The Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft Azure Integration Services

INTEGRATION DEVELOPER AND DATA ARCHITECT PRODUCTIVITY

Evidence and data. Interviewees reported that their organizations' data architects and integration developers used Azure Integration Services' prebuilt connectors, templates, and visual designers to streamline the integration development process. This approach simplified the development effort required to connect systems, reducing the time they spent on coding and debugging custom integrations.

Additionally, Azure Integration Services enabled their teams to create reusable integration components, such as connectors, APIs, and workflows. They leveraged these components across multiple integrations, which saved time and effort by avoiding the need to recreate and maintain similar integrations for different systems.

Interviewees provided the following specific insights about the impact of Azure Integration Services on integration developer and data architect productivity:

• Efficiencies due to shifting from on-premises, manual processes to automated processes. The assistant VP (AVP) of engineering at the financial services firm said: "Previously, our integration processes relied solely on manual scripts for infrastructure automation, specifically for web server and middleware deployments. Our Java applications and front-end components were deployed on-premises using web servers and application servers. However, we lacked comprehensive integration tools. The shift to Azure Integration Services enabled us to streamline and automate our deployment processes, marking a substantial improvement over the previous manual methods."

  The same interviewee offered: "The impact of the tool we have adopted is truly remarkable. Previously, manual deployments took around a week to complete. We had to write release documents and coordinate with the infrastructure team to execute each step manually. With our current solution, we simply click a button, and everything is done within seconds. Previously, we allocated approximately 1 hour each day for build and deployment tasks, which amounted to about five hours per week. Now these tasks are reduced to just a few seconds per day, or approximately 1 minute per week."

  The head of product management at the utility company explained: "Automation is also a key aspect of our approach. Through automation scripts, you can seamlessly move through different environments without needing direct assistance from the platform provider. These scripts were thoroughly vetted and approved by our security team and stakeholders, ensuring alignment and reliability. Our goal is to create a clean and streamlined environment for application developers where they can execute procedures with a click of a button. This automation process was challenging in the older environment, but with the implementation of APIM, we have made significant progress."

• Productivity improvement from reusable components and Azure connectors. The lead integration architect at the energy company said: "Using these reusable components and connectors significantly reduces the effort required compared to developing a custom C++ integration from scratch. If a project typically takes around three months to complete with these reusable components, developing custom code for everything would approximately take six to nine months."

  The same interviewee added: "Azure Integration Suite empowers integration developers with connectivity tools, low-code development platforms, prebuilt adapters, testing and debugging capabilities, CI/CD integration, monitoring and performance optimization features, and collaboration support. These capabilities enhance the efficiency of integration development processes, enabling integration developers to deliver high-quality integrations more quickly and effectively."

• Faster onboarding and productivity of new developers. The head of global IT for the manufacturing firm said: "The onboarding process for new developers has become faster and more streamlined. With a senior developer's assistance, access, security, and integration capabilities can be set up within a few hours. This is a significant improvement compared to the longer timeframes required in the past for on-prem systems. The efficiency of the Azure platform enables developers to start working on integrations quickly and reduces the overall time needed to get new team members up to speed."

• Streamlined processes for data architects. The lead integration architect at the energy company explained: "Azure Integration Suite provides data architects with a wide range of tools and services that enhance data integration, orchestration, hybrid integration, real-time streaming, data governance, scalability, performance, monitoring, and troubleshooting. By leveraging these capabilities, data architects can streamline their processes, improve efficiency, and deliver robust data integration solutions more effectively.”

• Reliance on the Azure Integration Services toolset by integration developers, vendors, and partners. The AVP of engineering in financial services said: "Our integration developers heavily rely on Azure Integration Services for deployment purposes. With our agile development approach, we release service updates or new features every two weeks. This means the developers utilize Azure Integration services consistently throughout their workday, 160 hours per month."

