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How Data Integration Benefits Businesses Beyond the IT Department

Posted on January 12, 2023 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT

The right integration solution can mean huge gains for your organization’s IT department. It’s not a secret – in fact, it’s the focus of most articles about the benefits of data integration: reduced costs, improved developer efficiency, and less reliance on increasingly hard-to-find IT specialists. But what about the rest of your business? 

If your IT department is among the few that have no trouble with skills shortages or even with rising costs, you might think you don’t need an integration platform. Don’t fall into this trap. There are a variety of ways other departments can benefit from the adoption of an integration platform as well.

>> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business. 

diverse-businesswomen-analytics-sales-revenue

Faster Time to Market

Integrations take less time with an enterprise iPaaS solution than when developers have to create point-to-point connections manually. Reducing time spent on building integrations means systems are connected and data exchanged ahead of schedule. The result? Your team can accelerate digital transformation and reduce time to market on new products or services.

A reduced time to market means more time to generate revenue. And more revenue benefits your entire organization. Forrester analysts estimate $1.3 million in increased revenue over three years from the faster time to market with Digibee’s iPaaS. 

revenue-table-from-forrester-TEI-report

Source: The Total Economic Impact™ Of Digibee’s Enterprise Integration Platform As A Service (eiPaaS), a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Digibee

Improved Reliability

An iPaaS also improves the reliability of system and application performance. Because Digibee’s low-code platform reduces the risk of human errors and includes built-in monitoring, disruptions are minimal, and identifying and addressing issues is quick and easy.

The price of downtime is continually increasing, and delays in accessing real-time data can negatively impact decision-making. The right iPaaS can help improve the reliability and security of your systems, regardless of size or scale.

When the Weir Group needed to integrate systems used by 11,500 employees across 50 countries, they turned to Digibee for a solution. 

Digibee connected their business-critical systems with existing corporate ERP and SAP systems, optimizing data flow, implementing rigid security protocols, and adding proactive monitoring to minimize disruptions.

Enhanced Customer Experience

The “customer is always right” adage has never been more true than it is today. Consumers’ expectations of brands they do business with are on the rise, and enhancing the customer experience was the top priority (by a significant margin) in McKinsey’s 2022 State of Customer Care Report. 

Your internal teams may have no choice about dealing with slow, inefficient business processes, but your customers won’t put up with an experience that falls short of expectations. Another business benefit of integration is that it can empower you to deliver the experiences your customers desire – with new technologies and maximized efficiency.

GJP Hotels & Resorts, a leading Brazilian hospitality chain, was facing increasing customer churn as guests voiced frustration over tedious, time-consuming check-in and check-out processes. The company partnered with Digibee to digitize workflows and integrate its Property Management System with self-serve technology. The results were almost immediate:

  • 100% reduction in guest complaints
  • 80% reduction in guest wait time
  • $300,000 saved in the first year

    • Everyone Benefits from Integration

    It’s not all about IT. Stakeholders in departments at every level of your organization can realize the business benefits of integration. But open communication about integration priorities and goals is critical. 

    When we surveyed over 1,000 enterprise IT professionals in early 2022 for our State of Enterprise Integration Report, we observed a significant disconnect between different players when they were asked who owns enterprise integration. The C-suite, IT experts, product teams, and citizen developers can all benefit from the right integration solution – but only if they’re working in cooperation instead of competition.

    Realize the Business Benefits of Data Integration

    Whether your organization is looking for an iPaaS solution to help modernize legacy infrastructure, implement a digital transformation strategy, or just increase your operational efficiency, Digibee can help.

    Our low-code iPaaS makes it easy for IT experts and citizen developers alike to build, deploy, and maintain integrations to support your business goals. And you don’t just get a service provider when you work with Digibee – you get a partner, by your side every step of the way and fully committed to your success.

    Download a copy of the TEI of Digibee’s eiPaaS for full details on the data integration benefits your business can realize with Digibee. Or, book a custom demo to see for yourself what our solution can do for your business.

    Why Isn’t Your Integration Platform Helping to Reduce Your IT Backlog?

    Posted on January 10, 2023 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions

    IT teams are under increasing pressure to resolve burgeoning backlogs. Perceived by internal stakeholders as a critical business blocker, failure to execute on these initiatives impacts the future success of the business. With too many projects and not enough time or resources to make headway, a neglected backlog of work also impacts IT morale. No one likes a backlog.

    Enterprise integration is a critical capability when it comes to reducing your backlog. The technology validates and transforms data traveling between systems, which in turn supports automation and other efficiencies essential in rapidly knocking items off the list. 

