Category: IT

Choosing Digibee: Replace or Coexist?

Posted on February 8, 2024 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT, Legacy systems

We’ve come to recognize the change in facial expression.

Here at Digibee, we participate in a lot of in person technology events. The expression change I mentioned above typically follows a pattern. First, we engage an event attendee in conversation, tell them about Digibee’s serverless iPaaS, our users’ ability to enable seamless scale up and scale down, our event-driven capabilities, and we do a quick live demo of our iPaaS interface.

We can literally see the interest growing as we talk. Then the change happens, “Oh wait, we already use XYZ for integration.”

To be sure, your organization is using something for integration. With the average number of SaaS applications alone landing well over 100 deployments (and growing) at most organizations – not to mention the various systems, data sources and APIs you have in production – you’re very likely using some combination of iPaaS, automation technology, ESBs, middleware and homegrown coding to cobble it all together.

And we’re well aware of the reluctance to add more tools or to rip and replace installed technologies. You need to be sure that you’re not just adding more complexity to what already must feel like untenable technology sprawl. One more tool and one more budget line item require value to be validated.

Integration tech should empower developers..yet amidst all this sprawl it often becomes the bottleneck to productivity. And yet, the pain points associated with the various legacy iPaaS providers are real. Integration technology, when it really works the way it was intended, should empower developers and architects to innovate and build. There is a better way.

So, back to the event attendee who was excited about Digibee until they realized their organization already had an integration solution deployed. This sounds like it’s the conversation-ender, but it really is where our conversation begins. In fact, the majority of new Digibee users already had some form of integration technology in place, many already running one (or more!) iPaaS solutions.

New Digibee users commonly start with one of two scenarios: A rip and replace of an existing iPaaS or adding Digibee while leaving the legacy incumbent in place (for now).  

The pain points you identify for your enterprise will help you determine your best path forward to a modern integration strategy. You may choose to deploy Digibee to coexist with a legacy product. Or you could opt to end the relationship altogether and move unfettered into the future with Digibee. Let’s examine each option. 

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

Option 1: Should you stay? 

Coexisting with a legacy integration solution makes a lot of sense for organizations that want to engineer change rapidly. 

By deploying an iPaaS in tandem with your existing system, you maintain the status quo while quickly standing up a modern platform, that can be used by all of your developers, to whittle down backlogs and enable innovation tracks. 

Coexistence triggers 

  • Ever-growing IT project backlogs that stifle the growth and success of the business. 
  • Limited resources to carry out integration work. 
  • Increased cost of licensing each time you add capacity. 

Coexistence benefits 

  • Quickly train and empower every developer to build and manage integrations at no extra cost. Limited resources to carry out integration work. 
  • Focus on the work your legacy solution is incapable of doing. Reduce and eliminate IT project backlogs in record time. 
  • Expedite innovation initiatives within a composable environment where modern applications and components from different vendors easily co-exist. 

Most importantly, the time and resources you invest in a coexistence integration model today will support the wholesale migration from your legacy integration product when you’re ready to take this final step. With a modern iPaaS already in place, the transition will be fast-tracked. Instead of starting from scratch, you’ll be well on your way. Make sure you capture these efficiencies in your ROI model.

Coexistence success story: Payless

Payless, a global retail footwear chain, needed to implement a new ecommerce platform so the retailer could sell its in-store merchandise online. Payless selected Digibee to integrate its retail management software with the new ecommerce platform. 

Although Payless had a legacy solution in place, the company knew it would take too long, be too costly, and require too many full time resources. To expedite the project, the retailer elected to install Digibee in parallel with the old system. 

The initiative was a resounding success, with Digibee connecting the new ecommerce system in 200 stores, across 15 countries, in less than 30 days. Get the full story: 

Option 2: Or should you go? 

A rip and replace scenario is rarely easy, regardless of the technology. The wholescale replacement of any business-critical system is always a significant consideration – especially when transitioning from your legacy integration product to a modern iPaaS, systems that literally connect your entire enterprise. 

However, the upsides are impressive and definitely worthwhile. Once implemented, the new iPaaS provides the business with unprecedented efficiencies and cost savings, while expediting important innovation tracks that support digital transformation and other progressive initiatives. 