• The head of product management at the utility company noted: "The developer community within the US region consists of approximately five to 10 API producers responsible for publishing their APIs. Each API producer has around five to 10 developers working within their respective teams. Additionally, some vendors and partners also utilize APIM, and the number of external users will vary based on the activities of each producer organization."

Modeling and assumptions. For the financial model, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization employs a total of 26 integration developers and data architects. While the number of integrations to maintain increases year over year, team members become more efficient and can take on more work each year.

• The average fully burdened annual cost of a developer or data architect is $165,000.

• The integration developers and data architects spend 80% of their time using the Azure toolset.

• Compared to point-to-point integrations, they are 35% more productive in Year 1. With the reuse of code from previous integrations, they become 40% more productive in Year 2 and 45% more productive in Year 3.

• They reapply 75% of these efficiencies to productive tasks.

Risks.

• The prior environment. Productivity increases would be more significant if the prior environment was point-to-point integrations and would be lower if the previous environment was an integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) solution.

• The number of integration projects per year and the complexity of the integrations.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 5%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $2.4 million.

EFFICIENCIES ON THE CROSS-FUNCTIONAL DEVOPS TEAM

Evidence and data. Interviewees reported that their organizations' systems, security, and operations architects and site reliability engineers valued Azure Integration Services as a managed and scalable platform that simplified integration deployment. With features like infrastructure management and automated scaling, they could deploy integrations faster and with minimal effort compared to traditional point-to-point integrations that required manual setup and maintenance. Azure Integration Services offered centralized management and monitoring capabilities and provided visibility into the status and performance of integrations. This centralized monitoring reduced the time interviewees’ organizations spent troubleshooting and identifying issues in individual integrations.

Additionally, Azure Integration Services allowed members of cross-functional DevOps teams at the interviewees’ organizations to easily scale integrations based on workload demands without needing to reconfigure or rebuild the entire integration infrastructure. As the organizations grew and their business needs evolved, this scalability and adaptability saved time and effort in managing integrations.

Interviewees elaborated on four specific areas Azure Integration Services had an impact on when it came to the cross-functional DevOps team member productivity:

• Simplified deployment of integrations to deploy integrations faster and with minimal effort. The head of global IT for the manufacturing firm highlighted: "Previously, the process of implementing new systems or obtaining approval for integration requirements involved multiple steps and could take anywhere from a few weeks to several months. This included submitting requests, obtaining approvals, and having someone install the necessary components. However, with Azure, the time frame for these tasks has significantly reduced. Today, the deployment of new systems and the availability of required resources can be accomplished within a matter of hours or even seconds. This accelerated timeline is made possible by Azure's efficient provisioning and deployment capabilities, enabling faster access to resources and minimizing the time required for manual installations and configuration."

• Centralized management and monitoring for visibility into the status and performance of integrations. The lead integration architect at the energy company summarized: "Azure Integration Services provides our IT operations and support personnel with tools and capabilities for infrastructure management, monitoring and alerting, logging and diagnostics, scalability, high availability, governance and compliance, Azure DevOps integration, change management, and versioning. These capabilities enhance the efficiency of operations and support processes that allow us to manage integrations effectively, ensure reliability, and deliver optimal performance."

  The same interviewee said: "When you start using Azure or Azure Integration Services, the role of systems engineers and the tasks associated with infrastructure provisioning and ongoing maintenance are significantly reduced. Functions such as patch management and regular maintenance become less time-consuming or are eliminated. This shift in responsibilities results in the reduction of IT operations roles within the organization."

• Addressing security and compliance requirements effectively. The head of product management at the utility company summarized: "We work closely with the security teams as partners to ensure compliance and alignment with security standards. Additionally, the enterprise architecture team plays a role in obtaining approvals for using APIM and defining the overall architecture. They define how APIM will be integrated with backend systems, manage traffic flow into APIM, and handle external traffic. The architecture team is considered another important partner for the API management team."

