SAN FRANCISCO, March 30, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- MuleSoft,
provider of the world's #1 integration and API platform, today
reported that integration challenges continue to be a major
roadblock for digital transformation initiatives. MuleSoft's 2021
Connectivity Benchmark Report found that IT teams 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. As digital
initiatives accelerate, integration has emerged as a critical
factor in determining the success and speed of digital
transformation across industries.
"Organizations across industries have experienced a rapid shift
toward interacting with customers and employees through digital
channels," said Brent Hayward, CEO,
MuleSoft. "Although most organizations are prioritizing 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.
Companies that empower their IT and business teams to easily
integrate apps and data will be able to unlock the full capacity
within their organization to drive innovation at scale and gain
competitive edge."
Based on a global survey of 800 CIOs and IT decision makers, the
2021 Connectivity Benchmark Report also highlights new challenges
and opportunities for businesses as they navigate a digital-first
world:
Increased demands pressuring businesses to deliver digital
faster
The last 12 months have seen a profound shift in the
way people work and how organizations operate. Employees and
customers alike want seamless digital experiences and expect
organizations to deliver on these experiences, faster.
- New initiatives to enable success from anywhere: This
past year, organizations relied on IT to support a rapid shift to
remote working and the need for increased productivity and
efficiency. Migrating apps to the cloud (51%), enabling remote
working (48%) and automating business processes (47%) were cited as
the key initiatives that organizations are focusing on for 2021.
They were closely followed by using IT to create a safe working
environment, modernizing legacy systems, and integrating SaaS apps
(each 45%).
- When demand surpasses supply: Demands on IT have
increased massively. Organizations asked IT to deliver on average
30% more projects this year, a number that is constantly growing
year-over-year (315 projects in 2021 compared to 242 projects in
2020). Only 37% of respondents say they were able to deliver all IT
projects last year (compared to 41% the previous year).
- Go digital or get left behind: More than three-quarters
(77%) of organizations say a failure to complete digital
transformation initiatives will impact revenues over the next
year.
- The cost of "keeping the lights on": IT is spending over
two-thirds of their time (68%) on running the business, leaving
little time for innovation and development of new projects.
Integration challenges hold businesses back
Data silos remain a challenge for 90% of organizations (unchanged
since last year's report). And almost 9 in 10 respondents point to
integration challenges as a blocker to delivering on digital
transformation. If this trend continues, it risks stalling key
business initiatives for many organizations. Integration will
continue to be a major area of focus as organizations look to
connect and derive more value from their new and existing apps and
data.
- So many applications, so little integration: On average,
organizations use 843 individual applications. However, only 29% of
these applications are integrated (a slight increase from 28% in
the previous year), highlighting huge potential for organizations
to drive change and deliver more connected experiences.
- Connected customer experiences remain a challenge to
achieve: Only 18% of organizations integrate end-user
experiences across all channels, with almost half (48%) stating
they have found it difficult to do so. However, for those
organizations that have successfully integrated end-user
experiences, increased customer engagement (53%), business
transformation (53%) and innovation (50%) have been the major
benefits.
- Data-related roles have the biggest integration needs:
Outside of IT, data science (47%), business analyst (42%) and
finance (42%) are the roles with the biggest integration needs.
This further highlights how business users and initiatives with a
data focus are prime candidates for integration support.
Empowering enterprise-wide innovation
Organizations recognize the strategic importance of integration to
help achieve revenue goals and deliver connected experiences
faster. To lessen the integration burden on IT and drive
innovation and productivity, organizations are looking to drive
reuse of existing integrations and empower the wider business to
connect apps and data.
- Integration and API strategy is being led from the top:
More than two-thirds (69%) of organizations say they have a
top-down approach to integration and API strategy. This is an
increase from 63% last year, highlighting the growing importance of
integration to achieving business goals.
- API reuse is a massive area of opportunity: While most
organizations (96%, up from 80% last year) are using APIs to build
integrations and deliver new projects, best practices around API
reuse remain an area of improvement. The reuse of code, APIs, and
best practice templates has plateaued over the last two years.
Organizations have on average 42% of such internal assets and
components available for reuse. This is a massive area of
opportunity as organizations leveraging APIs experience increased
productivity (59%), self-service (48%) and increased innovation
(46%).
- Enabling all business users: Four in five organizations
recognize the need to make data and integration accessible to
business users to increase productivity, deliver connected
experiences and drive innovation. Over a third (36%) of
organizations say they have a mature approach to enabling non-IT
users to easily integrate apps and data sources through APIs.
Another 44% say they are in the process of developing plans,
further highlighting that organizations are looking to empower
business users with integration.
Additional information:
- For deeper insight into how organizations around the world are
driving their digital transformation initiatives, download the 2021
Connectivity Benchmark Report.
- Register to virtually attend MuleSoft CONNECT, the world's
leading integration event, to learn best practices for solving the
business challenges and trends that are shaping the future of
IT.
Methodology
For the sixth-annual Connectivity
Benchmark Report, MuleSoft, in partnership with Vanson Bourne, surveyed 800 IT leaders from
global enterprises. The goal was to uncover how much value
businesses actually gain from digital transformation, and to
understand IT leaders' most successful strategies for achieving
digital transformation goals. 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. Only
suitable candidates participated in the survey and were verified by
using a rigorous, multi-level screening process. All respondents
work at an enterprise organization in the public or private sector
with at least 1,000 employees and hold a managerial position or
above in an IT department.
*Survey respondents stated on average they
spent $9,870,901 on IT staff (both on
employee salaries and external contractors) over the last 12
months.
Cumulatively survey respondents stated on average their IT
teams were spending 35.55% of their time designing, building, and
testing custom integrations.
$9,870,901 x 35.55% =
$3,509,105.31
About MuleSoft, a Salesforce company
MuleSoft,
provider of the world's #1 trusted integration and API platform,
empowers any company to quickly unlock and integrate their apps and
data to create connected experiences, faster. For more information,
visit: https://www.mulesoft.com.
About Salesforce
Salesforce, the global CRM leader, empowers companies of every size
and industry to digitally transform and create a 360° view of their
customers. For more information about Salesforce (NYSE: CRM),
visit: www.salesforce.com.
MuleSoft is a registered trademark of MuleSoft, Inc., a
Salesforce company. All other marks are those of respective
owners.
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SOURCE MuleSoft