Rip and replace triggers 

  • Inability to scale back expenses and increase the total cost of ownership (TCO) for development. 
  • Expensive and time-consuming system updates and end of support processes divert resources from higher value work. 
  • Ever-growing IT project backlogs stifle the growth and success of the business. 
  • Inability to support modern technologies that rely upon scalable and agile integrations. 
  • Dwindling ROI as the costs to maintain the legacy system rapidly outpace any value to the business. 
  • Specialized integration developers are too costly to hire, retain, and continually train and certify. 
  • Incapable of supporting merger and acquisition initiatives. 

Rip and replace benefits 

The upsides are similar to what you would realize with a coexistence scenario. However, the efficiencies scale even higher without the encumbrance of a legacy solution running in tandem. 

  • Quickly train and empower every developer to build and manage integrations at no extra cost. 
  • Immediately reduce and even eliminate IT project backlogs in record time. 
  • Fast track innovation within a composable environment where modern applications and components easily co-exist within an established infrastructure.

Rip and replace success story: Johnson Brothers

Johnson Brothers, a leading wine, beer, and spirits distributor in the United States, faced an important decision when its legacy integration system neared an end of support deadline. Either transition to the cloud version of the current product or choose a different direction for its integration strategy. 

After careful consideration, Johnson Brothers elected to rip and replace the incumbent solution, replacing it with Digibee. They were able to implement 6 years of integrations in 6 months time.

The company achieved an immediate savings of 40% on the integration platform purchase, with an implementation time 70% faster than upgrading to the cloud version of the legacy system. For more on this story, read Four Ways Johnson Brothers Praises Digibee Partnership.

Next steps with Digibee

If this blog post got you thinking about how modern integration can empower your developer team, I encourage you to download a free copy of the Digibee whitepaper: Does your enterprise integration strategy inspire or impede?, a detailed examination of the savings and efficiencies businesses achieve with modern integration technology.

For more information, and to get the conversation started, contact us to arrange for a live demonstration on Digibee in action.

5 Good Reasons Not to Displace a Deployed Technology

Posted on January 18, 2024 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT, Legacy systems

Let me start this blog post by stating that some of our most pleased customers here at Digibee are former users of legacy iPaaS platforms. You may have seen the news of our feature release using AI to seamlessly migrate integrations from other platforms to Digibee.

Or some of our customer stories of already using iPaaS technology, turning to Digibee to overcome major integration challenges. Plenty of proof that Digibee can help, even if you already run an iPaaS.

But change is hard. That phrase is a cliche because it’s so true. And most technology professionals have at least one terrible memory associated with the phrase ‘rip and replace’ – where a technology replacement is so difficult that the new solution ultimately underwhelms in comparison to the toil in the transition.

Add to this the reality of how busy IT and development teams constantly are, juggling priorities and scrambling to meet deadlines. Technology replacements need to be prompted by a justifiable, quantifiable reason to act, with a defined set of desired business outcomes. If an embedded solution is “just good enough” then its replacement plan can get delayed and delayed. The true benefits of a better alternative will have to wait for a crisis.

Indeed, most Digibee customers who leave another iPaaS are doing so for a specific reason – be it end of support of a legacy on-prem iPaaS solution, a new technology deployment that demands a modern approach to integration, or frustration with ever increasing costs with no commiserate increase in benefit. 

All Digibee users enjoy the scalability and agility of our iPaaS not just as backend infrastructure but as a platform for innovation. But to get to that plateau of composability, you need to start with the decision to move. So, in this post, we’re sharing the 5 reasons to not replace an established technology, as included in our eBook, ‘Does your integration strategy inspire or impede?’

My goal is to show that our team and our technology are poised to help to not only improve your development team’s resourcing and output, but to get you there more quickly and easily than you might have thought possible. 

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

5 Reasons to NOT replace your iPaaS

Change is never easy. Whether you choose to rip and replace an existing system or implement a contemporary integration solution to coexist with an incumbent, it’s likely you will encounter some (if not all) of these objections:

1. “Ripping and replacing an established technology is too disruptive. The resources should be invested elsewhere.”