  The lead integration architect at the energy company explained: "We have implemented processes for secure deployments and utilized tags within Azure Logic Apps in Azure Integration Services to track work order and ticket numbers. This ensures traceability from Logic Apps back to the original request or help desk ticket. Azure Integration Services has played a crucial role in helping us address security and compliance requirements effectively."

• Built-in scalability and adaptability for reduced effort in managing integrations. The head of global IT for the manufacturing firm said: "By leveraging Azure and its scalable capabilities, the integration project has addressed these issues. It has enabled real-time or more predictable integration, effectively managing latency concerns. Azure's scalability ensures that the integration can handle varying workloads as needed."

  The interviewee elaborated: "By leveraging serverless functions, we have achieved increased scalability without the need to manually manage and worry about scalability concerns. The service tier we chose automatically handles scalability, which allows us to focus on other aspects of our applications without the need for manual scaling efforts."

Modeling and assumptions. For the financial model, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The cross-functional DevOps team has 21 members impacted by Azure Integration Services.

• The average fully burdened annual cost of a DevOps team member is $165,000.

• DevOps team members spend 25% of their time on application integration design, architecture, and management-related tasks.

• Due to the impact of Azure Integration Services, DevOps team members are more productive in their tasks compared to when the previous point-to-point integrations were in place. They are 40% more productive in Year 1, 45% more productive in Year 2, and 50% more productive in Year 3.

• Cross-functional DevOps team members reapply 95% of these efficiencies to productive tasks.

Risks. The impact of this benefit will vary based on:

• The size of the DevOps team impacted by integrations.

• The percentage of time these IT resources spend on tasks related to application integration design, architecture, and management as part of their roles.

• The number of net-new integrations per year.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 5%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV of $868,700.

COST REDUCTION FROM FEWER APPLICATION SUPPORT REQUESTS

Evidence and data. Several interviewees mentioned how Azure Integration Services simplified the integration landscape; provided better visibility and control; promoted standardization; offered robust error-handling mechanisms; and contributed to easier identification, resolution, and prevention of data entry errors compared to the complexity of point-to-point connections.

• The lead integration architect at the energy company said: "There are cost savings from the integrations because they eliminated the effort to enter into multiple systems. It also eliminated the bad data that then causes issues downstream and takes people a longer time to fix and figure out what's going on."

  The interviewee elaborated further: "In the absence of integration, when an error or change occurs in the source data, it often requires reaching out to the respective data sources to rectify the issue. This involves fixing the data at the source and making corresponding updates in all downstream systems that are not integrated. For instance, if a user's name is entered incorrectly and it needs to be corrected in ten different systems, separate tickets would need to be created for every system for admins to make the necessary updates."

  The interviewee added: "When an issue or ticket is submitted to the integration team, the established integrations enable quicker investigation and resolution. It now takes approximately half an hour to an hour to identify and address the problem. In contrast, in [our previous] nonintegrated environment, resolving similar issues would have taken double the time."

• The AVP of engineering at the financial services firm said: "During our transition to Azure, we experienced a significant decrease in site support tickets compared to the previous on-premises environment. The reduction in support tickets can be attributed to the successful migration of our workloads to Azure and the subsequent automation of various integration processes. Users now encounter fewer manual errors as many tasks have been automated, resulting in improved accuracy and efficiency. While there may still be support tickets related to integration issues with third-party systems, these are not directly associated with Azure itself. The move to Azure has helped alleviate many manual errors and streamlined our support ticket process."

Modeling and assumptions. For the financial model, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• Before Azure, the number of requests for support submitted by employees is 100 per week. This is 1% of the total employee population.

• With Azure, the number of requests for support submitted is 65 per week in Year 1, 45 per week in Year 2, and 25 per week in Year 3. The number of requests decreases year over year because as more applications are integrated, the number of manual data entry errors requiring remediation decreases.

• Before Azure, the average time to resolve a ticket is 90 minutes.

