IT teams globally are spending over a third of their time on integration projects, and custom integrations are costing large enterprises on average $3.5 million each in annual labor, according to Mulesoft’s 2021 Connectivity Benchmark Report.
As digital initiatives accelerate, integration has emerged as a critical factor in determining the success and speed of digital transformation across industries.
“Organisations across industries have experienced a rapid shift toward interacting with customers and employees through digital channels,” said Brent Hayward, CEO, MuleSoft.
“Although most organisations are prioritising digital initiatives, such as launching an e-commerce platform or increasing worker productivity, the research shows that data silos continue to hinder their capabilities to deliver on these key initiatives,” said Hayward.
MuleSoft, in partnership with Vanson Bourne, surveyed 800 IT leaders from global enterprises. The online survey was conducted between December 2020 and January 2021 across the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan.
Based on input from the 50 Australia-based respondents, the survey found that increased demands pressuring businesses to deliver digital faster .
Migrating apps to the cloud (50%), integrating SaaS apps (40%), and improving customer onboarding (40%) were cited as the key initiatives that organisations are focusing on for 2021.
Organisations asked IT to deliver on average 33% more projects this year. Less than half (48%) of respondents say they were able to deliver all IT projects last year.
IT is spending over two-thirds of their time (71%) on running the business, leaving little time for innovation and development of new projects.
Also, data silos remain a challenge for 94% of organisations (unchanged since last year’s report). And almost nine in 10 respondents point to integration challenges as a blocker to delivering on digital transformation.
On average, organisations use 884 individual applications. However, only 29% of these applications are integrated, highlighting huge potential for organisations to drive change and deliver more connected experiences.
Only 20% of organisations integrate end-user experiences across all channels, with almost half (44%) stating they have found it difficult to do so. However, for those organisations that have successfully integrated end user experiences, increased customer engagement (62%), business transformation (54%) and innovation (52%) have been the major benefits.
Outside of IT, sales (46%), customer support (42%), marketing (38%) and business analyst (38%) are the roles with the biggest integration needs.
Majority (80%) of organisations say they have a top-down approach to integration and API strategy, highlighting the growing importance of integration to achieving business goals.
More than four in five organisations recognise the need to make data and integration accessible to business users to increase productivity, deliver connected experiences and drive innovation.
