Enterprise integration remains a key business imperative, occupying the minds of business executives and their IT teams.
This was one of the key findings from the first Customer Advisory Board of CIOs and senior IT executives from Global 2000 corporations convened by Ascential Software, the global enterprise integration leader.
CIOs and senior IT executives from 13 companies - all members of Ascential`s Customer Advisory Board - spoke at the board`s first meeting held recently in Boston.
The board provides direct feedback to the company on critical business and IT issues. Its members span a broad swath of industries, including financial services, manufacturing, retail and transportation. They include Acxiom, DHLWorldwide Express, General Motors Corp, Hartford Financial Services, Landstar and New York Life Insurance. The panel will reconvene regularly around the globe and continue sharing its views on today`s business environment, enterprise integration, and Ascential`s corporate strategy and product roadmap.
One common customer requirement voiced at the meeting was the need for "right-time" integration. Right time was defined as integration on batch, asynchronous and synchronous levels that allows customers to select the precise integration processing times needed to achieve business goals and objectives.
"Many business managers demand `real-time,` when what they really need is a combination of batch, synchronous and asynchronous integration solutions. Some mission- and time-critical workers, such as financial traders, need real-time. For most people and businesses, right-time is appropriate," says Julian Field, MD of CenterField Software, the sole South African distributor for Ascential Software.
In addition to "right-time," the Customer Advisory Board also discussed:
* The need for reliable enterprise data integration systems to derive consistent returns on the information throughout their companies;
* The flexibility of integration solutions to accommodate dynamic business and IT conditions;
* The need for consistent data scrubbing and cleansing to ensure success of the end-user applications fed by that data;
* The dependence of business intelligence and analytics applications on reliable integration platforms.
The meeting`s discussions underscored how many of the world`s largest corporations are seeking next-generation solutions that will transcend traditional data integration point products to serve a broader need for enterprise integration: Solutions that integrate data, applications and business processes within a continuum of processing times, while maintaining data quality and metadata trails throughout the enterprise.
"The Customer Advisory Board provides a unique forum to share our short- and long-term growth strategies with our customers and to have an in-depth dialogue about the strategic impact that enterprise integration solutions can have in today`s business environment," says Ascential president Pete Fiore. "Issues related to data remain paramount to successful business integration and we are ordering our priorities to reflect these customer integration needs. We look forward to expanding membership of the board as we grow our global base of strategic customers."
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