• With Azure, the average time to resolve a ticket is 45 minutes, resulting in a savings of 45 minutes per support request. Remediation time is reduced because the monitoring and observability tools in Azure help to more quickly identify the root cause of the problem.

• The total number of hours saved by data administrators due to avoided tickets is 2,730 in Year 1, 4,290 in Year 2, and 5,850 in Year 3.

• The total number of hours saved by data administrators due to shortened error remediation time is 2,535 hours in Year 1, 1,755 hours in Year 2, and 975 hours in Year 3.

• The average hourly loaded cost of a data administrator is $65.

• Data administrators apply 75% of these efficiencies to productive tasks.

Risks. The impact of this benefit will vary based on:

• The number of data entry error-related support requests and the average time to resolution.

• The ability of the organization to integrate internally facing applications.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV of $654,200.

IT COST AVOIDANCE FROM ENABLING CITIZEN DEVELOPERSS

Evidence and data. In the interviews with Azure Integration Services customers, Forrester found an interesting dynamic between integration development teams and their business.

Integration developers designed and implemented integration solutions, configured connectors, mapped data fields, and defined data transformation rules using Azure Integration Services. They also ensured that data security, authentication, and compliance considerations were addressed. Additionally, integration developers created reusable components, templates, or APIs that simplified the integration process for citizen developers. Once the teams completed these foundational steps, citizen developers could build integrations using low-code/no-code platforms like the Power Platform, focusing on specific business logic and user experiences without delving into the intricacies of integration implementation.

Citizen developers could benefit from the work integration developers did with Azure Integration Services when building integrations using the Power Platform. By leveraging the capabilities and prebuilt connectors offered by Azure Integration Services, citizen developers could easily connect various applications and systems within their organization without extensive coding knowledge. They could utilize the Power Platform's intuitive low-code/no-code tools to design and create custom workflows, automate processes, and streamline data flows while relying on Azure Integration Services for secure and scalable integrations. This collaboration empowered citizen developers to rapidly develop and deploy their own integrations, which drove innovation, efficiency, and agility across their organizations.

• The lead integration architect at the energy company offered the following advice: "Compared to corporatewide initiatives that require data integration across systems, the Power Platform is primarily designed for individual use cases and personal automation. Finding the right balance between individual citizen developers and the enterprise integration team is crucial. While citizen developers can create their own personal integrations using tools like Power Automate, it is important to involve the enterprise integration team in initiatives that require proper monitoring, visibility, and support at a companywide level. The enterprise integration team offers additional services, such as centralized monitoring, issue response, and integration fixes, which are unavailable to individual developers. Both approaches have their place, and there is room for both in the integration landscape."

  The same interviewee expanded on this thought: "The time required to create these individual solutions varies. Business users can quickly connect components and achieve functionality. However, from a comprehensive integration perspective, we need to incorporate monitoring, issue checks, and proper documentation."

  The interviewee concluded: "In our integration processes, we adhere to a structured software development lifecycle, including change advisory board (CAB) approval, release cycles, and separate development, testing, and production environments. In comparison, such a disciplined approach does not exist for citizen developers who are most often focused on their own personal data analysis requirements."

Modeling and assumptions. For the financial model, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• Citizen developers delivered 13 individual integration projects in Year 1, 23 in Year 2, and 33 in Year 3.

• The number of projects increases yearly as more and more applications are connected each year.

• If an integration developer had handled the integration instead, they would have spent 120 hours per project building a complete integration with their standard agile approach compared to the one-off connection built by the citizen developer with Azure Integration Services.

• The average hourly loaded cost of an integration developer is $79.

Risks. The impact of this benefit will vary based on:

• The number of integration projects handled by citizen developers per year.

• The average time it takes for integration developers to deliver an integration project using their standard approach to agile development.

• The preparedness and ability of the IT organization to facilitate citizen development initiatives.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV of $474,500.

