Integration is the most critical and painful piece of achieving technology goals, whether those focus on customer experience, business operations, or mobile functionality. And according to Matt Calkins, founder and CEO of Appian, in his keynote this morning as Appian World 2017 kicked off, we’re on the verge of a “renaissance of integration.” An age where integration will be increasing critical and demanded as the Internet of Things grows – but 
where it will also become streamlined to accommodate that demand. The main reason for this precipice is features as a service.
Calkins predicts that integration vendors can’t just provide point-to-point integrations of “out of the box” solutions anymore, but rather clients demand features on top of those integrations. For him, Appian is the perfect arbitration layer.
For Appian, their catalytic solution to this renaissance is their new Integration Designer, just announced today. As part of this new product, Appian can:
- Cut code it takes to integrate by 50%
- Enhance integration speed with reusable objects and a low-code approach
- Apply these integrations to new areas like AI, blockchain, and robotic process automation (RPA)
I like this term “renaissance of integration,” because I do think we need a refocusing on the importance of integration. As digital transformation has taken hold, customer experience has taken the forefront as the focus for many businesses. But as Forrester states, integration is a digital imperative; organizations need to take a step back and “make integration core to their experience platform strategy.” Forrester also predicts that 2017 is the year to start doing that back-end work to stay a digital predator. Appian is definitely positioning themselves as the vendor to take digital transformation initiatives to the next level, in line with Forrester’s predictions, from their announcements at their conference in San Francisco.
