MuleSoft Digital Connect part 1: Here comes everybody

This year has so far been anything but usual, and unfortunately, not in a good way. However, as many of the speakers pointed out during MuleSoft’s Digital Connect, amidst the crisis comes inspiration, motivation and innovation to help shape a new normal that, if possible, will be better than before. In line with the spirit of the event, in this blog we bring you the most inspirational, motivational and innovative highlights from the day (and don't forget to have a look at part 2: The value of integration).

Ross Mason, founder of MuleSoft, in his keynote shared his vision on how companies can emerge more digitally agile through this crisis. He talked about the idea behind ‘here comes everybody’ and how the current situation has created a sense of urgency that was not there when originally conceived. Before the crisis just 3% of the workforce worked remotely. Right now it's about 88%, but when we go back to the new normal it's estimated that 30% of the workforce will still be working remotely.

The premise of ‘here comes everybody’ is that organisations become software driven and all employees become digitally independent, have access to data and can self-serve to go further, faster on their own. For this to work it requires a mindset shift, from thinking about delivering projects, to enabling other people deliver projects across the organisation, whether its Marketing, Sales or Customer Service. This means IT needs to provide access to digital assets, enable self-service capabilities across the organisation, provide comprehensive training, and develop the guiding principles on how processes and operations need to change to accommodate the new normal which is that more things will need to be done remotely. According to Ross, the opportunity amidst the crisis is that companies will become more proactive and IT will become an enabler of innovation across the whole organisation, with everybody enabled to move much faster and with more confidence.

 IT spends over 80% of its time integrating instead of innovating

1. How do I quickly unlock data and integrate systems to deliver on the critical time sensitive projects my businesses need today?
2. How do I do this in a way that actually increases speed and agility so I can respond faster and more efficiently to the ever-changing needs of the business?
3. What investments do I make to set my team and my business up for success and growth?

Lindsey explained that integration is really hard and all too often the number one reason that new initiatives fail. Traditionally organisations integrate by writing a lot of custom code as an easier or faster path forward, but the reality is just the opposite. Custom code is actually the enemy of speed and agility. It is brittle and rigid, with only a few people understanding how it is built. This creates bottlenecks, drives up costs, slows down time to market and takes a toll on long term operations, risk and security.

Businesses across every industry need a new approach to integration now more than ever, continued Lindsey. An approach that turns your data and processes into modern building blocks, purpose built for re use and consumption across your organisation. Modern APIs wrap, standardise and secure data sets and capabilities far better than custom code, creating building blocks that can be exposed, discovered and reused by others across IT and the organisation. Reusable APIs accelerate project delivery, speed and innovation.

Shaun Clowes, SVP at MuleSoft, talked about the three main focus areas of innovation for MuleSoft for this year:

1. The first is to make creating building blocks and new apps easier for every developer.
2. Second is to increase productivity. By applying the intelligence of the application network to make complex things simple you'll be able to automatically combine data and capabilities from building blocks across the entire application network with a single query without writing any new code.
3. The third focus area according to Shaun is to give everyone the means to create new connected experiences by composing with building blocks in a governed way.

During this year’s Digital Connect, there was a lot of talk around the power of Salesforce and how MuleSoft Anypoint Platform can unleash this power. During the session ‘Unleash the power of Salesforce’ we were presented with a very amusing but realistic example of a customer’s journey to Muleyland! What this example achieved was to demonstrate the joint innovation of Salesforce and MuleSoft in building truly connected customer experiences. The main areas that the two companies are currently investing are:

1. The API Community Manager built on Salesforce community cloud it helps customers transform developer portals into personalised digital experiences that promote API products and increase engagement across API ecosystems.
2. MuleSoft accelerators for Salesforce that help joint customers implement critical integration use cases for Salesforce faster and easier than ever before. These connectors are in Anypoint Exchange.
3. The third focus area brings Tableau into the mix and how together, MuleSoft, Salesforce and Tableau, can help companies create an end-to-end data strategy.

More from Digital Connect at MuleSoft Digital Connect part 2: The value of integration 

If you would like to find out more about how you can leverage API-led integration and Anypoint Platform to drive digital enablement and innovation, we can help. Give us a call or email us at Salesforce@coforge.com