There is no doubt that we live in a disruptive world where the promise of technology to make businesses better, faster and more nimble has never been as pronounced as it is today. With the deluge of predictions around the silver lining behind trends such as cloud adoption and big data, technology leaders are looking to software vendors to help them address business imperatives. Deeper and more meaningful customer engagement, which lowers costs and speeds the transition to a connected, integrated social enterprise, often tops the list.
In 10 Trends CIOs Should Watch in 2013, Don Reisinger (follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/donreisinger) notes that hybrid computing and full integration will be essential components for proper IT functioning in 2013 and beyond. ITBusinessEdge adds that the consolidation towards a single IT system of record will become a renewed IT priority that will help reduce the increasingly problematic limitations of silos of systems and data. Dennis McCafferty (follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/dmccaff), in his article CIOs’ Top Eight Trends in 2013, points to the need for streamlining data centers and how tech leaders are turning to the cloud, managed services and the retirement of old IT assets to keep operations lean. Underlying all of these trends is the fact that technology is widely impacted by the creeping consumerization of IT that is forever changing IT and business professionals’ expectations of how easy technology should be to use. And although enterprise technology ease of use has come a long way, as Gene Marks (follow Gene on Twitter at https://twitter.com/genemarks) shared on Forbes, let’s face it, there is still a lot to be desired.
The consumerization of IT is having a profound impact on our entire technology ecosystem, – from infrastructure and platform vendors to software and application providers. Not only is the rapid consumer adoption of mobile devices and tablets pushing our industry to think multi-channel and multi-device, but it is also affecting how design interfaces get planned and executed. Windows 8 confirms this – its interface is dramatically different from previous versions, following touchscreen conventions and fully adapted for portability.
Data integration, while critical for businesses because it provides the glue to getting, understanding and acting upon data, has not historically been easy or widely accessible. In fact, data integration projects are typically still the purview of those with highly technical skills, while the line-of-business leaders (and their analysts) who are tasked with growing the business and servicing the customers do not have the ability to directly define and implement data integration workflows for business impact. It was only a matter of time until the consumerization of IT began to affect the accessibility and impact of data integration solutions.
Borrowing from the field of design thinking, focused on building products based on user-centric design, our team at Scribe applied these principles for the launch of our most powerful cloud data integration platform update yet. Described by Ben Kepes (follow Ben on Twitter https://twitter.com/benkepes) as prettying up life for the data integration crowd, this major upgrade was actually inspired by Scratch, the programming language that was created by MIT Media Lab to help children learn to program. As Ben points out, this new data integration solution “hides all the complexity far into the background, and offers up a highly visual environment for business people to create their custom integrations”.
With the enhancements to the Scribe Online Platform, Scribe continues to expand the capabilities available to our growing ecosystem of leading software providers including ExactTarget, Marketo, ON24, FinancialForce, Znode and SilverPop. Multipoint integration allows these software providers not only to connect to CRM and ERP applications through Scribe, but also to other relevant industry and cloud applications. The visual interface speeds the development of new integrations, enabling them to get to market quicker and for customers to realize value faster.
This is the time and place for me to say a big thank you – thank you to the highly talented and committed team at Scribe, led by our VP of Engineering Eddie Cole, who have helped rewrite the rules of data integration and lead the charge in UI-driven connectivity 2.0. And big thanks to Louis Columbus (follow Louis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LouisColumbus) for pointing out how important data integration is to technology leaders like Microsoft in his article on Forbes yesterday. Microsoft Convergence is in full swing – so if you are at the show, stop by booth #420 and say hi.
Lou Guercia