    But for businesses that rely on traditional integration solutions, IT backlogs continue to grow with no relief in sight–despite the high costs of the technology. These ROI challenges are compounded by the investment in resources (training and time) so your developers can manage the significant workload needed to implement and manage the technology.

    >> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business. 

    IT Backlogs, it’s a Resourcing Problem

    And herein lies the problem. After investing time and money in training some team members on the solution–or even worse, competing on the open market for new hires with the skills, it makes no sense to assign these expensive resources to the lower priority integrations that comprise your IT backlog. 

    However, Lines of Business (LoB) owners waiting on IT to deliver the missing link in their technology strategy (the link that will resolve a chronic and critical inefficiency), don’t consider their projects to be low priority. When push comes to shove, LoB stakeholders may even go rogue and build their own integrations using one-off tools that place the enterprise at risk. And so the pressure on IT continues to mount. 

    Yes, you may have extra hands, but only a subset of these hands are qualified to do the work. 

    This is where Digibee comes in.

    Busy-Developer-working-with-computer-programming

    Burning Your Backlog With Digibee 

    In a recent conversation with an American multinational consumer goods corporation, we uncovered yet another scenario where developers certified in a traditional integration platform had to dedicate all of their time to higher priority integrations, leaving the lower-priority IT backlog work untouched.

    The company supports 20-30 integrations with their existing platform, with about 8 integration developers certified in the technology. Factoring in headcount, licensing, and subscriptions, freeing up resources to tackle the IT backlog simply wasn’t cost-effective. 

    Once we understood the challenge, Digibee’s place in the IT value chain became clear. Rather than divert expensive resources from higher priority projects, Digibee’s enterprise integration as a platform (iPaaS) technology could manage and deliver the less urgent (but important) integrations. 

    This makes sense for a variety of reasons:

    • Digibee is fast, reducing time to market by as much as 70% so you can start burning your IT backlog in weeks instead of months or years, allowing you to accelerate your digital transformation
    • Digibee is cost-effective, with a simple pricing model (fewer than five SKUs in total) aligned with your data flow and no additional charge for implementation services to architect+build+deliver your initial integrations, premium connectors, and enhanced monitoring. No certification or time-consuming training required, and no extra charges for support. What you see is what you get (and you get a lot).
    • Digibee is accessible to all developers. We enable all of your developers (not just the ones certified in a particular solution). Within 10 days, using our low-code integration platform, any of your developers can create and implement integrations. 

    With Digibee handling your IT backlog of work, the company doesn’t need to deprioritize its important business integrations. Instead, team members certified to perform the specialized work can do that work. Digibee will do the rest.

    Next Steps 

    No longer limited by the traditional integration technology work model, you now have the time and resources you need to light a big fire under your backlog. But before you begin, here are three important steps to help optimize the success of your project:

    Review your backlog

    Some IT backlogs include projects that were added many months and even years ago. Do a detailed review and ensure the items on your IT backlog still matter. Get rid of the ones that are redundant or that offer no value. While you’re at it, do a stack ranking of all the items remaining on the list so your backlog project team focuses on the most important or high-value initiatives first, working their way down the list. 

    Leverage the cloud

    Wherever possible, prioritize backlog projects that focus on moving legacy applications to the cloud. The speed and efficiency of cloud-based infrastructure will provide enduring value, helping to resolve chronic IT pain points today and in the future.

    Assess your workforce

    Once you’ve validated (and hopefully shortened) your backlog, identify the skills and knowledge needed to complete the projects. Digibee customers utilize less experienced personnel to manage a significant portion of the work. This model allows your senior developers to focus on the highest value activities while more junior staff handle the lion’s share of the work.

    For a deep dive into all the benefits of choosing Digibee’s modern integration solution to support your IT backlog, including detailed comparisons between the traditional MuleSoft model and Digibee, read the white paper: 5 (+1) Reasons to Choose a Modern Integration Solution.

    For more information, visit our website, read our customer success stories, or contact us to book a demo.

    How Will IT Spending Trends Drive Innovation in 2023?

    Posted on January 5, 2023 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT

    It doesn’t take an expert to identify that the US economy – and really, the global economy – is not at its most stable. Discussions on recession, cost-cutting, and finding efficiencies are everywhere. And in many cases, the IT department is the focus of those looking to free up extra dollars amid economic instability.

    At the same time, the tech industry outlook offers stories of innovation, integrations, and new solutions. The contrast is stark. What is the future of an IT industry on the cusp of so many new developments without the funds to pay for them? And which IT spending trends will shape enterprises in 2023?

    >> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business. 

