cause analysis.
• Faster incident resolution leads to improved service uptime and enhanced customer satisfaction.
• Businesses that invest in observability avoid revenue losses linked to prolonged outages.

Source:
Splunk State of Observability Report

Expert Opinions: Observability as a Competitive Differentiator

Industry analysts and thought leaders increasingly regard observability as more than just a monitoring upgrade. According to Gartner, enterprises that incorporate observability into their digital strategy experience fewer critical incidents and a more proactive stance toward innovation [source]. Forrester Research has also noted that observability accelerates development cycles, enabling teams to deploy new features faster while reducing operational risk.

A MarketsandMarkets study projects the observability market to grow at a 17.8% CAGR from 2021 to 2026, reaching USD 10.7 billion by the end of this period [source]. This growth underscores the evolving role of observability as a competitive differentiator—especially in industries where even minor disruptions can result in major financial and reputational setbacks.

Executives from Cisco emphasize that integrating observability into a broader technology stack, including networking and security, creates a comprehensive digital defense. With Splunk’s proven capabilities in data analytics, the combined offering helps organizations detect, analyze, and remediate incidents more effectively. This synergy is vital for businesses aiming to stay ahead of emerging threats, deliver seamless customer experiences, and continually innovate in the face of market pressures.

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Case Study Synthesis: Key Takeaways for Executives

Collectively, the Progressive Insurance, Heineken, and Singapore Airlines case studies underscore how observability can serve as a linchpin for digital success. Below are four executive-level takeaways distilled from these real-world scenarios:

1. Observability Protects Revenue and Brand Equity
   Progressive’s story highlights how even brief outages can translate to millions of dollars in losses for large enterprises. By implementing a robust observability framework, organizations can prevent or minimize downtime, thereby safeguarding both revenue and market capitalization.
2. Enhanced Collaboration and Culture Shift
   At Heineken, observability tools bridged the gap between siloed operations, supply chain management, and IT teams. When data flows seamlessly across the enterprise, cross-functional collaboration flourishes. This cultural shift is pivotal for maximizing the value of observability initiatives.
3. Customer Experience as a Competitive Edge
   Singapore Airlines leverages observability to deliver uninterrupted, high-quality service. In customer-facing industries, user satisfaction often hinges on rapid response times and minimal disruptions. Observability ensures these standards remain uncompromised, fostering customer loyalty and brand advocacy.
4. Future-Proofing Through Innovation
   Each organization used observability insights to drive innovation, whether through predictive maintenance, improved security postures, or accelerated development cycles. Observability thus becomes a launchpad for transformative initiatives that keep enterprises relevant in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

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Financial Impact of IT Downtime Across Industries
The cost of IT downtime varies significantly across industries, with the financial sector experiencing the highest impact.
According to industry reports, the average cost per minute of downtime is:

• Finance: $9.3K/min
• Technology: $8.2K/min
• Healthcare: $7.1K/min
• Manufacturing: $6.8K/min
• Retail: $5.4K/min

Key Takeaways:

• IT downtime represents a major financial risk, especially in sectors with mission-critical operations.
• Proactive observability strategies can prevent unplanned downtime, resulting in significant cost savings.
• Organizations in high-cost industries (Finance, Technology, Healthcare) have the most to gain from real-time monitoring and analytics.

Source:
IDC Research on IT Downtime Costs

The CDO TIMES Bottom Line

Observability has quickly become a strategic necessity for any organization operating in today’s complex digital ecosystem. As the case studies from Progressive Insurance, Heineken, and Singapore Airlines demonstrate, a well-executed observability framework can protect billions in market capitalization, streamline global operations, and elevate customer experiences. By correlating massive volumes of data in real time, businesses can anticipate disruptions, neutralize security threats, and drive continuous innovation.

For C-level executives, the core message is clear: Observability is not merely about monitoring—it is about actionable intelligence that aligns directly with revenue, customer satisfaction, and brand reputation. Splunk, now part of Cisco’s extensive portfolio, exemplifies how integrated solutions can transform raw data into insights that fuel strategic growth. From cutting-edge risk-based alerting to predictive analytics, observability tools offer a blueprint for turning complexity into a competitive advantage.

Looking ahead, the next wave of digital transformation will only intensify the need for real-time visibility across increasingly distributed, cloud-centric environments. Organizations that invest in observability today are positioning themselves to navigate future challenges—from scaling microservices architectures to countering emerging cyber threats—with agility and confidence. By adopting best practices, tracking meaningful KPIs, and fostering a culture of collaboration, enterprises can ensure that observability becomes a catalyst for business resilience and long-term success.

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Sources and Further Reading

• Splunk Observability: https://www.splunk.com/en_us/observability.html
• Splunk Customer Stories: https://www.splunk.com/en_us/customers.html
• Gartner on Observability: https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/glossary/observability
• MarketsandMarkets on Observability Growth: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/observability-market-214218814.html
• Cisco Customer Stories: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/customer-stories.html

This article is part of The CDO TIMES series on empowering C-level executives with data-driven insights and actionable strategies for building resilient, future-ready organizations.

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