Over the past decade, IT professionals have experienced a large shift in workplace functionality and technological requirements. The traditional legacy methods implemented can no longer keep up with business user demand for higher levels of application integration.
A recent Forrester report stated that by 2018, over 25 percent of new IT projects would be built on Web-scale architectures. As a result, businesses are adjusting their strategy for the digital era and ushering in a new phase of IT protocol innovation. The new direction is causing mobile application development organizations to create a foundation that supports continual and rapid growth based on Web-scale design.
In response to this growing trend, IT professional must update their procedures to accommodate the rise of solutions that are being delivered via cloud. Cloud offerings are truly becoming the norm, due to their efficiency, feature set, affordability, mobility and scalability aspects. Another aspect IT professionals must prepare for is the increased number of business users who look to integrate applications based on their own specific needs. An increasing amount of business users are developing their own duct-taped solutions and employing shadow IT to manage their own needs.
As Web-scale platforms and self-service application integration practices continue to grow, organizations that don’t adapt will be left behind. In order to empower business users, it is imperative IT professionals embrace the new methods and technologies that cater to next-generation efforts. Many of these solutions will be digital based components, selected by the business user. Business and their employees will have improved levels of innovation, efficiency and productivity.
Another key factor IT professionals must take into consideration is the rise in mobile applications and the intersection of business and personal device usage. A recent Gartner survey found that enterprises with a mobile app strategy deployed about 4.6 native apps, 2.2 hybrid apps, and 2.1 mobile Web apps on average. This directly shows the avid push businesses are making into the current digital era.
For IT to manage these industry transformations and keep their respective businesses from becoming obsolete, they will need to consider implementing a bimodal approach. Though a full transition into the modern era of personal application integration will inevitably dominate numerous work environments, the bimodal approach allows IT managers to utilize key aspects of their existing processes. However, businesses that do not adapt to the digital transformation will ultimately be become extinct.