    8 Benefits of Cloud-Native Architecture

    Posted on December 28, 2022 by - Cloud Migration, Enterprise Integration Solutions

    There was a time when using the cloud was an innovative idea for businesses. But the evolution of technology marches on, taking the corporate world with it. Simply storing organizational data in the cloud or using a cloud-based “as-a-service” solution is no longer enough. Cloud-native is the new cloud. But why is cloud-native important?

    >> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business. 

    Improving Developer Efficiency: Do You Spend Too Much Time on Integrations?

    Posted on December 19, 2022 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT

    Enterprise integration is no longer a nice-to-have – ensuring your data and systems are seamlessly, securely integrated is vital to your ability to grow and compete in a digital-first world. But at what cost?

    Measuring developer productivity

    Developer productivity is an increasingly important KPI for organizations looking to control IT costs without affecting growth or innovation. And as more businesses focus on ensuring they’re getting the most out of their IT department, more attention is being paid to how developer efficiency is measured.

    DO

    • Tie developer performance to business outcomes
    • Look at functionality gained, problems solved, or value added

    DON’T

    • Count lines of code or number of bugs fixed
    • Focus on hours worked
    • Track the number of tasks completed

    >> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business. 

    Integration and your IT team

    If developer productivity metrics are tied to business outcomes, you’ll need to identify the goals of your integration project (or projects) to understand how efficiently your team is performing.

    Key objectives for enterprise integration include:

    • Enabling AI and automation
    • Improving data security
    • Reducing operational costs
    • Improving time to market
    • Supporting digital transformation 
    • Upgrading legacy systems

    Without successful integration implementation, companies can face:

    • An inability to adopt new technologies
    • Inefficiencies that affect business success
    • Lack of agility to respond to market changes
    • Wasted IT resources

    Achievement of critical objectives – or elimination of challenges – offers a valuable way to tie developer efficiency to business outcomes. And once you’ve measured the productivity of your IT team, you can start looking for ways to improve it.

    Benefits of a low-code platform

    The intuitive visual drag-and-drop interface of Digibee’s iPaaS reduces the time and developer skill level required to build integrations, while our built-in monitoring makes integration maintenance easier and more efficient. In Forrester Total Economic Impact™ of Digibee’s iPaaS1 report, analysts quantified how companies can boost developer productivity with Digibee.

    Building integrations

    The Forrester TEI report values developer efficiencies realized in building integrations at $2.1 million over three years2, noting that the Digibee platform empowers developers to build new integrations as much as 75% more efficiently than point-to-point solutions.

    • Ease of use: Digibee’s low-code integration platform has a gentle learning curve, reducing the time it takes developers to understand and use the platform
    • Reusability: The ability to reuse existing integrations means developers don’t have to start from scratch for every connection, reducing the time spent on deploying integrations
    • Troubleshooting: Digibee’s integrated logs and metrics simplify the process of understanding when – and, more importantly, why – an integration isn’t working, reducing the amount of time spent on troubleshooting new integrations

    Maintaining Integrations

    Forrester analysts put the value of integration maintenance developer efficiencies at $370,0003, noting that Digibee almost completely eliminates the need for developer rework – a notable feat, given that 98% of enterprise IT professionals report having to rebuild at least one integration in the past 12 months.

    • Legacy integrations: With Digibee’s iPaaS, the time taken to maintain legacy integrations decreased to one hour for every four previously required
    • New integrations: Time needed to maintain new integrations also dropped to one hour for every four previously spent

    Increase the efficiency of your IT team

    Digibee’s low-code platform and integration monitoring tools can significantly reduce the time your development team spends on manual tasks related to building and maintaining enterprise integrations. 

    The increased developer efficiency your team will realize using our iPaaS directly translates to progress on key objectives like cost savings, faster time to market, increased agility, and the ability to embrace new technologies that support innovation and growth.

    But you don’t have to take our word for it. Download your copy of the Forrester TEI Report for a closer look at all the benefits your organization stands to gain by partnering with Digibee – or book a no-obligation demo to see our solution in action.

    1 A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Digibee
    2 Savings for a hypothetical company with 20,000 employees and annual revenue of $5B
    3 Savings over 3 years for a hypothetical company with 20,000 employees and annual revenue of $5B

    Digibee’s Top 3 Tech Predictions for 2023

    Posted on December 14, 2022 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT

    I recently moderated a discussion with three of my colleagues, Co-founder and CEO Rodrigo Bernardinelli; Peter Kreslins, Co-founder and CTO; and Tam Ayers, Field CTO, North America. It was a fascinating session where we shrugged off the constraints of today to explore what we believe we’ll experience in 2023. Since we tend to focus on our customers, it’s easy to forget that Digibee is an enterprise too. So the future IT industry trends we predict in 2023 are ones we will share with all enterprises. Read on!

