Report: Cloud Adoption Challenged By Integration in Digital Enterprise

The cloud promises companies many benefits, from automatic updates to rapid scaling (of seats, storage, or computing) to advantageous pricing structures. But, it makes few promises about integration. A Microsoft Dynamics ERP customer may be assured of achieving solid integration with Dynamics CRM Online; less assured if it then adds third-party human resources, business intelligence (BI) or marketing automation solutions, especially ones outside the Microsoft partner ecosystem.

A good many cloud applications (like CRM, marketing automation and HR systems) never get integrated, because user companies can't spare the time or expense. And with the pace of iterations in cloud-based software, they'd be crazy to try. Custom coding (still a preferred method of integration) simply isn't agile enough to keep pace. 

Data integration solution provider Scribe Software has unveiled a new industry report, Connectivity in the Enterprise: The Rise of Cloud and Its Integration Challenges [download required], 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.

Most Organizations Only "Partly Cloudy"

Cloud-based CRM seems to get all the press (think Salesforce and Dynamics CRM Online). But CRM is not the only cloud application, and far from the most common any longer. It was - in 2013, found Scribe. Since then, cloud-based CRM bumped from 26 to 30%, while marketing automation and salesforce automation shot past to 62 and 60 percent of respondents respectively, using applications from market leaders as Marketo, HubSpot, and Salesforce. Scribe proposes that cloud is chosen when systems are due ...