Traditionally, IT professionals have overseen the management of application integration. However, the rise and proliferation of cloud, mobile and social technologies have given birth to a new breed of business users, coined “citizen integrators” by Gartner. As citizen integrators create their own integration solutions, it is becoming more difficult for IT to maintain visibility into all of an organization’s data connections.
Gartner predicts that by 2017, at least 65 percent of new integration flows will be developed outside the control of IT professionals. Keeping this forecast in mind, organizations must adjust their current practices and protocols to better accommodate the needs of modern business users.
Empowering business users to manage their own integration needs allows them to respond more quickly to customers, partners and colleagues – boosting productivity and efficiency. However, this freedom poses a unique challenge to IT professionals, and that is finding a way to fully enable end users, while maintaining backend visibility to ensure continuity across the system.
As a result, organizations are discovering the need to identify the right balance that empowers business users in a safe and secure way. Companies realize a hybrid integration approach is inevitable and organizations that don’t adapt will soon be left behind. By granting business users the ability to perform integration tasks as necessary, while ensuring IT maintains visibility into data connectivity, forward-looking businesses will see a positive ripple effect across the entire organization that ultimately results in a boost to the bottom line.
By implementing a hybrid integration approach, business users can utilize a diverse set of applications – without having to create their own duct-taped solutions. In addition, IT professionals can maintain oversight of permitted applications, ensuring the overall security of business workflow solutions.
Organizations that embrace the hybrid integration approach are not only facilitating citizen integration, but are ensuring their business is prepared for future growth, and their company’s end users can scale at the same pace of technology and innovation.