COST REDUCTION FROM CONSOLIDATING LEGACY SYSTEMS AND SOLUTIONS

Evidence and data. When implementing Azure Integration Services, the interviewees’ organizations replaced traditional on-premises enterprise service bus (ESB) and API management solutions. By leveraging Azure’s managed services and pay-as-you-go cost mode, they eliminated costs associated with maintaining the hardware, software licenses, and infrastructure related to these legacy environments.

Additionally, Azure Integration Services, with its support for various communication protocols and integration patterns, simplified partner integrations as it reduced the need to maintain multiple point-to-point integration tools and custom solutions. Interviewees mentioned cost savings from reduced licensing, development, and maintenance efforts.

Most interviewees had previously adopted multiple cloud-based applications and platforms. They said that the many required point-to-point integrations related to these applications had become complex and costly to manage. With Azure Integration Services, they could streamline cloud-to-cloud integrations by using prebuilt connectors and easy-to-use workflows, reducing the development effort and the associated costs.

• The AVP of engineering at the financial services company stated: “Previously, our integration processes relied solely on manual scripts for infrastructure automation, specifically for web server and middleware deployments. Our Java applications were deployed on-premises using web servers and application servers. However, we lacked comprehensive integration tools. As part of our migration to the cloud, we have decommissioned some of the servers that were hosting our applications. To compensate for the decommissioned servers, we have moved the logic and functionality of those applications into serverless functions.”

• The API practice owner at the insurance company explained: “We were looking for a cloud-based solution to address the limitations of our existing on-premises API management platform. We wanted to avoid the traffic going through an on-premises [system] before reaching the cloud, aiming for direct traffic flow to the cloud whenever applicable.”

  The interviewee added: “The switch to Azure APIM solved several challenges, including the need for a better developer portal, a cloud-based API management solution, and self-service capabilities for developers to manage their APIs independently. With multiple API producers and consumers, we wanted to unify our efforts using Azure APIM as a single, cost-effective service to address these challenges.”

Overall, the serverless nature of Azure Integration Services, which supports automatic scaling and simplified management, made it an attractive option for interviewees’ organizations to build integrations efficiently and with lower up-front and ongoing investments.

Modeling and assumptions. For the financial model, Forrester assumes that the average cost of consolidated legacy tools at the composite organization — and the labor hours to support them — is $145,000 per year.

Risks. The investments in hardware, software licenses, development, maintenance, and support can range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year or more, depending on the organization's previous environment and scale. The impact of this benefit varies based on the previous investment in traditional on-premises tools and solutions and on the following factors:

• The size of the organization.

• The complexity of integration requirements.

• The scale of operations.

• The specific vendors and solutions chosen.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 5%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV of $342,600.

INCREMENTAL REVENUE GROWTH DRIVEN BY DATA INSIGHTS AND SPEED OF INNOVATION

Evidence and data. Forrester learned throughout the customer interviews that their organizations’ integration projects followed a phased approach. They gradually rolled out new systems and focused on enhancing the integrations and the associated monitoring and error-handling processes.

Interviewees found monitoring and error handling were crucial for maintaining data integrity and reliability. As a result, monitoring and error handling have become increasingly critical aspects of integration. By focusing on these, the interviewees’ organizations could provide users and executives with consistent, accurate, and trustworthy data. This then facilitated informed decision-making and empowered organizations to focus on and swiftly pursue revenue-generating innovation projects.

• The head of global IT at the manufacturing firm said: “The integration has established a single source of truth for data across different systems. Having a centralized and reliable data source ensures consistency across the organization and enhances decision-making.”

Modeling and assumptions. For the financial model, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization's annual revenue is $3.5 billion per year.

• The incremental revenue growth from innovation and new services is 1% in Year 1, 1.5% in Year 2, and 2% in Year 3. This percentage increases year over year as more applications are integrated each year that offer the organization more insights leading to innovation.

• The incremental revenue that can be attributed to Azure Integration Services is 20%.