As with any proposed business investment, a detailed ROI will provide you with a strong position in countering this objection. As you research vendors, ask them to explain how their implementation model will ensure disruptions and downtime are minimized. Emphasize these capabilities within your ROI analysis, including a detailed offboarding strategy.

2. “The existing integration solution is too convoluted and interconnected. We will never unravel the coding that’s been created over the years.”

This is a common hurdle, especially for enterprises that have built some or all of their integration infrastructure in-house. Raise this in your discussions with potential vendors and ask how each would approach this scenario. Vendor responses should be constructive, including step-by-step details of how they will support this phase of the transition.

3. “We stand by our decision to invest in the incumbent solution and we’re not backing down.”

Personalities play a big part in decision-making. When you encounter a stakeholder who’s digging in their heels, take the time to understand their rationale when they selected the existing product. Often, the business case they made (efficiencies, cost savings, innovation, etc.) aligns with your project, potentially converting them to a proponent. If they are intransigent in their position, propose a hybrid model where old and new co-exist, with the new iPaaS focused on work that needs to be done, such as IT backlog projects.

4. “We don’t need to add even more vendors, especially when we already have an integration provider.”

Similar to the first objection, share a detailed ROI plan that reflects the savings in time, resources, and money that will be achieved with a new iPaaS, whether working in tandem with the old system or as a replacement. It’s difficult to counter a proposal that delivers measurable benefits to the business.

5. “Budgets are tight and it will be difficult to justify the spend when we already have a solution in place.”

Again, a strong ROI model will distinguish how the upside outweighs the downside when it comes to the spend. Modern-day iPaaS (unlike legacy integration) is extremely cost-effective, providing a simple pricing model that delivers all capabilities such as implementation and support services. For many enterprises, the shift from on-premises to the cloud converts the investment from CapEx to OpEx, delivering additional financial upsides.

Digibee: 2 paths to modernizing your integration strategy

All 5 of the above reasons to not change are valid. Yet, as our descriptions under each statement suggest, each is addressable in the vetting process of a potential replacement. 

When that replacement is Digibee, development and IT teams are commonly attracted by a few specific aspects of our iPaaS that legacy, monolithic integration providers can’t provide. One is the empowerment of all developers – not just integration specialists – to easily build, monitor and adapt integrations. Another is the composable nature of our platform. The serverless, born in the cloud architecture is built on microservices, so change management is easy and repeatable without the usual degree of code customization enterprises have become used to.

Sometimes wholesale replacement of an iPaaS is justifiable, and in many situations necessary. The speed in which Digibee can empower that change to meet deadlines imposed by end of support or other urgent, time-sensitive needs is well established. 

The other option is to use Digibee in conjunction with established iPaaS to burn down the backlog of integrations that legacy technology and not-enough-integration-specialists simply can’t get to. This provides an alternate path to utilize Digibee to empower your developers and modernize your integration strategy in phases.

Next steps with Digibee

We always love to hear from architecture and development leaders about how you’re currently approaching integration strategy, and how you anticipate that strategy’s evolution. If this blog struck a chord with pain points that you know your development team is enduring, but haven’t found a sufficient way to address them, then let’s talk. 

If you’re interested in learning more about Digibee’s born in the cloud iPaaS for a simpler, faster, and modern approach to integration, then contact us for a demonstration or, if you prefer, visit our product page.

Everything you Need to Know About Integration Architecture

Posted on January 2, 2024 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT

Integration architecture is a collection of strategically selected infrastructure, services, protocols, and systems that serves as the foundation for integrating enterprise applications and data. Often the domain of an enterprise IT architect or integration leader, integration architecture facilitates automation, real-time data and analytics, and connected business workflows. 

Companies that have well-designed integration architecture in place have the flexibility to experiment and scale with all kinds of connected workflows. Because data moves freely through their systems and applications can communicate with one another efficiently, these companies are more likely to succeed at digital transformation and achieve more faster than their less streamlined counterparts. 

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

Comparing different types of integration architecture

Integration architecture has advanced from simple, point-to-point connections to enterprise integration platforms that support thousands of services and applications. Companies with complex integration needs often run multiple models, from hard-coded legacy deployments to a collection of modern APIs.  

