Author
October 3, 2022
Today’s enterprise development professionals face new and greater challenges than their predecessors. Demand for digital transformation projects is spiking as organizations strive to maintain a competitive edge in a global, digital-first market. At the same time, budgets are tightening, and skilled developers and system architects are in short supply.
Enterprise integration architecture is being pushed down the ever-growing queue of technology projects IT teams face. Development teams are feeling the pressure as they balance regular systems maintenance with new tasks and innovation, often with only a skeleton crew. And no matter how hard they work, they’re often viewed by other departments as a roadblock to progress rather than business enablers.
But this is why integration is important. Legacy strategies and solutions simply cannot address the enterprise issues of today. So how are developers and system architects dealing with these challenges? What role do they play in enterprise integration strategy, and what will it mean for their departments?
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Is IT Responsible for Integration?
Enterprise integration can be a game-changer for companies – but it’s no small task. Where does the responsibility of handling the challenges of integration land?
Interestingly, 50% of enterprises expect to rely on internal development teams to implement their integration strategy, but there is some disconnect about who the key player will be. In general, most enterprise IT professionals are relatively evenly split on whether the ultimate responsibility lies with the development team or the C-suite. But when we dig a little deeper, we find disparities between responses from those two groups:
- 65% of CIOs feel the C-suite is the main stakeholder in integration
- 72% of developers/architects think IT is the main stakeholder
Determining integration best practices and addressing implementation challenges might not be easy if internal stakeholders can’t agree on who plays the key role.
Implementation of Integration is Lagging
Successful implementation of enterprise integration architecture still eludes the majority of large organizations. Most enterprise development teams are still working without the benefits integration can offer – a problem that will only worsen as staff shortages climb and the urgency to execute digital transformation strategy climbs.
71%
actively planning to adopt new integration technology in 2023
79%
report that system downtime was significant,
impactful, and more than expected
75%
rely on integration to resolve IT backlog projects
59%
reported spending up to one quarter
of their IT budget on integration
*Data in this table, originally published in October 2022, was updated to reflect data from the 2023 State of Enterprise Integration Report published in April, 2023.
More concerning still, in 2022, the majority of enterprises who have yet to implement an integration solution (94%) aren’t even considering a specific enterprise integration solution.
Why is Integration Important?
Despite low execution numbers, 57% of organizations say integration is critical to their business strategy, and 93% acknowledge their organization would benefit from it. But why?
Piecemeal Approaches are Failing
Without an integration strategy in place, many IT teams have been forced to resort to short-term fixes for immediate problems at the expense of long-term development solutions. This tactic has only increased the amount of time developers spend on maintenance and crisis response rather than building for the future. 98% of organizations have had to rebuild business-critical integrations in the last year.
Number of key applications running
35%: 1-3
49%: 4-6
10%: 7-9
Number of integrations rebuilt in the last 12 months
50%: 1-5
48%: 6-10
1%: More than 10
Lack of Integration has Negative Effects
Many aspects of business operations and growth can suffer when enterprise integration is absent or poorly implemented. A lack of integration can
- Hamper efforts to innovate (48%)
- Decrease efficiency (48%)
- Slow response time to market changes (40%)
- Waste organizational resources (37%)
The first and last issues on this list – hampering innovation and wasting resources – can trap enterprise developers and system architects in a continuous loop. The inability to adopt new technology solutions leaves them stuck maintaining and troubleshooting legacy systems. At a time when skilled developers are in short supply, this waste of resources limits the company’s ability to adopt new tech to support innovation.
Overcome the Challenges of Integration with Digibee
Developers and systems architects want to be the operational heroes that help their organization meet and exceed business goals, not an under-appreciated team other departments only think of when something goes wrong. Enterprise integration architecture can help IT departments eliminate data silos, remove innovation roadblocks, and demonstrate their value to the business.
But alignment from all stakeholders and a clear understanding of best practices, what works, and what won’t are key to leveraging the benefits and overcoming the challenges of integration.
The second annual 2023 State of Enterprise Integration Report from Digibee can help. We talked to over 1,000 CIOs, web developers, and system architects from enterprises across the US to gain a deep understanding of the challenges they face and the tactics they’re using. The report gives you a comprehensive, data-based look into current and future trends, as well as guidance on integration best practices.