• The composite organization's operating margin is 14%.

Risks. The impact of this benefit will vary based on the composite organization's annual revenue and the speed with which the organization can innovate.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV of $3.2 million.

BUSINESS EFFICIENCIES FROM AUTOMATED DATA ENTRY AND VALIDATION

Evidence and data. Interviewees cited their organizations' focus on automation and integration as an enabler for employees to focus on more meaningful and productive work rather than manual data entry or integration processes.

• The lead integration architect at the energy company elaborated on how their team constantly received requests from the business for additional integrations and how they assessed the potential benefits of these integrations in terms of their potential to save time and improve end-user productivity, saying: "To quantify the value of these integrations, we evaluate the amount of manual effort by end users currently being invested and estimate the associated costs. For example, if 5 hours per week are spent on manual tasks, we calculate the annual cost of this effort. We then consider the value of reclaiming and redirecting that time towards more valuable work, such as strategic tasks or higher-level responsibilities."

  These integrations greatly enhanced efficiency and productivity across the organization by reducing manual tasks and streamlining data entry processes. When asked to quantify the efficiencies for end users, the lead integration architect noted: "The time saved by automating these integrations varies depending on the specific area. On average, we estimate that some users save around 2 hours per day by eliminating manual data reentry. For instance, one recent human capital management application integration has saved users 30 minutes to an hour per day in manual time entry."

• Explaining how automation has been a key driver in streamlining processes for end users, the AVP of engineering at the financial services firm said: “Automation has played a crucial role in our cloud migration journey. While we had some level of automation in our on-premises environment, transitioning to the cloud enabled us to achieve a higher level of automation. This has led to a significant reduction in manual tasks, especially in areas such as data entry. Users no longer need to manually input data into various systems because the processes deployed with Azure Integration Suite capture and process the information automatically. This automation has not only improved efficiency but also delivered a return on investment (ROI) for our company.”

• The lead integration architect at the energy company shared insights related to the organization’s success building fully integrated application systems into the IT landscape of a newly built facility in the context of their organization’s recent expansion: “When constructing the new facility, we prioritized automation to streamline processes and maximize efficiency. We embraced the opportunity to build a robust and automated system from the ground up, ensuring that efficiency and integration were integral to the facility's operations."

  The same interviewee added: "Since the facility was a new venture, we had the advantage of implementing integrations right from the beginning. The goal was to automate as many tasks as possible because we recognized the significant savings and benefits associated with automation."

Modeling and assumptions. For the financial model, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization has a total of 10,000 employees.

• The percentage of employees using integrated applications is 25% in Year 1, 45% in Year 2, and 65% in Year 3. This increase is due to more applications being integrated and available to end users each year.

• This results in a total of 2,500 employees using integrated applications in Year 1, 4,500 employees in Year 2, and 6,500 employees in Year 3.

• The amount of time each employee saves per day is 10 minutes. This reduction is due to spending less time entering data into multiple systems.

• The average fully burdened hourly cost of a clerical employee is $35.

• Clerical employees recapture 25% of these efficiencies for productive tasks.

Risks. The impact of this benefit will vary based on:

• The total number of employees.

• The number of applications integrated each year.

• The amount of time saved per day from reduced redundancy in data entry.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV of $3.5 million.

Unquantified Benefits

Interviewees mentioned the following additional benefits that their organizations experienced but were not able to quantify:

• Ability to easily find and onboard new hires. The head of product management at the utility company talked about the benefits of Azure being a widely used platform, “Due to the popularity of Azure APIM and the availability of resources that know the platform, it’s easier to find knowledgeable individuals and access relevant information compared to some of the other products in the market.”

