Integration Upgrade and Data Visualization Shaping the Future of Business

Agility is a hard-earned virtue that warrants businesses to adopt a much leaner, more adaptive approach to growth within the global markets. So, when our client wanted to maximize integration capabilities, build an IT ecosystem aligned with growth and profitability, and prepare a value-driven, multi-year strategy to be in line with escalating business needs, we knew that we needed to create an innovative solution to deliver the right outcomes.

Snapshots

Challenge:

Obsolete integration solution created siloed IT systems; limited data insights resulted in ineffective decision-making; long development cycles for new reporting or dashboarding functionality led to poor ROI with no agility for meeting business needs in a timely manner; security loopholes left business operations on thin ice.

Solutions:

Implemented an upgraded
integration solution using the latest version
of Software AG’s webMethods suite;
deployed an intelligent dashboard solution
for efficient data analysis and business
visualization; implemented Software AG’s
ActiveTransfer to minimize external access
to file systems and servers

Benefits:

Improved efficiency; enhanced
scalability; ensured faster decision-making
and efficient service delivery; catapulted
growth; improved customer experience

Key Challenges

Agility relies on how effectively enterprises upgrade and optimize their IT systems to keep improving incrementally and meet business needs. However, our client’s journey to IT optimization turned rocky when their integration solution webMethods 7.x became obsolete. Limited capabilities of the existing solution impaired the system-to-service value loop, which further created gaps in service delivery value chains, slowed down business responsiveness, and impacted efficiency.
Another stumbling block was the existing visual analytics built on Dynamic Server Pages (DSP) technology, which created data dashboards/reports with poor readability scores. It only provided vague insights, hindering decision-making. Customization of these dashboards/reports was difficult, time-consuming and led to scalability issues.
Security was a sore spot. Internal file systems were directly accessible to external users through login credentials. This posed an extreme business threat in today’s climate of stringent privacy and secrecy laws.

Our client is a leading US supplier of gases, welding equipment and supplies, and safety products. With an employee base of 18,000+, a customer base swirling up to a million, and an annual turnover of a staggering $9.18 billion, combined with unified supply chains and a commitment to environmental safety, the company has singled itself out as ‘a dynamic, growth-efficient enterprise’ across the globe.

Our Solutions

We carried out an aggressive assessment of the integration platform and planned an upgrade by leveraging the best possible integration capabilities. The team implemented the latest webMethods integration upgrade sequentially across all webMethods instances in a span of three years, making it a game-changing middleware for the entire business. Our solution approach brought the entire integration landscape in tow. Our client achieved breakthrough agility, which empowered them to tackle a hit list of business requirements and grow at pace with the emerging markets.

We implemented an intuitive, powerful visual analytics solution based on Software AG’s MashZone NextZen, which facilitated analytical intelligence and decision awareness for our client. MashZone improved data capture from live information sources—transactions data, file transfer feeds, sales data, etc.—and combined them to deliver point-and-click operational dashboards for spot-on decision-making. Report creation and customization were also simplified and made on-demand.

Our implementation of Software AG’s Managed File Transfer (MFT) solution, ActiveTransfer, was instrumental in building strong defenses around file transfers and system access. The solution provided a smart security framework, which enabled external users to view and transfer files on internal file systems, without direct logins. We also deployed Software AG’s Command Central for facilitating maintenance, configuration, and troubleshooting across the whole product stack and servers.