    5 Data Integration Techniques for Enterprise Organizations

    Posted on December 12, 2022 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions

    Everything is connected. The past three years have only served to demonstrate just how accurate that statement is. The changes businesses rushed to implement amid pandemic restrictions did not evaporate as life returned to normal, and the effects of crises here at home and around the world serve as a continual reminder of just how connected we all are.

    Digital transformation has emerged as a top priority as businesses work to meet changing consumer demands and ensure they won’t be caught off-guard by whatever comes next. But to achieve digital transformation, organizations must choose between a dizzying number of data integration techniques and strategies to connect their legacy systems with the solutions they rely on for growth and innovation.

    This post examines some of the most common data integration techniques and strategies, their pros and cons, and how they perform in different use cases. 

    >> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business. 

    Benefits of Data Integration

    Does your organization really need data integration? The answer depends, of course, on your business model, but is probably yes.And even if you don’t strictly need integration, your organization could probably benefit from it. Here are just a few benefits of integrating your data:

    • Reduced costs – Many forms of data integration automate the transfer of data between systems, meaning you dedicate less resources to moving data manually.
    • Improved efficiency – Automated integration also eases your IT staff’s workload and reduces the risk of errors.
    • Enhanced data integrity – Data integration solutions generally have a built-in validation step, so you can make decisions based on your data with confidence that it’s accurate.
    • Ability to innovate – Integration lets you connect business-critical legacy systems with modern solutions for the power to leverage trends and respond to changing demands.
    • Increased security – Streamlining permissions and data access becomes simple and straightforward with integration.

    5 Common Types of Data Integration

    There are five key data integration strategies:

    1. Manual Data Integration

    As the name suggests, manual data integration relies on custom code to clean and connect data from different sources. This data integration technique is labor-intensive. Every single integration-related task, from converting to the correct format to displaying in the appropriate system, is done manually by a skilled developer.

    PROS

    • Requires minimal maintenance once implemented
    • Ongoing expenses are lower than other approaches

    CONS

    • Cannot be implemented without the internal coding expertise to create each connection
    • Manual processes increase the risk of error
    • Does not scale well unless you have a  dedicated team that can keep up with demand for new connections
    • Cannot support real-time use

    Manual data integration works for one-off projects at companies not struggling with a shortage of IT expertise, but there are better candidates for digital transformation projects.

    2. Application Integration

    Application integration, sometimes called application-based integration, uses automated software tools to collect data from various sources, convert it to the appropriate format, and send it to its destination. This type of data integration frequently features open-source tools and pre-configured connections.

    PROS

    • Fully automated tools require fewer internal resources to use and maintain
    • Provides seamless data transfer between a wide variety of sources

    CONS

    • Requires technical expertise to deploy
    • Lack of standardization means services using this technique may deliver inconsistent results
    • Some risk to data integrity as it moves between systems

    If your organization is looking for a way to integrate a limited quantity of data from a limited number of sources, application integration may be the right strategy for you. Enterprise digital transformation efforts may exceed the capabilities of this type of data integration.

    3. Uniform Data Access Integration

    Data virtualization is the key to this data integration technique. This strategy involves creating virtual versions of integration data that users can search and analyze without removing the core data from its secure location.

    PROS

    • Supports real-time data use and analysis
    • Reduced storage costs since data remains in a single location

    CONS

    • Only suitable for similar types of integration data
    • Too many requests can overwhelm the system and lead to failure
    • Accessing data from multiple points simultaneously can compromise integrity

    Uniform data access integration is a powerful solution for organizations looking to save on data storage in their integration process, provided demand does not increase.

    4. Common Storage Integration

    This data integration method, also known as data warehousing, consolidates data from multiple sources into an entirely new system built to transform, store, and serve data to users as needed. 

    PROS

    • Consolidating data in a single location protects its integrity
    • Latency is very low
    • Data can be accessed and managed regardless of the status of the source system

    CONS

    • Building a new system to house and process data drives up implementation and maintenance costs
    • There can be some latency issues as data is transferred into the system from different sources, meaning real-time data access is not possible

    If your company has the financial and human resources to support the high cost of data warehousing and a need to perform complex data analysis tasks, this type of data integration could work for you.

    5. Middleware Data Integration

    Like manual data integration, middleware is pretty much what it sounds like. Middleware data integration relies on a third-party tool that serves as a technical layer between (or in the middle of) your operating system and applications to format and validate data as it moves between systems.

    Middleware integration solutions come in various forms, some requiring technical expertise and others that are intuitive and easy to use, regardless of skill level.

