It’s a familiar story for IT professionals. It’s also not a happy one. Even though IT is the critical backbone of every successful organization, that team typically is overwhelmed. Businesses ask so much of their IT teams because the demand for their time is so great.
Business users, who are focused on creating great integrated experiences for their customers, are always eager to move on essential projects. Whenever there is a delay, IT can be seen as a frustrating roadblock. Of course, the reality is that IT usually is burdened with managing a complex ecosystem of technologies, an ever-increasing number of time-consuming requests, and constrained by limited resources.
The situation inevitably creates internal tension, and the friction certainly doesn’t help drive the business forward.
So, IT must do more with less. And do it faster. Even during these uncertain times when it can feel like everything is changing daily.
How does IT become a difference-maker for the business? Speed.
IT professionals become heroes within their organizations when they complete essential projects quicker – and shorten the time to value. Focus on making every second count.
That’s the story we hear from Boomi customers. They tell us how our AtomSphere Platform has helped flip that unfortunate script. Boomi has changed IT’s reputation inside their organizations. Team morale has soared. They’ve become trusted partners.
Some even say we’ve made them heroes.
That’s because our AtomSphere Platform enables IT to complete projects faster, provide business users with easy access to needed insights, and prove their bottom-line impact. The result is a more collaborative, respectful relationship where everyone wins.
Recently, during a virtual Forrester Analyst & Tech Talk event and in a separate webinar, customers shared remarkable stories about how Boomi has been instrumental in raising IT’s standing in their businesses.
I wanted to briefly highlight a few of them and the role Boomi played.
Collaboration at Smartsheet
Smartsheet is a business collaboration software platform used by more than 75 percent of the Fortune 500 to simplify and streamline work management. One of Boomi’s primary use cases is automating the quote-to-cash process, said Lead Business Systems Developer Brett Lemoine.
Boomi now enables IT to turn around complex projects in just days. The platform also has created closer working relationships throughout the organization, Lemoine said. For instance, his team can now present business users with the visual workflows they’re building to provide requested data.
This way, everyone is on the same page and feels invested in a shared process.
“We don’t have to spend time creating diagrams and documentation that nobody is going to read,” Lemoine added. “It’s a very collaborative approach that reduces barriers between developers and business people. It’s pretty refreshing.”
Building Partnerships at Ergon
Ergon is a Mississippi-based, family-owned energy company with 65 business units operating in 60 countries. The oil-and-gas firm uses Boomi as a foundational piece for modernizing its IT strategy.
Boomi also has had a profound impact on how the technical and business teams interact. As our data integration platform decreased project development time, business users began to appreciate her team’s contributions more, CIO Jana Branham said.
“We can assist in solving their problems by getting the data to them much, much quicker, and they’re very excited about that,” Branham said. “We’re able to solve problems that sometimes they don’t even know they have. We have become a partner to the business.”
Greg Jordan, director of enterprise integrations, added that business users now bring the team into conversations sooner, looking for guidance about how they can plot a course of action to solve challenges – together.
“I have someone from the business walk by my office every week and say, ‘I have a question, and Boomi may be the answer,’” Jordan said. “And I’ll think, ‘How do these people even know what Boomi is?’ But they understand our ability to deliver faster using this technology, and they want a piece of it.”
State of Hawaii Game-changer
Hawaii’s Department of Human Services provides vital programs for about 450,000 citizens. Business Architect Mark Choi said his scrappy team faces the mammoth task of managing a diverse array of multi-cloud, on-premises, and SaaS systems for critical agencies throughout the state.
But it often was too much. Business users learned to work around them. IT was useful as a “help desk” for tasks like fixing computer issues – but not much more.
“The narrative around my team was that we were slow, we often said ‘no,’ and we couldn’t deliver on time,” Choi said. “We were becoming irrelevant.”
The Boomi AtomSphere Platform changed that view by giving Choi’s team the speed and flexibility needed to enable data to flow easily between systems.
“People came to two realizations,” Choi said. “One, we existed. And now we’re like the IT badasses because we went from delivering zero to delivering within weeks. That’s a game-changer for us.”
Choi added: “Our business users now know the name ‘Boomi.’ Wherever they discuss their business needs with us, they’re like, ‘Wait, I know. Boomi’s the answer, right?’”
An Empowering Culture at Zumiez
Zumiez is a popular staple of most malls. The global sports and lifestyle retailer has 750 locations in North America alone. Boomi’s low-code integration capabilities have enabled Enterprise Data Architect Matthew Nguyen and his small team to move faster even as the company has grown.
But something else unexpected also happened, Nguyen said. Boomi was the catalyst for an internal culture change.
“A key value for Zumiez is empowerment,” he said. “But it can feel hard for an IT team to feel empowered. You’re just going down the checklist of requests. With Boomi, we can do things incredibly fast and take risks. It’s really fostered innovation. It’s kind of like a snowball. It’s created trust in the IT team.”
For the first time, critical decisions that help shape the business include IT. The opinion of Nguyen’s team is valued. Also, business users no longer assume that outside vendors are required to solve challenging problems.
“All the wins keep ramping up, including ones I never even considered originally,” Nguyen added.
Building Lasting Connections
At Boomi, we live to hear success stories like these. We take great pride that our platform instantly connects everyone to what they want. It’s not just about integrating systems and devices. We connect the most essential business element of all: People.
More than 12,000 customers around the globe are building lasting connections with Boomi. Learn their stories here.