Point-to-point vs. hub-and-spoke

Point-to-point (P2P) integration is a traditional method that connects two applications with either custom code or APIs, syncing data between them in regular intervals. Point-to-point doesn’t handle complexity and volume well, so engineering teams usually adopt other models as their integration needs grow.

Hub-and-spoke architecture is a common alternative to P2P. Traditionally, the hub-and-spoke model creates a central hub through which all integrations pass. In this case, the hub acts as the primary point of processing and routing for data exchanged between various applications (“spokes”). Over the years, the hub-and-spoke model has evolved to meet the needs of companies that have migrated some or all of their systems to the cloud, an improvement made possible by modern integration platforms.

The evolution of service-oriented architecture (SOA)

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an approach to development that relies on reusable, connected services to run business processes and build software functionality. Both hub-and-spoke and enterprise service bus (ESB) models apply this approach in different ways—in hub-and-spoke, each service is a spoke that sends data through the centralized hub, while an ESB allows services to integrate more modularly.  

A simple example of SOA’s benefits lies in authentication. Rather than hard-code authentication into each application, developers use an enterprise service like Okta or auth0, connecting it once to integration platform and applying it wherever it’s needed. 

Implementing SOA architecture used to require a top-down, expensive overhaul with major time and vendor commitments, but today’s integration platforms allow for cost-effective, incremental improvements at scale. Most enterprises use an iPaaS, ESB, or both to manage integrations within this framework. 

The enterprise service bus (ESB)

The enterprise service bus, or ESB, came about as a new way of exposing integrations synchronously across older and newer enterprise systems through a message bus. As they evolved, ESBs became more decentralized to eliminate single points of failure, allowing developers to plug different applications into the bus without necessarily needing an infrastructure component.

The integration platform as a service (iPaaS)

An integration platform as a service, or iPaaS, is a platform developers use to build and manage any combination of these architectures and models in a scalable way. It includes features like reusable components, a low-code interface, managed infrastructure, prebuilt integrations, and enterprise support. 

Integration platforms enable a more flexible iteration of hub-and-spoke architecture, where not every integration is required to run through a single, centralized location. Instead, developers can manage multiple integration patterns on a single platform, applying global rules and configurations across the entire system. This allows for a more distributed and efficient flow of data, tailored to specific business needs.

For example, consider a scenario where data from a product analytics tool is sent to a data lake for use in a business intelligence (BI) platform, as well as triggering actions in the product itself. Simultaneously, structured data from your CRM might be directed to a separate data warehouse, but eventually, it also feeds into the same BI tool to provide a fuller picture of customer activity in your product. In this case, the “hub” is the integration platform—within this hub, data flows in various ways, each optimized for specific goals and efficiencies.

The iPaaS is the gold standard for enterprise integrations. It allows developers to connect applications and data without ripping and replacing legacy systems, adding technical debt, or requiring months of specialized training. No matter how complex integration needs, digital transformation can be done safely and modularly, protecting existing systems while modernizing business processes. 

Two key use cases of enterprise integration architecture

Your integration architecture should serve two main purposes: connect applications to enable process automation, and connect data to enable real-time analytics, transparency, and AI. 

Application integration

The first use case is application integration, or connecting the applications that power your business. This makes workflow automation and complex business processes possible at scale.

The average enterprise has thousands of applications deployed. Application integration is the process of connecting them using one or more of the aforementioned models, with the goal of optimizing efficiency and cost while protecting company data. 

Data integration

The second use case is data integration, or the process of connecting multiple sources and enabling the real-time flow of data across the organization. Enterprise integration architecture enables cloud integration, where data from both legacy and on-premise systems is securely integrated and accessible in the cloud. This opens up a world of possibilities where real-time data can be used to improve the customer experiment, implement AI workflows, and experiment freely with new technology while protecting underlying systems.

The benefits of enterprise integration architecture

When companies try to build their own integration architecture or make do with a budget solution, IT often spends more time managing it than putting their integrations to good use. As the number of systems that need integrating grows—especially a mix of legacy, on-prem, and cloud tools—the technical debt and workarounds become too cumbersome.   

