There’s no such thing as ‘out of sight, out of mind’ in the digital world. Network blind spots–such as hidden inefficiencies, undetected vulnerabilities, and unnoticed bottlenecks–are costing companies more than they realize. From lost revenue to weakened security, these invisible issues stall innovation and make it harder for IT teams to deliver reliable services. And the more complex your IT environment, the higher the risk.

Whereas traditional Network Performance Management solutions deliver a limited scope, the most effective way for your organization to mitigate its data limitations is to adopt a full-stack AIOps and observability platform. By delivering full-fidelity visibility across all layers of the digital enterprise–including applications, networks, endpoint devices, digital employee experience (DEX), public cloud, zero trust frameworks, and mobile environments–the right solution has the power to revolutionize your approach to blind spots, dramatically reduce operational costs and help future-proof your modern IT environment.

Blind spots and business risk

Currently, IT teams face significant pressure to maintain reliability and security while keeping up with ongoing digital transformation initiatives. When critical issues go undetected and services fail without warning, ensuring a consistently high-quality user experience becomes increasingly challenging. In turn, this forces teams into a reactive stance that leads to longer incident response times and can impact important business objectives.

It’s a challenge that becomes particularly difficult when troubleshooting. When your IT specialists lack full visibility into the entire network, triaging technical problems turns into a frustrating game of trial and error–an inefficient approach that wastes precious time and resources. When Mean Time to Repair takes longer as a result, customer satisfaction drops, and strategic initiatives ultimately get delayed.

The situation gets even harder when you consider that hybrid and remote access employees can now connect from anywhere through a myriad of home networks, personal devices, SaaS tools, and cloud platforms. Plus, encrypted Zero Trust security models make it even more challenging to monitor performance and identify anomalies outside of the typical corporate boundaries. Without end-to-end visibility from endpoint to cloud, IT teams are basically operating in the dark.

By taking a holistic approach, Riverbed’s NPM+ solution can shed some much-needed light on these previously unseen risks by collecting packet data at every user and server endpoint before it has been encrypted or tunneled. Essentially, that means your organization can bridge the visibility gaps caused by increased network complexity–transforming observability, enabling faster issue detection, reducing downtime, and ensuring uncompromised service availability.

The hidden cost of blind spots

The consequence of overlooked blind spots in the network goes well beyond just technical issues. In reality, these operational inconveniences can actually spiral into something much more impactful.

For example, recent data published by the Treasury Committee shows that ‘nine of the top banks and building societies operating in the UK accumulated at least 803 hours–the equivalent of more than 33 days–of unplanned tech and systems outages in the last two years’. This occurred across over 150 separate incidents, affecting millions of customers in the process.

The aggregate cost of frequent IT network failures evidently stacks up–and that’s just in one industry in one country. It’s clear to see that blind spots can routinely cause damage by:

• Impacting revenue, with disruptions and downtime directly harming sales opportunities, especially as industries become increasingly reliant on digital services.
• Compromising business relationships by pushing customers, vendors or partners away through a lack of trust and confidence.
• Incurring higher operational costs, because more time spent firefighting means higher IT expenses and lower employee efficiency.
• Risking regulatory punishment, as undetected blind spots can lead to compliance violations, exposing businesses to legal and financial penalties.

Learn to see clearly with AIOps and observability

Most organizations still rely on fragmented, siloed tools that are becoming less effective at meeting modern needs. However, AIOps and observability platforms can provide the intelligence needed to detect and mitigate network blind spots in real-time. This is the consensus too, as our recent Global AI & Digital Experience Survey revealed that 82% of business leaders believe that ‘observability to overcome network blind spots’ is of importance.

Comprehensive AIOps for observability platforms support your IT teams to manage all elements of your digital ecosystem–whether that’s a hybrid cloud environment, virtual desktop infrastructure, unified communications or endpoint devices. By harnessing AI and machine learning for anomaly detection, IT teams are empowered to:

• Automate incident management and routine monitoring, allowing resources to be allocated to business-imperative areas.
• Use predictive analytics to pinpoint problems before they escalate into debilitating issues, then deploy root cause analysis to prevent issues from recurring.
• Resolve incidents faster, preventing potential reputational and financial repercussions in the process.
• Shift towards a proactive approach, eliminating downtime and improving service stability for users across the network.

Compared to self-contained point solutions that lack flexibility and scalability, these true AIOps for observability platforms allow you to cut operational expenses while still streamlining system performance. In that way, it offers a win-win scenario in which productivity, customer satisfaction, and revenue can all exponentially increase.

Turning obstacles into outcomes

Though often hidden beneath the surface, the costs of IT blind spots are increasingly hard to overlook—leading to extended downtime, heightened security risks, lost revenue, and reputational damage–and the impact of ineffective monitoring exists within every layer of today’s complex IT environment.

They need to look no further. Organizations that adopt AIOps for observability can achieve remarkable gains in IT efficiency, driving down costs while enhancing digital experiences. These platforms signal a shift toward a future where businesses move past reactive troubleshooting and embrace proactive innovation–transforming former operational challenges into valuable strategic advantages.

Ready to join the blind spot revolution? Visit our AIOps for Observability Solutions page for real-world success stories, insights, and resources to unlock smarter, faster IT operations. Resolve tomorrow’s IT issues today.