    PROS

    • Automated or partially automated, allowing developers to focus on applications without worrying about connectivity
    • Creates uniformity at interface level for improved oversight and insights
    • Some options come with third-party monitoring or maintenance

    CONS

    • Can require skills or expertise to deploy and maintain (varies by provider)

    This data integration technique is ideal for digital transformation initiatives and connecting legacy systems with more modern tools and solutions.

    How to Choose an Integration Tool

    According to the 2022 State of Enterprise Integration report, only 7% of enterprise IT professionals say their organization has successfully adopted an integration strategy, so if you’re still in the planning stages, you’re not alone. But how do you choose the solution that’s right for you?

    Here are four key factors to consider when weighing different types of data integration:

    • Basic requirements

    Each of the five types of data integration we’ve discussed has different benefits and drawbacks. Make sure the strategy you select fits your organization’s needs. For example, if you need to scale operations up and down, manual coding is probably not the answer to your integration issues.

    • Effects on your team

    Some data integration techniques require a lot of technical skill or knowledge to implement and maintain. How will that affect your team? Skilled IT experts are already in short supply, so it’s wise to choose a solution that you know you’ll be able to handle.

    • Daily operational impact

    Understanding how you’ll access integrated data and how implementation and maintenance tasks will affect your business is also critical. Examine how disruptive the data integration technique you choose will be, and be sure your organization is prepared for the time it will take to deploy it and onboard staff.

    • Business goals

    A solution that meets your data integration needs now might not hold up in the future. Consider your longer-term goals beyond the immediate need to integrate, and choose a strategy that will support those outcomes as well.

    Let the Integration Experts at Digibee Help

    At Digibee, we eat, sleep, and breathe data integration. Our low-code iPaaS offers all the benefits of a middleware integration solution without any of the drawbacks. 

    Our intuitive visual interface eliminates the need for niche expertise to create integrations and makes building integrations more efficient. Book a demo today to discover how Digibee can help you.

    How to Define Top Priorities for Integration Strategies

    Posted on December 7, 2022 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions

    What are the biggest priorities for your business? If you asked that same question of everyone in your organization – or even just those in the c-suite – would you get the same answer? Probably not.

    Going around the table, you might end up with multiple, often conflicting priorities from different areas of your organization. Getting everyone on the same page is hard enough with business-related issues, but when it comes to IT integration, conflicting priorities often delay business-critical integrations, or sideline projects altogether.

    >> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business. 

    How Can You Get Everyone on the Same Page When it Comes to IT Integration?

    To have a successful enterprise integration, business leaders must:

    1. Identify conflicting integration strategies 
    2. Decide on organization’s top priorities
    3. Create a business plan on how to work together to achieve priority goals

    Identifying Conflicting Priorities

    According to the Digibee State of Enterprise Integration Report, five different types of integrations were generally ranked evenly as priorities, regardless of differing perspectives across the organization.

    Many of these areas have competing but also overlapping functionality. To gain a better understanding of the conflicting priorities, let’s find out why these different types of integrations are considered priorities, and why they are important to your business.

    What Are the Top Priorities for Integration Strategies

    1. B2B Integrations

    What is B2B integration?

    Business-to-business (B2B) integration is when two or more companies connect and automate their business processes and related data.

    Why is B2B integration important for your business?

    It’s understandable why B2B partnerships are so important to business leaders today. B2B integration can help you gain a better understanding of your value chain with more overall insight into potential supply chain delays or roadblocks. Integrating B2B processes can also help streamline processes and build partnerships, which are becoming increasingly vital in today’s business landscape.

    A B2B integration platform can combine complex data across multiple partner applications and transform that data into standardized formats for streamlined insights throughout your business ecosystem. Automating key business processes and protocols can enable your company to work and communicate more effectively and efficiently with your key business partners, suppliers, and customers. 

    2. Data Integrations

    What is data integration?

    Data integrations are when data from multiple sources are combined into one single view. Gartner research shows there is momentum in the data integration tools market driven by multi-cloud and hybrid data integration requirements. According to Gartner, complex data transformation and flexibility of data movement are some of the key capabilities of data integrations.

    Why is data integration important for your business?

    The importance of data integration cannot be understated. There are several benefits to your business, such as improved data quality and integrity, automated data transfer, overall insights throughout your enterprise or business ecosystem, reduced costs and better return on investment (ROI), seamless data transfer between multiple systems, and real-time insights across the board, leading to better collaboration and decision-making capabilities.

    3. System Integrations

    What is system integration?

    System integration involves connecting multiple disparate IT systems and applications to create one overarching cohesive system infrastructure.

    Why is system integration important for your business?

