2011 Prediction: Convergence of B2B Integration and Business Intelligence
Posted by Margaret Dawson on February 25, 2011
We’ve made it to the final post of my five predictions for 2011 – I know it’s been a thrilling ride. So far, I’ve discussed trends surrounding B2B integration becoming business critical, not buying the cloud for cloud sake, cloud security and conducting business the customer’s way. To wrap things up, let’s now focus on what I like to call BI2 - the convergence of business-to-business (B2B) integration and business intelligence.
SaaS and cloud adoption continue to rise dramatically. As a result, there is a clear and steady march toward real-time, especially with more companies exchanging information through on-demand channels. Not surprisingly, companies of all sizes want visibility into this goldmine of information given the impact it can have on their top and bottom line. This is particularly true with B2B integration processes, where insights into the status of critical messages, the successful transmission of real-time information, or details on the most active customers or partners can help companies be more agile and adjust to business fluctuations.
We’ve seen this trend firsthand here at Hubspan. More of our customers are exchanging an increasing amount of information, and this information is growing in complexity with business rules and security policies associated with them. With the amount of data volume exchanged on a daily basis, companies are looking to instantly access trend data around transactional volumes, top messages and connections, message status and other critical information to make more informed business decisions.
Whereas BI tools were once deployed as standalone, separate products, more customers are asking for bundled solutions that include business intelligence as a value add necessity to the business integration process. This year, we will see a more vendors offering bundled BI tools with their integration solutions, as well as many other products, so customers can benefit from event-driven intelligence. By embedding business intelligence into the B2B integration process, customers receive greater visibility of real-time trending data, more quickly meet changing demands, and easily adapt to their customers’ needs.
We live in an era where real-time updates are no longer “nice to have” but necessary for businesses. Companies need to quickly grasp key trends, insights, issues and overall activity in their B2B communities in order to succeed in today’s lightning paced environment. So with this in mind, merging the realms of business intelligence and business integration is a natural convergence and one that brings strong business impact.
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