The combination of automation, integration, and API management will prove increasingly irresistible for global organizations

MuleSoft, in collaboration with Deloitte Digital and Vanson Bourne, surveyed 1,051 global IT leaders across the globe (United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan) between October and November 2021 on the state of connectivity and digital transformation. And they have published their seventh annual Connectivity Benchmark Report. All respondents work at an enterprise organization in the public or private sector with at least 1,000 employees.

Some Conclusions:

• Organizations could lose on average $7m if they fail to successfully complete digital transformation initiatives.
• Data silos are a persistent challenge for 90% of organizations.
• Over half (52%*) of IT projects weren’t delivered on time last year
• Those organizations that can build a foundation of digital agility will be best positioned to adapt to change quickly without being slowed by IT or operations bottlenecks.
• Some 88% of respondents said integration challenges continue to slow digital transformation initiatives, virtually unchanged from the 2021 report’s figure of 87%.
• Firms are spending too much on custom integration, on average, they spent $3.65 million in custom integration labor in 2021, versus $3.5 million in the previous 12 months. 
• The vast majority (98%) of organizations now use APIs.
• Automation emerges as a key ingredient. Nearly a third (31%) of organizations plan to invest in robotic process automation (RPA), versus 13% a year ago. Most are currently managing this (67%) and tracking it (58%) centrally via IT. It is IT developers (72%) and IT operations (66%) who are most involved in automating business processes and tasks. 

The combination of automation, integration, and API management will prove increasingly irresistible for global organizations as they seek to deliver the experiences their employees and customers crave.

Bottom line

My point of view is that being focused on automation only as an IT project is a big mistake, and requires being focused on custom integration to be successful. The question is whether this is a suitable strategy for digitalization or digital transformation and, furthermore, if it is focused on obtaining a competitive advantage to grow in accordance with the corporate strategy. Operational excellence requires analyzing end-to-end processes using the Enterprise Architecture and Business Process Management disciplines, so you will be focused on process improvements aligned to strategy. These analyzes will make it possible to define a roadmap for IT projects in accordance with the objectives and challenges of the business. This way you will see if an automation of tasks is necessary or not, integrating application data or routing data via a workflow. Probably moving slowly is because improvement scenarios are not being analyzed according to strategic priorities, impact on the organization and business, and implementation complexity. If there is no correct planning, it will not be successful and it is most likely that the inefficient will be automated, multiplying the inefficiency.