Enterprise integration architecture is a secure, scalable solution set built for large companies that must manage hundreds or more applications and tools. iPaaS, API management, and [data] platforms typically have enterprise-grade features like built-in security and access controls, high availability and redundancy, and global configurations that let developers spend less time on maintenance and governance. Some also allow users to work in a low-code UI, allowing generalized and junior developers to build integrations without special training.  

By investing in enterprise integration architecture, IT teams see a host of benefits:

  • Reduced labor costs – Specialized integration developers are often hard to find or expensive to hire. Enterprise integration architecture already includes solutions for much of the work these developers would do—the in-house engineering team can build integrations using resources they already have. 
  • Scalability and performance – Enterprise platforms like the iPaaS are built on cloud-native, managed infrastructure that scales as integration needs expand. These services provide more reliability than something self-managed and often come with SLAs that guarantee uptime.  
  • Security and compliance – Another built-in feature of enterprise architecture, security controls and governance features make it easier for developers to adhere to privacy laws, manage access, and ensure data is encrypted as it flows through multiple applications and warehouses. 
  • Enhanced data visibility – When data from every source and application runs through a well-governed platform, analysts can confidently explore, share, and build products on top of it. 
  • Increased productivity – Enterprise architecture, especially its low-code components, takes a large portion of manual work and maintenance off developers’ plates. Not only do they have more time to dedicate to other development work, the integrations they build amplify productivity across any team using them.
  • Improved customer satisfaction – Connecting enterprise processes and data makes it easier to provide fully informed, real-time customer support. The product team can also use these integrations to build customer-facing dashboards and incorporate real-time data into the user experience. 

What to consider when choosing your integration architecture

To embrace enterprise integration architecture, you’ll need to invest in an integration platform as a service (iPaaS). An iPaaS typically has scalable, reusable components that make it easier for the general developer to manage multiple integration models and thousands of applications and services in one place, plus the ability to integrate with best-in-class API and ETL solutions.

The integration platform market is complex. Some solutions require specialists and extensive training, while others will help you move quickly and efficiently toward modernizing your integrations. Take a look at this guide to understand which iPaaS solutions are available, the pros and cons, and how to make a decision as an iPaaS buyer.

Here are some top features to look for:

  • A low-code integration builder – Any developer should be able to easily create integrations using a visual interface that requires no specialized training.
  • Composable building blocks – Pre-built connectors or Capsules that developers can use to quickly build complex, enterprise integrations. 
  • Ongoing integration monitoring: The ability to centrally monitor and manage integrations with automatic alerts for potential issues.
  • Built-in governance: Global security and access configurations, secure test and production environments, and audit intervals. 
  • Scale and high availability: Managed infrastructure that leverages autoscaling and load-balancing capabilities to ensure high performance.
  • Easy integration with API management and ETL solutions – the platform should allow you to connect the API and data services of your choice.

Digibee: an integration platform built for scale

Digibee is the only integration platform that scales application integration workflows while reducing cost, technical debt, and the burden on development teams. It allows developers to deploy any integration model they like, quickly building, testing, deploying, and monitoring every integration from one flexible platform. 

To learn more, take our product tour or request a personalized demo from our sales team.

How to Choose the Right Hybrid Integration Platform for your Business

Posted on December 21, 2023 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT

As data volume and velocity continues to rocket up, companies are under increasing pressure to digitally transform, seamlessly connecting data, applications, systems, and other enterprise infrastructure to remain relevant and profitable. Hybrid integration – the integration of cloud-based services, on-premises systems, and applications – is key for ensuring this happens.

These systems serve as a bridge, connecting all of the moving pieces. Since most enterprises implement new technology as needed, it’s common to find legacy systems, on-premises applications rubbing shoulders with contemporary cloud systems. Hybrid integration platforms help bring these disparate models together.

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

4 Ways Johnson Brothers Praises Digibee Partnership

Posted on November 21, 2023 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT, Legacy systems


Johnson Brothers (JB), the 4th largest wholesaler and 3rd largest wine distributor in the US, manages over 27,000 unique alcohol products, each subject to different regulations, pricing structures, and distribution rules. JB partnered with Digibee and leveraged our cutting-edge technology to successfully tackle their integration challenges.