  Another interviewee found that the onboarding process for new developers grew faster and more streamlined with Azure Integration Services, explaining that with the assistance of a senior developer, setting up access, security, and integration capabilities for a new developer could be accomplished within a few hours. This was a significant improvement compared to the longer timeframes required with their previous on-premises system. The head of IT at the manufacturing firm shared, "The efficiency of the Azure platform enables developers to quickly start working on integrations and reduces the overall time needed to get new team members up to speed."

• Robust security and compliance capabilities. One organization was able to successfully implement robust security measures, particularly in the areas of role-based access control and permissions. This proactive approach to security was beneficial, as the organization remained unaffected during hacking incidents that impacted other companies during the same time. The head of global IT at the manufacturing firm explained: "Our strict access controls ensure that only authorized personnel have production or development access within specific environments. Access restrictions are in place to prevent unauthorized actions, such as spinning up new virtual machines or environments, and to ensure compliance with established protocols."

  The interviewee added, “Security is a critical factor, and the Azure infrastructure provides a secure environment for deploying software in development, user acceptance testing, and production stages, which mitigates risks of breaches and system failures.”

• A low-risk project with the ability to extend capabilities gradually. Several organizations in the study leveraged Microsoft's blueprint for an enterprise-grade API management setup that they accessed through the Azure APIM landing zone accelerator repository. Interviewees reported that this allowed them to quickly deploy and implement the recommended best practices for API management, including firewalls, private endpoint access, and access to backend resources. From there, it was easy to scale up both the number of instances and the tier of service in Azure Integration Services, and they could easily upgrade to a production-grade environment.

• Elimination of data silos and better data accessibility. Several organizations in the study reported that the integration of systems with Azure Integration Services resulted in a significant improvement in the quality and consistency of data. Previously, data was often fragmented across different systems, leading to duplication and inconsistencies. In the current environment, teams around the globe now have access to a unified view of data that ensures everyone operates with the same parameters and information. This has eliminated data silos or the presence of duplicate customer records, leading to a more reliable and accurate understanding of the data. Overall, the integrations have brought about considerable improvements in data management and accessibility.

• Data as a source of knowledge and as the foundation for advanced analytics. One interviewee mentioned how other components in the Azure stack built on top of the capacities Azure Integration Services provided for their organization. This topic came up in the context of how the evolution of cloud systems has transformed them from transactional systems into knowledge systems. Organizations utilize multiple disparate systems such as CRM, ERP, and others, but seamlessly integrate them and enable knowledge sharing. This integration of systems also lays the foundation for advanced analytics, with Azure Synapse and Power BI Premium serving as key components for data integration and reporting.

Flexibility

The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement Azure Integration Services and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:

• Reliability in handling high transaction volumes. The head of product management at the utility company mentioned that the platform's ability to handle large traffic volumes and maintain reliability was crucial, saying: "The design of the system and our knowledge of it provides strong confidence in its handling of high traffic. Smart meters allow users to group devices and schedule specific hours for activation or deactivation. These smart meters generate a significant amount of data, with each meter producing around 100 transactions per day. With millions of devices in operation, the [integration] platform must be capable of handling this level of traffic and effectively intercepting any issues or failures. While the project has recently been launched and is currently in its initial phase, the expectation is that the traffic will increase over time.”

• Connecting IoT devices and historical data. One interviewee highlighted how Microsoft provided new capabilities that support business innovations their organization has successfully implemented. At the time of the interview, the company manufactured specialized technical equipment and was considering incorporating IoT devices into this equipment. By connecting the equipment to the Azure integration stack, they hoped to share historical data and enable customers to make informed decisions based on industry insights spanning several decades. This project, enabled by the integration platform, would facilitate valuable connections between devices and enable data-driven decision-making across various industries and locations.

• Upcoming developments in AI and high-level monitoring. The head of global IT in manufacturing said: “Microsoft allows us to conduct testing of new capabilities without worrying about production. We can explore different scenarios in Azure and assess their potential impact on our business. We are interested in upcoming advancements such as AI and high-level monitoring, both in terms of incremental and strategic enhancements.”

Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Appendix A).