    System integrations can play a key role in your business, as they connect systems that don’t usually communicate with each other. Combining these systems can streamline processes and make your business more agile, resulting in increased productivity, more accurate insights and analytics, more informed management, reduced costs, and ultimately improved customer satisfaction.

    4. Application Integrations

    What is application integration?

    According to Gartner, application integrations enable independently designed applications to work together. This can be a game-changer for your company in departments that use several different applications where integration would increase efficiency, and if you want to connect multiple applications across the enterprise.

    Why is application integration important for your business?

    Gartner states that application integrations can help orchestrate the flow of activities performed by several disparate software applications. They can also create consistent data across independent applications, and provide access and functionality from independently designed applications into a single interface for the user.

    5. API Management

    What is API management?

    Application Programming Interface (API) management covers a broad range of functions. It encompasses the overall process of creating, publishing, managing, and analyzing API connections within an enterprise. Individual APIs include a set of operations available to app developers. According to Gartner, API management includes the people, processes, and technology used by an organization to safely and securely publish APIs.

    Why is API management important for your business?

    API management solutions distribute, control, and analyze APIs that connect applications and data. API management can enable digital transformation, manage internal and external relationships with API users, and drive business value from APIs. The value gained from an API management solution is largely dependent on the vendor selected to provide the service, so your business should do its homework before selecting the right business partner to work with.

    It might appear that there is a lot of overlap in these competing priorities. An enterprise integration platform-as-a-service solution can integrate all of these competing priorities into one successful solution. In order to reach that goal, you need to define your priorities.

    Clearly Define Priorities and Work Together to Achieve Them

    While integration priorities were scored fairly evenly across all respondents in a Digibee Survey, this lack of a clear objective can result in potential conflicts among stakeholders, which can delay implementation and increase costs.

    That’s why it’s important to clearly define your priorities when it comes to your strategic implementation. Internal alignment on an integration strategy is critical to a successful implementation.

    As a business leader, you must work and collaborate with the other leaders in your organization to determine the top priorities for your overall business and work together to achieve them. The same principle applies to an IT integration strategy, whether your company’s leading priorities involve B2B integrations, data integrations, system integrations, application integrations, or API management.

    According to the Digibee ebook ‘How to Decide on an Integration Strategy’, Gartner states that by 2025, more than 75% of midsize, large and global organizations will establish integration strategy empowerment teams to support collaborative integration.

    Steps to Success

    To get started, build your enterprise integration strategy focused on a single objective as a first step, and understand the roadblocks to enterprise integration. 

    You can also take an overall approach with enterprise integration Platform-as-a-service. An iPaaS solution is a scalable subscription-based service that connects your current systems with new technologies and combines organizational data regardless of underlying silos or legacy infrastructure.

    Successful, cost-effective integrations are achievable, and an iPaaS solution can help you reach your goals.

    Learn more about Digibee’s innovative approach to integration. Download your free copy of the 2023 report or, if you prefer, contact our experts directly for more information.

    Your data, fully integrated, in less than three weeks. Let Digibee show you how.

    How iPaaS Supports IT Cost Reduction Strategies

    Posted on December 5, 2022 by - Cloud Migration, Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT

    Remember when we all thought robots were coming to take our jobs? It turns out that was the opposite of the problem we needed to prepare for. Instead of a lack of positions, industries across the US (and around the world) are facing an unprecedented shortage of skilled employees.

    This trend is particularly acute in IT departments, and leaders are scrambling to implement IT cost reduction strategies as they compete for a dwindling pool of experts they need now more than ever.

    In 2020, only 4% of IT executives said a lack of talent was impeding their adoption of new technology. In 2021, that figure rose to 64%, and experts warn the battle to win and retain much-needed talent will only become more intense in 2023. And Gartner predicts that, by 2025, “‘labor volatility’ will cause 40% of organizations to report a material business loss, forcing a shift in talent strategy from acquisition to resilience.”

    >> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business. 

    The Rise of IT Integration

    The IT talent shortage has been driven by a range of factors, including unreasonable hiring requirements and the pandemic-driven “Great Resignation.” But the point where the skilled labor shortage and rising IT demand converge is the increased pace of digital transformation as companies look to modernize legacy systems to compete with their online-only rivals.

    Enterprises looking to unlock siloed data and connect new technologies to aging architecture are turning to integration. The vast majority – 93% – of CIOs, developers, and system architects recognize their organization will benefit from integration. At the same time, just 7% have successfully implemented an integration solution – and a lack of skills ranks among the top five roadblocks.

