Industry Report Reveals Cloud Adoption Hampering Integration for the Digital Enterprise

MANCHESTER, NH--(Marketwired - Oct 29, 2015) -  Scribe Software, a global data integration leader, today unveiled a new industry report, "Connectivity in the Enterprise: The Rise of Cloud and Its Integration Challenges," in partnership with Spiceworks. The report examines current industry application deployment trends and data integration practices, uncovering key opportunities and challenges faced by almost 300 IT leaders adapting to new agile connectivity needs in enterprises shifting to cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) applications.

"The current reality is that enterprises are purchasing more cloud-based SaaS applications, which means that IT professionals must prepare for constant change, connecting more applications at a faster rate than ever before," said Keith Guttridge, research director at Gartner. "Enterprises need to prioritize connectivity as a strategic imperative today. The old 'tried and true' integration methods simply lack the agility required to keep up with the current explosion of cloud applications."

It's Getting Cloudy…Sort of
According to the report, adoption of cloud-based applications has skyrocketed in certain segments, such as marketing automation and sales force automation, where 62 and 60 percent of respondents, respectively, report using a cloud-based solution. Overall, the increased use of cloud applications is leading to an explosion of best-of-breed applications. Integrating cloud applications, however, was one of the major challenges highlighted in the survey, and is driving the need for agile new integration options. In fact, 61 percent of survey respondents expressed a lack of satisfaction with their cloud-to-cloud integration capabilities.

Cloud to On-Premise Integration Challenges Abound
Though cloud adoption has gained momentum in recent years, inertia from on-premise applications means hybrid environments remain dominant in the enterprise. For the time being, core business applications, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and business intelligence (BI)/analytics have remained largely on premise, with this year's survey results showing a modest cloud adoption increase when compared to Scribe's 2013 survey. The combination of on-premise and cloud applications increases the complexity, velocity and volume of data, causing businesses to struggle to achieve a 360 degree view of their customers. As of this year, 59 percent of survey respondents are not satisfied with their ability to synch data between cloud and on-premise systems -- a clear barrier for businesses that seek to move beyond integration fundamentals like enabling reporting and basic analytics.

Custom Coding Is Holding Back Enterprise Productivity and Success
Custom coding to individual application programming interfaces (APIs) is still the most popular method of integration, with 54 percent of respondents using it as their primary choice for connecting applications -- an increase from the 48 percent who relied on custom code in Scribe's 2013 report. The prevalence of the custom coding approach continues due to its familiarity to development organizations.

However, enterprise IT consistently underestimates the long-term cost of custom-coded integration, especially in hybrid deployments where cloud applications -- which are updated multiple times a year -- are involved. Survey respondents reported their top integration challenge is the time to develop a solution (45 percent), followed by the solution's cost (36 percent). The time or ongoing effort required to update solutions was less of a concern.

Despite the popularity of custom coding to an API, dissatisfaction with cloud integration capabilities has led 59 percent of respondents to use third party software, connectors and platforms to simplify the process.

"Successful enterprise IT teams are recognizing the need not only to connect their applications up front, but to build an agile integration capability that can evolve alongside the application," noted Shawn McGowan, president and CEO of Scribe. "Business needs change quickly, and IT professionals are beginning to realize the value that an agile integration platform as a service (iPaaS) offers throughout the lifecycle of the integration."

Additional findings include:

• Top data integration initiatives include migrating data from one system to another (42 percent), back office to front office (37 percent), integrating data for BI/analytics (37 percent) and integrating on-premise apps (35 percent).
• Large companies ( > 1,000 employees) were also focused on master data management (MDM) and big data, with 32 and 22 percent reporting those as top data integration initiatives.
• The most important factors organizations consider when evaluating data integration solutions are core characteristics such as the ability to learn the system (51 percent), ease of use (47 percent), data quality (39 percent), connectivity (39 percent) and scalability (38 percent).

The report also contains prescriptive steps on how IT leaders, SaaS providers and systems integrators can tackle integration moving forward. You can download the full report online here: http://info.scribesoft.com/rpt_connectivity-in-the-enterprise-the-rise-of-cloud-and-its-challenges.html

About Scribe Software
Scribe is an established global provider of solutions that easily bring data anywhere it is needed -- regardless of IT infrastructure. Scribe's award-winning products help 12,000 customers and 1,200 partners use data -- cloud-based, on-premise or a mix -- to increase revenue, provide superior service, and create business value faster. Its easy-to-use, enterprise-ready solutions are backed by extensive support options and training, and service customers across a wide array of industries including financial services, life sciences, manufacturing, and media and entertainment companies.