We live in an age where data and technology are dominating industries, creating new market winners and crippling the old guard. The rise of cloud-first and data-first companies like Facebook and Netflix are forcing enterprises to implement digital transformation strategies that allow organizations to compete effectively. This happens by tapping into the power of big data and leveraging modern best-of-breed technologies to fuel new innovations. Read also The 6 types of digital strategy.
Challenge for IT
The challenge for IT lies in the myriad of existing applications and systems that need to communicate and share data and insights. This happens when they are already connected in a technology infrastructure that is closed and monolithic in itself. Any of this data to support digital transformation is required for innovation and this requires access via APIs. Further, APIs require security and management.
The data and applications are now often traversing both cloud and on-premises environments. Different integration disciplines are a part of this. It’s not just traditional application integration, there is emerging SaaS integration use cases and B2B, traditional EDI, Managed File Transfer and more.
Meanwhile, emerging digital integrators bring new integration disciplines for Mobile Integration, IOT integration and more. This all demands access to this data, speed and agility. With these disciplines, there’s an array of personas involved in integration:
- the emerging digital integrator building new experiences;
- EDI administrator managing trading partner connectivity, there is the enterprise architect overseeing enterprise application integration;
- and lines of businesses getting involved to implement quickly SaaS projects and more.
Integrators vary in technical proficiency and range from developer to architect to business analyst. Further hamstringing IT organizations are legacy technologies and integration methods that are complex, siloed and don’t enable engagement across the organization.
To be successful in digital transformation, companies need to embrace, open and manage their entire IT ecosystem without creating risk for the organization.
The rise of hybrid integration and integration strategies
Although ideas vary to a degree, industry pundits agree that this can be accomplished by taking a hybrid approach to integrating the various key applications, systems and tools across the enterprise. Experts state a growing number of CIOs are clearly privy to the limitations of their legacy systems and infrastructure and are increasingly on board with adopting a hybrid integration strategy that will not only improve operational efficiencies but boost performance and business agility.
The question is whether these CIOs actually understand what hybrid integration encompasses. With so much hype around hybrid clouds, there is a lot of confusion in the market as to what hybrid integration really means.
At Axway, we believe in developing an integration strategy that focuses on optimizing engagement to fuel the building of new experiences. The key to this is to embrace your ecosystem and with an API strategy that focuses on opening up APIs to enable more seamless collaboration and access to key data and systems.
Whether you are transferring files across a network via MFT or integrating various applications for big data analytics, it’s important to never do so in isolation as data in these channels as well as the channels themselves can be a vital part of innovation. The following are best practices and recommendations that will put you on the path to success.
Become an enabler of the experience economy
As companies move towards an open API Management approach, it’s critical for IT to take a leading role in that effort. Gone are the days of IT simply acting as a support organization that reacts to integration requests. IT must become an active enabler towards integration from different parts of the organization—becoming a strategic driver of the business and also, securing and managing APIs for consumption and innovation.
Take a holistic approach
When developing integration strategies, it’s important to be able to take a step back and understand what the overall business goals are, where challenges lie, and how various integration disciplines coupled with APIs will get you there.
For example, some industries have stringent regulatory requirements which add immense complexity. When you take a top-down approach to integration, it gives you the ability to see what is needed to ensure optimal engagement and most importantly better align with your business and engineering partners alike.
Know your audience
When IT tackles an integration project, it is critical for the organization to effectively serve different integration consumers. Whether you’re designing APIs for developers to access big data to build engaging mobile applications, the Line of Business (LOB) to ensure secure and efficient Managed File Transfer flows or enabling digital integrators to lead a digital transformation effort, it’s important to understand the needs of these consumers and how best to foster an environment that drives collaboration and innovation.
Deploy anywhere
When it comes to deployment options for an API management system, there are various factors that come into play. Some organizations have extreme security and compliance standards and will require an on-premises infrastructure, whereas cloud-first companies are comfortable with the public cloud and thirst for the accelerated time to market that comes with it.
There are also data residency requirements for global organizations. The good news is you don’t have to pick one way or the other. Taking a hybrid approach to integration—where some of your functionality runs in the cloud and some on-premise with common corporate governance— provides you the best of both worlds. You get the benefits of cloud infrastructure, but with the necessary controls that come with an on-premises setup. Best of all, taking a hybrid approach gives you the opportunity to manage both in a single, interconnected environment.
Run as a shared service
IT can no longer just be ticket takers. They must enable others to integrate and support lines of business with self-service across an array of integration disciplines. In order to keep up with the competition, IT organizations must be agile and adaptive to the changing needs of their consumers ranging from the need to satisfy existing legacy processes to supporting new consumption models via APIs that require flexibility and openness and all this must be done with corporate governance.
Running your integration strategy as a shared service will ultimately allow you to better serve your diverse set of consumers — both internal and external — which in turn will ensure a more seamlessly integrated ecosystem that helps you innovate faster and engage better.
In order to unlock new digital experiences, enterprises must take a deeper look at their integration strategy. Ask how it can best serve their various consumers through better, smarter engagement. With so much complexity, taking a hybrid approach to integration management to allows IT organizations to become the heroes of their companies. This creates a flexible and responsive environment that connects individuals, systems, businesses and ecosystems with the goal of delivering transformative business outcomes.
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