Application Integration - Simplifying Enterprise Complexity (page 1 of 3)

Gartner expects more than 25 per cent of large enterprises to forge central integration competency centres during the next three years, in addition to the 25 per cent that have already done so1.

Successful businesses never remain static, nor do their infrastructures. In any large organisation, there are various applications using different technologies and architectures.

Applications such as dynamic supply chains and customer relationship management constantly emerge and evolve, in line with shifting economies, industry trends and standards and customer demand.

Although most of these changes are subtle, they can be complex enough to complicate implementation and maintenance of any solution.

Research shows that the use of a common integrated information infrastructure can reduce the number of hours by between 25% and 43% (to build interfaces between applications), depending on the complexity of the interface that is being built.
Source: 'Cutting Implementation Costs by Application Integration', Gartner, February 2002

If the process is implemented correctly, integration generally provides around 50 to 80 per cent reduction in application maintenance costs by reducing the number of interfaces that need to be maintained2, offloading most of the costs of interface maintenance to the integration solution provider.

The automotive industry is an ideal example for the benefits of application integration. A car manufacturer deploys numerous applications such as a CRM system and dealer support systems, supply chain applications, custom vehicle order management systems, logistics applications, and inventory and finance management.

The sheer amount of data generated by the manufacturer's applications makes it all too easy for resources to be wasted by duplicating data in each application. Without integration, partner and supplier organisations with similar infrastructures will eventually develop huge pools of duplicate information, which are redundant - with the management of this information wasting more IT resources

About 35% of an enterprise's software maintenance budget is spent on maintaining the multitude of point-to-point application links already in place.
Source: 'Cutting Implementation Costs by Application Integration', Gartner, February 2000

However, despite the promising opportunities for integration application vendors, many companies are approaching integration plans with caution. Although Gartner predicts that more than 50 per cent of all large enterprises with $1billion or more in revenue will have an integration competency centre by the end of 20053, the failure of previous integration technologies and unpredictable costs have made organisations justifiably wary about the mysterious art of integration.

Poorly integrated applications not only inevitably lead to the decline in an organisation's ability to exploit new opportunities and in its delivery of on-going optimum customer service, but can also cost a company millions of dollars in revenue.

Many of the integration solutions available today involve cobbling together other application integration functionality from various other middleware tools.

This piecemeal approach of offering different integration application solutions causes confusion for organisations, and provides the perfect opportunity for integration application providers to use smoke and mirror tactics when selling their integration solutions.