2024 Digibee Preview: The developer’s choice for enterprise integrations

Posted on November 16, 2023 by - AI, Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT, Legacy systems

In the ever-evolving landscape of information technology, trends come and go. From the Y2K frenzy to the buzzword bonanza of big data, cloud computing and microservices, tech vendors often find themselves riding the same bandwagon, whether the solutions truly warrant the enthusiasm or not. Today, the wave we’re all surfing is Artificial Intelligence (AI). It seems like everyone has an AI marketing message, but how many are releasing features that genuinely deliver real value?

In this blog post, I’m going to share a preview of innovations we’re adding to the Digibee Integration Platform in 2024 – and connect the dots on how they support our commitment to empower all developers to build integrations that enable faster, better development cycles. 

As you plan your development projects for 2024, I encourage you to read this blog while imagining how Digibee can empower you to meet and exceed your development timelines and objectives – and to unburden your development team to build and innovate.

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

Digibee: The developer’s choice for integration

For starters, let’s talk about what we mean when we say Digibee is the developer’s choice for integration. 

Before Digibee, sophisticated integration use cases were the domain of a handful of legacy iPaaS solutions. These integrations require the work of specialized integration developers to build and maintain. In most organizations, this specialization creates a bottleneck and a backlog of development projects – as developers wait for integration work to be completed. 

But there is a world of work that currently happens outside of the iPaaS platforms. Estimates show that a full two thirds of integrations are point to point, being completed by custom coding. So, these complex integrations aren’t being done by integration developers via iPaaS platforms or other integration tools. This coding time and effort should be avoidable, and it forces developers to do work that lacks both scale and governance.

Being the developer’s choice means delivering a platform for all developers to replace mundane coding and work that needs to be repeated. It means any developer can build sophisticated, enterprise use case integrations. It means all integrations can be built via a true iPaaS, leaving behind the hassles that come with writing, documenting and maintaining custom code.

AI and integration: for real results

As I mentioned above, there is no shortage of noise in the market about AI and its applications for the enterprise. I’m not being dismissive, there are some really interesting uses of AI and machine learning in play now – and many are being developed across a host of industries. My goal in this blog post is to be very specific on Digibee’s mission in this area and what it means for our customers.

Let me say first that Digibee has always been about abstracting away mundane tasks so developers can focus their time and effort on innovating and building, not integration-related coding. As the only enterprise-grade integration platform born in the cloud, Digibee’s containerized architecture means change management, scale, and reuse are core capabilities of the Digibee Integration Platform. That’s in our DNA, AI enablement or not.

Our product team is using AI to bolster this core mission of developer empowerment. You may have seen in June we introduced the Digibee AI assistant – a new capability in our customer training portal: the Digibee Academy 2.0. The technology is unique and AI-driven and tailored to answer questions in real-time from customers seeking information.

More recently, we introduced AI-based generator for documentation, as described in this KM World article:

“Despite its significance, creating detailed, clear integration documentation is rarely a simple, quick task. The manual documentation process is often wrought with inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and communication gaps that become more detrimental than originally intended, according to the vendor.

Digibee’s AI Generator for Pipeline Documentation is engineered to revolutionize this experience, reducing the time and effort spent on the manual production and management of pipeline documentation. This capability aims to deliver greater comprehension and clarity in the understanding of integration processes—for both technical and business users alike—through holistic pipeline analysis.”

This is the perfect example of how we’re using AI – to intelligently automate tasks that are both mundane and at risk of costly human error. 

The releases being planned between now and mid-2024 carry on this same theme, including a truly differentiated debugging experience, a first of its kind tool to migrate integrations onto Digibee from legacy integration platforms, and a pipeline generator.

In terms of empowering development teams to focus on development and not integration, these AI-led enhancements are turbo charging our already powerful engine. The future is bright for our customers.

Next steps with Digibee

I highly encourage leaders of development and architecture teams to schedule a demo with Digibee and let us share our capabilities. We find more and more that our new customers are those running one of the legacy iPaaS platforms, seeking a way to burn down the backlog of development projects that complicated integrations are holding up. Tell us your plans and we’ll show how we can help!