    The Solution: Low Code Integration Platforms

    Faced with an urgent need to modernize and embrace new technologies, compounded by an IT talent shortage, companies are embracing low-code platforms that don’t require the services of niche experts to implement and use.

    What a Low-Code Platforms? Low-code solutions use intuitive visual interfaces that simplify development tasks so people without specialized coding expertise can build or customize the tools their organization needs.

    Adoption of low-code platforms is increasing by over 20% annually, and Gartner predicts more than half of medium- to large-sized companies will be using low-code solutions next year. Analysts also estimate that 80% of technology products and services will be built outside the IT department by 2024.

    The Benefits of iPaaS

    An Enterprise Integration Platform-as-a-Service is a low-code integration solution that reduces pressures caused by the confluence of rising demand for modernization and the IT talent shortage, empowering team members with less expertise to take on tasks previously reserved for senior developers.

    Forrester’s Total Economic Impact™ report 1 on Digibee details the business benefits and cost savings enterprises can realize from implementing an iPaaS.

    Benefits-by-category-Forrester-TEI-report

    Source: The Total Economic Impact™ Of Digibee’s Enterprise Integration Platform As A Service (eiPaaS), a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Digibee

    Increased Developer Efficiency

    Organizations interviewed for the report experienced a variety of developer productivity issues with their existing integration strategies, including:

    • Skills shortages rendering IT teams unable to deliver integration projects on time
    • Increasing complexity that platforms and teams could not support
    • High volume of transactions breaking connections that then had to be rebuilt

    The implementation of Digibee’s iPaaS dramatically improved developer efficiency in several ways:

    • Visual drag-and-drop interface made building integrations faster
    • Ability to reuse integrations once built reduced the number of integrations developers had to create
    • Integrated logs and metrics simplified troubleshooting and monitoring tasks
    • Simplicity of identifying and fixing errors nearly eliminated application rework

    Reduced Labor Costs

    Using the iPaaS, smaller IT teams were empowered to accomplish more work, helping enterprises reduce labor costs without compromising their ability to innovate.

    • Increased developer efficiency meant fewer hours were allocated to building and maintaining integrations
    • Improved oversight and maintenance meant fewer escalations were required
    • The low-code integration platform allowed organizations to hire more junior developers for regular tasks, freeing up experts to focus on new projects

    Let Digibee Help You Reduce IT Spend

    Don’t let the global talent shortfall hold back your plans to modernize and compete in the digital-first world. Digibee has proven experience in helping enterprises increase developer productivity and reduce labor costs while dramatically reducing the time it takes to implement an integration strategy.

    Download your copy of The Total Economic Impact™ Of Digibee’s Enterprise Integration Platform As A Service to learn more about the measurable benefits your organization could realize when you partner with Digibee… – or book a demo to see our solution in action.

    1A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Digibee

    Large Wholesaler Case Study

    Posted on December 1, 2022 by - Uncategorized

    Digibee implements a scalable employee profit distribution process for large wholesaler, saving time and money with automation.

    Why the Advantages of Enterprise Application Integration Should Matter to CMOs

    Posted on November 30, 2022 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions

    A business’s need to build and maintain customer relationships far predates the cloud or the internet. It even predates the Rolodex or the phone. Harnessing the power of sales and marketing in a business is nothing new, yet in that role one must always be future-facing; strategizing to adapt to new tools to keep the customer happy and the business on track.

    A growing number of enterprise IT professionals are recognizing the value of integration to their operations, but do the advantages of enterprise application integration really matter to the marketing department?

    The short answer: yes.

    >> Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your business. 

    Balancing Customers, Relationships, and Management

    With so many sales and marketing channels available now, a staggering amount of customer data is generated as users flow between them. 

    Customer relationship management systems (or CRMs) were perhaps the earliest technical solution to the challenge of keeping your customer data organized. With various levels of sophistication, they have been helping support sales since the 1990s, first as stand-alone software, then also becoming an available component within the ERP systems of the day.

    While this CRM integration into ERPs was a quantum leap forward in creating one holistic view of the many moving parts, there were still many limitations to relying on a software model.

    Enterprise Integration: The Next Logical Step?

    As far back as 2019, Forrester reported that “The enterprise resource planning (ERP) era is over.” Though the term ERP has tended to continue in usage, often being blended with EI as “ERP integration” or “ERP system integration”, the notion of an ERP as a single software omni-suite is quickly going the way of the CD-ROMs it was first distributed on. 

    In a digital-first world where marketing now needs to employ analytics, SEO, lead capture/generation/nurturing, event marketing, ecommerce, and an ever-changing roster of social media tools, it’s not surprising that Gartner analysts predict that more than 85% of organizations will embrace a cloud-first principle by 2025.

