A new IDC InfoBrief, “Quality at Scale: Excellence in an App-Centric World, 2025–2026 Edition,” sponsored by Noesis, reveals that only 8% of organizations in the EMEA region have mature practices in place to ensure software delivery quality at scale. Based on input from over 700 companies, the study highlights ongoing challenges including technical debt, resource gaps, and delayed development timelines, with one-third of organizations falling significantly behind in adopting quality-focused practices. The report underlines the urgency of modernizing delivery systems through platform engineering, DevOps integration, and automation to close the performance gap.

Despite notable examples of progress, such as Canon Europe’s application consolidation efforts and a leading Portuguese bank’s use of platform engineering, many organizations still struggle with slow change implementation, low feature development focus, and fragmented workflows. The study reveals that 64% of businesses need up to three weeks to implement basic changes, while only 37% of development time is spent on creating new features. IDC and Noesis argue that embedding AI and automation across the software delivery lifecycle is now critical to meeting the pace of digital transformation.

“Automation and AI are no longer optional; they are essential to maintaining software quality and delivery speed in today’s app-centric economy,” said Eduardo Amaral, Director of Quality Management, DevOps & Automation at Noesis. The report is based on IDC’s Future Enterprise Resilience Survey and European Modern App Delivery Survey and is now available for download. It provides a strategic framework for IT leaders looking to overcome operational roadblocks and build a quality-first delivery culture.