3 Secret Ingredients to Future Proof Your Business

As a data integration evangelist, I’m lucky to be able to travel around the world and meet with business leaders in every imaginable industry. Whenever I have such an opportunity, I’m always amazed to discover how businesses are using cloud-based data integration services to make their company more successful. 

Wow Your Customers with Easy Access to Data

Take one of our clients, for example. I recently met with an independent software vendor (ISV) that provides data visualization analytics for a large cross-industry customer base. This company inherently understands the value of data and analytics powered by data—in fact, their bottom line depends on data. Their mission is clear: to empower a diverse customer base with the ability to access high-quality data from any source and help them tell a visually compelling story.

Leap Over the Firewall -- Safely, Securely and Easily

What we learned was the company wanted to go to the next level of support for their customers, each trying to develop and deploy rich business applications as quickly and efficiently as possible. To deliver this level of support, the software company needed to provide faster and easier access to all kinds of data for these customers, including giving them access to data behind its own firewall as well as across myriad public and private clouds.

Over and over again, we have heard from the majority of our clients is that their IT organizations are overwhelmed and can’t afford the time or the hassle it takes to manually connect to changing and expanding data sources. To keep pace with this moving target, intelligent businesses like this ISV are increasingly relying on premium cloud-based data connectivity and integration solutions for their clients and for their in-house application development teams.

Protect Your Unique Service or Offering

In business, time is money. And in the IT world, time delays can cost you advantage and differentiation in the marketplace.  You need to protect your product and keep your developers focused on high-value activities instead of struggling with complex, manual configurations that let your customers access the data they need, wherever it lives.

To accomplish this, let me give you my top three tips to future-proof your business. You should consider working with a data connectivity service provider who:

• Continually offers you new additions to your connectivity options as data sources grow and evolve.
• Allows you to offer your customers easy access to data, even if it’s behind your firewall.
• Does the data API management and maintenance for you.

Recipe for Success

Using this approach lets you continually enhance your solution and services and create greater customer satisfaction by offering more data connectivity options—all while freeing developers to focus on other high priority initiatives and drive down cost.

See for Yourself

Check out this short video to learn more about how you can achieve easier data connectivity within the Progress PaaS platform.

Continue the Conversation

Share your success story here. We’d love to hear how your company has used cloud-based data integration services. Or maybe you see room for improvement in your organization.