2016 has finally come to an end, and that means an opportunity for your IT teams to start fresh and do great things for the business in 2017. But where’s the best place to start? Here are our top 7 r resolutions for your teams to consider in the upcoming year.
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Don’t take security for granted.
High profile security breaches this year highlighted just how important security practices are when doing business. Don’t wait until the last minute to implement security best practices when delivering projects; consider implementing security by design.
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Close the IT delivery gap.
With the increasing demands on central IT to provide all kinds of new projects and services, along with the legacy maintenance responsibilities, it’s easy for project backlogs to get longer and longer. Why not think about evolving IT from a sole provider of digital initiatives to an enabler for rest of the business to deliver their own initiatives?
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Take a tip from environmentalists – reuse and recycle.
Instead of building every new project from scratch, you can use Anypoint Exchange as a repository for pre-built connectors, reusable assets, templates and examples so that developers building new projects can get them done more quickly and efficiently. As one architect from Coca-Cola told us, “By having Anypoint Exchange preloaded with reusable assets by Coke entities already using MuleSoft, new Coke entities can have the experience, lessons learned, prebuilt patterns and templates that they can use to significantly jumpstart their onboarding. This allows them to avoid mistakes, speed development, and reduce costs.”
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Make it easy to manage the entire API lifecycle.
You know all about the rising value of APIs to the enterprise, but when you’re considering how to build APIs, it’s critical to take into account the entire lifecycle of the API, from design to feedback to maintenance to versioning. Fortunately, MuleSoft makes managing the entire API lifecycle very easy; in fact, we’re a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for it.
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Have your purposefully built and designed APIs work together to create an efficient approach to connecting and exposing assets.
When your well-designed APIs are working together, it creates an approach to connecting assets called API-led connectivity that allows for efficient and fast production of reusable assets, and which enables their consumption to drive speed and innovation.
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Create a foundational architecture with API-led connectivity that allows your business to add new projects and make changes quickly.
Gant, a global retailer based in Stockholm, Sweden, realized that to complete all the projects deemed necessary to better serve their multichannel shoppers, they were going to have to first address their foundational infrastructure, which was, in their words, “very siloed.” They were able to make their infrastructure more adaptable with an API-led connectivity approach.
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Learn from your mistakes.
In 2016 we learned from a MuleSoft survey that even though 65% of IT decision makers felt on the hook for delivering digital transformation, only 18% were very confident they could actually deliver it. IT decision makers were frank about what went wrong with digital transformation in 2016; in 2017, we can look to organizations that successfully delivered digital transformation initiatives to make those examples work for all companies.
Unlike most New Year’s resolutions, with MuleSoft you actually have a partner who can help you keep them. Let us know if we can help you achieve your goals in 2017 and have a very healthy and prosperous New Year!