Enterprise Integration: Lessons Learned at Gartner Symposium 2023

Posted on November 2, 2023 by - Enterprise Integration Solutions, IT

Working at Digibee, we sometimes get the opportunity to travel to events and interact with a broad range of people. As noted in previous posts, this is a really enjoyable part of the job. The recent Gartner Symposium in Florida was no exception.

Since we engage with people who are interested in evolving their integration strategies, many of the discussions focus on the inefficiencies of existing integration infrastructure and the need to modernize what isn’t working. Top of the list is the massive imbalance in resources required to simply maintain the status quo. 

Inevitably, the conversation shifts to what could be achieved if these resources were liberated. Instead of talking about what isn’t working, we focus on innovation. When the enterprise is able to redirect finite development talent to unlock business potential, the sky is truly the limit. 

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

Follow the money

Based on input from Digibee customers and the industry overall, it’s not uncommon for integration work to consume a significant portion of a company’s IT budget. 

In the 2023 Digibee State of Enterprise Integration report, the majority of survey respondents indicated that up to 25% of their IT budget is spent on integration. And it’s not uncommon to see enterprises spending much more.

Marfrig, an international food company and a new customer for Digibee, was shocked to see that they were investing 40%-50% of developer budget on integrations. The company wanted to rein in these costs and redirect resources to higher value work, key considerations in Marfrig’s decision to move to Digibee.

“Every time we wanted to build a new project, we had to evaluate the budget. I was shocked to see after looking at the breakdown, 40%-50% of the developer budget was being spent on integrations, not on the core business. We knew that needed to change, which led us to Digibee.”

Joel Santiago, 
Diretor de TI América do Sul – CIO, Marfrig

Along with a significant allocation of resources, the integration budget must also fund maintenance and training. With traditional integration solutions this adds up quickly. In the Digibee report, survey respondents indicate that almost 40% of their integration budget is spent in these areas.

Digibee CEO & cofounder Rodrigo Bernardinelli, VP of Sales Marcelo Silva, and Head of Sales Engineering Daniel Dias at our booth at Gartner’s 2023 IT Symposium

When all you have is not enough

One discussion from the Symposium was with the head of applications development at an industry-leading workspace products company. 

The business relies on a team of 10 developers trained on the traditional integration solution that’s been in place for years. Although this represents one of the largest dedicated groups within IT, the team is unable to keep up with demands from the organization. The result? A chronic backlog of IT initiatives. Important innovation tracks are in stasis as developers invest all of their time maintaining the existing system.

We explored the Digibee value proposition where every developer is empowered to integrate, distributing the workload across the entire team. Instead of placing all of the pressure on a subset of resources, Digibee makes light work with many hands. 

Even the most junior developers contribute, freeing up senior developers to focus on higher value work that supports the future success of the business. 

Enterprise integration wishlist

So where would business leaders dedicate repurposed integration resources if they had their way? Based on my discussions at Symposium, and backed up by the Spiceworks State of IT 2024 study, IT budget investment priorities tend to include:

  1. Upgrading outdated IT infrastructure
  2. Prioritizing IT projects
  3. Security

None of these initiatives are possible without software developers and engineers to carry out the work. With traditional integration solutions, a large swathe of a company’s IT resources are unable to focus on innovation. With Digibee, your entire team is enabled.

Next Steps with Digibee

Digibee is dedicated to helping organizations succeed in their transition to a contemporary integration strategy. Our iPaaS technology liberates developers from mindless maintenance tasks, redirecting these valuable resources to focus on the highest value projects that benefit the business.

Along with extending your existing resource base to do more, our all-in-one pricing model includes maintenance and support at no extra charge. With Digibee, you free up resources and IT budget, ensuring the business is able to advance the truly important work. 

For a deep dive into enterprise integration today and into the future, download a free copy of the Digibee 2023 State of Enterprise Integration report.

If you have an integration story you’d like to share or you’re in the midst of a project you’d like to discuss, please contact us. If you’re interested in more information about Digibee, visit our website or, if you prefer, schedule a demo.