In determining what will be mission-critical success factors for IT and business in 2015 and beyond, it’s clear that citizen integration is one trend that is poised for exponential growth as business users are becoming increasingly proficient in performing tasks like data onboarding and mapping.
At Adeptia, we recently partnered with TechValidate to survey over 150 companies regarding the state of citizen integration and what this rising trend means for IT departments and business users alike.
We were especially interested in what IT organizations think about citizen integration, and how businesses are responding to this new breed of business user.
Here are the key developments we discovered:
Businesses Move Faster
Half of the companies we surveyed reported that business is moving so fast that corporate IT is having trouble keeping up with business requests. This is due to the numerous tools and applications business users have at their disposal, and as a result, the integration queue is constantly growing.
What does this mean for your company? It’s clear that organizations need solutions that empower business users to securely perform integration themselves, allowing IT to focus on big picture, strategic initiatives.
Cloud Integration is Challenging
Due to continuous and rapid integration requests, IT is challenged to develop new protocols to best serve business users. However, 63 percent of the surveyed demographic stated that integrating cloud based applications with legacy applications is difficult to implement. For most organizations, rip and replace solutions are not feasible, and as such, need an adaptive solution that is flexible enough to integrate into the existing network architecture.
Managing B2B Connections
Over 75 percent of the IT organizations we surveyed admitted that a large effort is needed to develop and manage connections with traditional approaches to B2B integration. A new, hybrid approach is necessary – one that encompasses both the necessary compliance standards of traditional B2B integration as well as one that is adaptive and responsive enough to compete in today’s fast-paced business landscape.
Self-Sufficient Business Users Increase Agility
However, a significant majority of those IT organizations we surveyed agreed that self-sufficient business users increase agility. Eighty percent of respondents reported an increase in business speed and responsiveness as a major benefit of enabling citizen integration. By allowing business users to be self-sufficient data consumers, they are able to automate their own needed B2B connections, saving the organization time and money.
Looked at together, it’s clear that the traditional approach to B2B integration is no longer viable in today’s marketplace, and that despite the potential growing pains and challenges associated with citizen integration, there are clear and significant benefits for those organizations that adapt.