    As part of this trend, iPaaS for enterprise organizations are quickly coming to the attention of business leaders. By marrying the omnichannel approach of ERPs with the benefits of the cloud, enterprise integration provides flexibility without complexity.

    3 Key Benefits of iPaaS for Marketing

    There are several advantages of enterprise application integration that directly address marketing department priorities and challenges.

    1. iPaaS Plays Well With Others

    Being platform-agnostic is one such example of how a good iPaaS can provide such flexible no-hassle support. It doesn’t get hung up on whether the many tools you are trying to integrate are Microservices, APIs, or cloud-based. They can just as easily be cutting-edge or legacy. If SAP ERP integration is vital to your team’s success, it can now be completed quickly and with minimal downtime.

    If your Social Media Manager finds themselves continuously switching between apps, an integration can bring focus and clarity to them while helping to deliver a consistent user experience to the customer. 

    An effective enterprise ecommerce integration strategy can deliver benefits to both business and customer simultaneously:

    “By integrating order fulfillment, a purchase on the website can use inventory information availability across warehouses and retail locations to determine the optimal place (both for the customer and for the business) to ship from based on destination.”

    Sayer Martin, Forbes Council Member

    2. iPaaS’ Security Keeps a Secret

    Though security may not be the first thing that comes to mind for marketing, stop and ask yourself what happens in the aftermath of a data breach:

    • What happens to your customer confidence, and your bottom line? 
    • Who has to craft that message to try and regain trust? (And deal with all the negative customer feedback?)

    Simply put, in a world where data breaches are routinely making headlines, moving to an enterprise iPaaS that offers 24/7 monitoring and unparalleled protection and security means less stress for your customer, which translates into less stress for you.

    3. iPaaS Supports New Experiences

    More so than any other department, marketing needs to be able to recognize and adapt to new trends. As part of this, you need the freedom to adopt the newest tools as soon as they become available.

    An iPaaS with a low-code approach allows new tools to be integrated quickly and with less time stuck waiting for your internal developers, and reusable components make managing all the business logic behind them simple.

    “Marketing is a science. It relies on real-time data and accurate analytics to shed light on current performance–what’s working and what isn’t–while informing decisions that drive future improvements. This synchronous environment is only possible if all systems are connected.” 

    Cait Porte, CMO, Digibee

    Implementation: Logical Steps & Common Missteps

    71% of of respondents are actively planning to adopt, supplement, or replace their integration technology

    Although there are clearly many benefits to a business, our recent State of Enterprise Integration Report found 71% of those polled are actively planning to adopt, supplement, or replace their integration technology.

    While this is a majority, many businesses are ending up frustrated in their implementation efforts, reporting impediments that are the inverse of what an EI is meant to provide: 

    • 39% impeded innovation
    • 42% ineffective practices
    • 36% lack of agility

    Innovation, inefficiency, and agility are imperative in order to meet marketing objectives.

    98% of respondents reported they had to rebuild their integrations within a year

    The root cause of these negative impacts is often a piecemeal approach to the original integration strategy. The high-level advantages of enterprise application integration may be well understood by the internal tech team tasked to bring it to fruition, but without collaboration with the C-suite and product owners, they lack a depth of understanding of other roles and how they work.

    Where this happens it is easy to be left with a system that – while technically integrated – is in no way optimized for each individual team’s needs.

    Compare these numbers to relevant numbers pulled from the 2022 SEI Report. Attempting to remediate this after the fact often results in a frustrating loop of building and fixing, with 98% of 2022 report respondents reporting they had to rebuild their integrations within a year.

    Number of integrations that had to be rebuilt

    1-5: 50%

    6-10: 48%

    10+: 1%

    The impacts of getting caught in this loop can include potential downtime where data is unavailable during rebuilds and then having to re-learn a whole new ERP system integration every time.

    Stop the Stop-Gap Solutions

    Anyone leading a marketing department already understands how vital a well thought-out strategy is to the success of a project. This strategic lens positions a CMO as an incredibly valuable contributor to a successful EI implementation.

    With the changing responsibilities of today’s CMO, the role has often expanded to encompass every aspect of the customer experience. Requiring so many different platforms to generate this customer data, a CMO is poised to be one of the best advocates for ensuring the integration brings benefit to both the business and the customer.  

    Remember the key elements a marketing team needs most: platform-agnostic, secure, and adaptable. The flexible solutions offered by Digibee are all three, meaning your ecommerce integration, CRM integration, and the integration of the many other tools your team relies on can be completed in weeks, not months. 

    Book a personalized demo with our team of experts and see how Digibee’s iPaaS will bring efficiency to your Marketing team.