Data is the new currency and the new oil. The proliferation of technology has led to a significant increase in the processing power of computers and the expansion of cloud storage. The interconnectedness of business is producing more and more data, in various formats and from different sources, thus creating challenges that cannot be answered with using yesterday’s technology. Decision makers today need to embrace this new world, which displays more complexity and proposes adopting the new, highly advanced, set of skills.
However, it is not all about technology. The first and utmost requirement to thrive in the globalized ocean of data is to possess the ability to seize the opportunity, to cope with the risks and to have the insight into what new technologies can bring. Business leaders and management visionaries are becoming modern role models that define how the technology will be adopted by enterprises further. They can navigate the future, while technology is only their tool in this quest.
What follows is the list of recommendations based on the cornerstones of EAI usage in the short term, and an outlook on how high-rank managers can be creating innovation in this.
Tap in the growing need for EAI, and do it now
There is a clear growth trend in EAI use in the vertical industries below (see the Graph). According to the forecasts of Markets and Markets, the value of the EAI market will reach 13.35 billion US dollars by 2019, with CAGR of 11.2% in just five years’ time. EAI has obviously become the critical tool for connecting and leveraging different applications across an enterprise. Your competitors know it, so do not grant them the chance to outperform your enterprise by simply having more awareness of EAI solutions.
Master the digitization processes
One of the most important components of Industry 4.0 is digitization. Pioneers can easily rip the benefits while digital ecosystems are entering the expansion phase without clear boundaries and specified risks associated with it. Attaining the digital trust is a multi-layered task, which can confirm the company’s integrity and the ability to deliver.
Japanese and German companies are increasingly digitizing their internal operations and invest heavily both in technology and employees, setting an example for other postindustrial economies.
It is expected that within two years, or even less, the investments in Industry 4.0 components would have the return of 5% annually. That is relatively high, isn’t it?
Plan the future for your company inside out
Innovation and technology creation are not linear processes. Many reliable sources are defining Enterprise Application Integration as an innovation which enables data flow within the company in the most effective way.
Every innovation insists on a dynamic, not static environment. Your company today is not the same as your company will be tomorrow. Map your future market segments, define the habits of your future customers and try to anticipate the cultural changes more than changes in demography, due to the increased connectivity. Additionally, include growth projections and scenario planning, especially the most adverse scenario. Constantly question how EAI can help you in achieving this, and if there are possible hidden benefits of EAI.
Develop your own multidimensional metrics and position them around EAI
Decreased manual work, superb delivery, efficiency and decreased cost should lead to unique customer experience and customer retention. Business leaders should opt for the ways to measure not only efficiency of EAI within their enterprise, but to combine this with the aspects that are generally difficult to capture with numbers. Establish the scale for this purpose by combining descriptive and numerical data through the entire value chain.
Design the collaborative culture and integrate soft skills
Top decision makers should design a forward-looking approach by always questioning projections of the five-year timespan and considering the following:
- The number of applications that would require integration
- The number of application that may appear as more effective solutions
- The number of protocols in use
- The importance of scalability in future processes
- Choosing to base the integration requirements on highly complex messaging scenarios and ways to reduce complexity
Additionally, simple and effective communication processes within the enterprise are necessary in order to reach business objectives. The personnel should be introduced to benefits of EAI and trained to understand it, based on skills and needs, in order to achieve the best possible mix of hard and soft skills. Enriching the technological know-how within the enterprise would lead to increased performance and more inventive solutions.
Know the present and the future of technology
Be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of every integration solution within the changing environment in the present moment. Set the EAI strategy that would be resistant to technology changes, with critical points that can be adjusted depending on the company’s medium and long-term objectives. The importance of enterprise application and the ways to tackle Big Data are co-dependent and have a relationship based on feedback. Despite that many strategists are not hard-core technology followers, there are plenty of established research centers that publish futuristic concepts and ideas on AI, IoT and Big Data. This can soon become the business world’ reality, so top managers have to familiarize themselves with the yet-to-come technologies.
Establish strategically important alliances
Every company operates in a broad ecosystem. Top managers know how to make an alliance that helps them to achieve returns at scale. A recent Gartner research has outlined that 75% of enterprises have six or more different systems in their information environments, which results in an inefficient use of human and IT resources, lower response rates and ineffective use of data.
Enterprise Application Integration by Itransition provides the full range of integration services that synergistically improve the overall performance of enterprise applications.
Business leaders are shaping the future of EAI
The future of Enterprise Application Integration is created by business leaders and innovators. First-class managers will know how to translate the technological unknowns into measurable performance through recombination and intuition. Within this, EAI can well be tamed and turned to the maximum value for the enterprises of now and the future.
