The Ultimate Guide To Enterprise Application Integration Trends
01 Aug. 2018 Software Development
Businesses of all sizes are relying on software and enterprise applications to streamline various business processes and increase productivity and efficiency. It’s common in today’s diverse technological landscape for a company to use multiple enterprise applications ranging from HRP, ERP, BI systems and CRMs.
To be able to function as a unified business unit CIOs and CTOs focus on application to application integration. Also, known as Enterprise Application Integration or EAI, it has numerous benefits as it lets different enterprise applications exchange data with each other and unifies databases across software packages.
As enterprises continue to adopt packaged applications both on-premise and in the cloud, let’s take a look at various enterprise application integration trends:
- API Driven Integration: APIs are a battle-tested way of integrating and connecting multiple systems. We’ll continue to see an increase in enterprises using APIs to connect traditional IT systems with more modern cloud-based applications. Creating private APIs for an enterprise’s internal use will also be adopted for integration.
- eCommerce Integration: eCommerce transactions in the B2B and B2C space are growing at a fast pace. A lot goes behind the scenes from a customer placing the order to receiving it at their doorstep. Various tools and enterprise applications play a crucial role in the entire workflow. Integrating these different tools to make eCommerce better and more connected will be made possible by adopting the latest trends in middleware technologies.
- Specific Platform Integrators: As the number, type and forms of enterprise applications continue to get diverse the companies need to find the right partners for appropriately integrating them. We’ll continue to see a rise in specialist system integrators who are subject matter experts when it comes to integrating traditional IT systems with ERP or CRM or mobile apps. They specialize in one element and excel at it. It will propel the demand for skilled workforce in the years to come.
- Integrating AI Tools and Bots: AI or Artificial Intelligence continues to make its mark across industry verticals. Enterprises and SMBs are continually looking at ways to deploy AI on top of their business applications to gain more insight into data and better serve customers. Chabot’s, in particular, get used for businesses that have to deal with customers every day. It includes retail, banking, and similar other industries. Companies are trying to connect chatbots to their business systems database to answer the customer’s questions without any human intervention. Thereby lifting off the pressure from their customer service team and making the process smoother.
- Connecting CRM and ERP/BI Systems: CRMs have been used by enterprises for decades now to consolidate customer details and demographics. Most traditional CRM work in silos and don’t give you the complete picture of your prospective customer. The application of enterprise application integration best practices enables seamless connect of CRM and ERP systems to gain valuable insights into understanding the customer psyche. It leads to effective decision making and access to critical customer information anywhere, anytime.
These are some of the EAI trends that we’ll continue to see more of through 2018-19 and beyond. Apart from these trends, enterprises can also expect IoT and data-centric integrations offered by the service providers. Enterprises will continue to seek innovative integration methods as they discover complex business problems that can be solved by enterprise application integration.
