MuleSoft: IT Area Is Facing the Growth of Company Requirements and Is Unable to Cope with Them

David Šolc Aimtec
19. 4. 2017 | 5 minutes reading

The MuleSoft company, technological leader in the area of integration, has announced the results of the “MuleSoft 2017 Connectivity Benchmark” study. It deals with digital transformation of companies and surveys API (Application Programming Interface) implementation impacts on business results.

The survey has been made for a sample of 951 IT managers from all over the world with a decision authorization (CIO). The investigation results have proven the IT departments do not master their company requirements. Thus, the growth of income of organizations in various areas is compromised. Hand in hand with the implementation of new technologies, such as IoT, Big Data, SaaS, cloud, etc., new needs arise for key users in companies. They need to respond to newest trends flexibly and quickly. Present-day IT must be prepared for safe and prompt integration of changes and new technologies to the companies. Based on the requirements, IT departments battle with issues of implementation of new projects with relatively limited resources and capacity utilization.

Answers to the higher growth of requirements and new integration challenges are more and more often sought by the companies in the integration of new technologies to the existing systems based on APIs. The integration allows the employees for accessing data in a controlled manner, and for using them for their needs. Thus, IT department has its capacity released, which can be dedicated to key activities in the company, such as to the administration and security of systems. API is used as a connector, enabling the applications to communicate independently on data formats, or their resources.

Key Outputs from the Survey

Requirements for IT are Growing

Despite the high number of CIOs performing or planning the digital transformation (94%), only one half of them can deliver all required projects in the last year. The most significant factors, negatively affecting deliveries, include missing support by company teams, lack of financial resources, time limits and considerable quantity of applications, which need to be integrated.

  • 69% of CIOs declare, there are differences between what managers expect and what can really be delivered. The differences increase every year, which decelerates the company growth, as 45% of CIOs believe.
  • 51% of CIOs admitted they had not enough financial resources, and most of them did not expect any improvement this year. 68% of them presume the budget be higher by 10% as a maximum, be the same, or reduced. Although the lack of resources is a significant problem in the IT area, only 32% of respondents expected in 2016, that it could cause any problems with IT deliveries.
  • 41% of CIOs state that the lack of time is a large obstruction in the digital transformation process in the company. 35% of them presume 100 or more applications to be integrated, compared to 2016. Only 10% of them presumed this in 2016. It indicates the complexity increase of new applications, data resources and devices integration.

General benefits of API

Increasingly more IT managers implement APIs to integrate new software to existing systems and applications (60%), to increase speed (57%), and to make important data accessible (54%). The integration brings higher IT throughput and innovation pace acceleration. Currently, nearly the most of them perceive positive benefits of the API strategy implementation.

  • At present, 90% of CIOs have or build the API strategy, which will be ready by the end of 2017. Those who already have implemented the API, give it a credit for faster delivery of products and services in 94% of cases.
  • CIOs consider higher productivity (64%), faster innovation (62%), faster involvement and cooperation of employees (47%), and growth of income as a direct consequence (44%) to be the most significant benefits of their API strategy.
  • Almost one half of CIOs confirm, their companies generate approximately 1–10 million dollars a year due to the API implementation; 40% of them state that 25–75% of profit is generated by APIs; 19% of them state the most of the company profit is generated thanks to APIs and activities directly connected with the API implementation.

Shadow IT is a Security Risk

Limited capability of delivering IT projects in time results in many cases the employees procure technological tools themselves, regardless of the IT department – SaaS application often. In final consequence, such a shadow IT compromises key customers and data. Despite the fact that more than one half of IT managers believe they can manage security threats, the existence of shadow IT and continued transfer into cloud bring unpredictable risks for the business.

  • More than one half of CIOs admit, that at least 20 applications are used in companies out of the IT department, and the same percent of them indicate that more than 21% of expenses are spent out of the IT department.
  • 79% of CIOs state the cloud technologies are important for the future of their companies; 75% of them say that the transfer to cloud applications is their important or very important priority in 2017.
  • IT managers revealed they spent more money for the cloud applications (almost 14%), than for the security (slightly above 12%).

Methodology

In November 2016, the MuleSoft company made a survey of 951 responses by IT managers from countries all over the world. The respondents came from Australia, China, France, Germany, Netherlands, Great Britain, United States, Singapore, and Sweden. The investigation was focused on methods how companies with more than 500 employees resolves the digital transformation, faced the IT challenges, and implemented new technologies to reach the business goals. You can download the whole “MuleSoft 2017 Connectivity Benchmark” study here: https://www.mulesoft.com/lp/reports/2017-connectivity-benchmark.

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