17 Sep

iPaaS Market Segmentation and User Personas

by Philip Stander

in Blog

Comments

About the author

Philip Stander

Philip Stander has been in the ICT industry since 1993 in various software architectural design, development and management roles. He has a passion for Systems Integration and lived (and endured) the evolution of Systems Integration architectures through multiple decades, mainly in the Telecommunications Industry vertical.

He lives out this passion in Globetom, a company he co-founded in 2002, aided by a talented team of highly skilled professionals. Philip holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and a Master’s Degree in Chemistry which he obtained Cum Laude, as well as a Master of Arts in Leading of Innovation and Change from York St John University which he obtained in 2015.

LinkedIn Profile

Introduction

In this blog, I discuss the different iPaaS market segments and where Globetom’s Orcha iPaaS fits.

Why do you need an iPaaS?

Systems Integration has evolved from Spaghetti (point-to-point) Systems Integration architectures through the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) architecture era, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), Microservice Architecture (MSA), to modern-day Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS).

Suppose your organization is still performing point-to-point integration or using what is now officially legacy J2EE-based integration platforms. In that case, you will experience significant technological and strategic drift, and you may find that you are not agile enough, or at least not agile with associated cost efficiencies, when expanding your integration landscape.

The main drivers for iPaaS adoption in any enterprise are:

Commoditisation of Systems Integration Tasks:

Any organization engaged in building new digital models requires systems integration agility. When adding partners to digital ecosystems, seamless system integration is crucial for successfully onboarding partner products and services, as it cannot become a bottleneck in the fast-paced digital world.

A global move towards composable enterprises:

Companies are less inclined to acquire large monolithic applications to support organizational business functions but are instead looking for best-of-breed components that are orchestrated and/or choreographed into integration patterns in unique ways that provide organizational differentiation as opposed to Systems of Record acquisition.

Increased cloud service adoption and hybrid cloud architectures:

As organizations turn increasingly to cloud services while, at the same time, becoming hyper-scalers (or at least scalers) in their own right.

Microservice architecture leverage:

Microservice architecture with the need for orchestration and choreography of these microservices into reusable business services.

Despite all these drivers, many organizations are still faced with spaghetti / point-to-point systems integration architectures that paralyze or, at the very least, seriously inhibit their ability to build new digital business models.

Modern iPaaS platforms are sold on the premise of delivering agile systems integration functions with a lot of self-help tools to commoditise complex systems integration functions.

High-level segmentation of the iPaaS market

Gartner segments the iPaaS market into two main segments:

Enterprise iPaaS platforms:

These platforms are classified as Enterprise integration platforms owing to a comprehensive suite of critical capabilities. A Gartner Magic Quadrant exists for the Enterprise iPaaS market.

Domain-specialized iPaaS platforms (DS-iPaaS):

These iPaaS platforms deliver industry-specific specialized functions that Enterprise iPaaS platforms cannot provide out of the box.

Globetom’s Orcha iPaaS is a DS-iPaaS for the Telecommunications industry vertical. Our Telco DS-iPaaS positioning is founded on the TM Forum API standards. Globetom holds certifications for nearly all TM Forum Open API standards and is a global leader in delivering and integrating these API standards. Globetom has Diamond certification status from the TM Forum. Our iPaaS is delivered with at least 55 certified API implementations to support API-first implementation and integration initiatives.

Does that mean that we cannot supply Orcha iPaaS in other industry verticals? No, we deliver Orcha iPaaS successfully across various verticals. An example is Orcha iPaaS deployments, which serve as an AWS cloud-native solution for integrating and processing airline reservation and passenger handling data pipelines.

iPaaS User Personas

Gartner identifies several distinct personas that are primary users of iPaaS capabilities. Globetom has utilized this foundational customer segmentation to ensure that we deliver appropriate DS-iPaaS offerings to the market.

The Citizen Integrator – Data Scientist

This iPaaS user persona is concerned with data science within the organization. This user persona is therefore focused on establishing an Enterprise Data Warehouse, Data Lake, and Data Marts, as well as unlocking business value from both organizational and external data.

The Citizen Integrator – Digital Ecosystem Builder

This iPaaS user persona is concerned with building and integrating partner ecosystems to support new business models and digital transformation within organisations. They are typically interested in API-first and Integration-first architectural models for exposure and consumption of REST APIs at scale in support of Digital Service business models.

The Ad-hoc Integrator

This iPaaS user persona is typically a line-of-business owner in an organisation, concerned with delivering on business projects that require systems integration tasks to be completed on time to meet go-to-market timelines. These personas typically challenge the pace of delivery of the adopted Enterprise Integration Platform in larger organizations.

The Enterprise Integration Specialist

This iPaaS user persona focuses on the overall integration operations of the organisation, encompassing internal Systems of Record integration, as well as integration with customer and partner channels. Inevitably, the Enterprise Integration Specialist oversees integration operations that support the delivery of System of Record functions within the organization, where higher levels of control and standardization take precedence over integration agility.

The Digital Integrator

This iPaaS persona leverages AI to facilitate complex integration ecosystem decisions based on iPaaS governance data and appropriate Large Language Models and Machine Learning. The AI facilitates actionable intelligence about the integration ecosystem or makes autonomous decisions based on Machine Learning outcomes.

What makes an iPaaS a DS-iPaaS?

An Enterprise iPaaS provides a comprehensive suite of critical capabilities, which we will cover in subsequent blogs. While these capabilities enable a comprehensive suite of highly usable functions to build integrated ecosystems, this category of iPaaS platforms lacks proof of deep industry vertical specialization.

DS-iPaaS platforms typically focus on specialised industry vertical solutions, often at the expense of the broad spectrum of critical capabilities that mainstream DS-iPaaS platforms deliver. DS-iPaaS platforms, therefore, catalyse solutions in the industry vertical in which they are specialised and enable differentiation. This specialisation differs from general-purpose Enterprise iPaaS solutions, which require more professional services effort to establish a viable integration platform in a specific industry vertical.

Can an Enterprise iPaaS evolve to become a DS-iPaaS?

Yes, this is possible as a product-focused onboarding of industry vertical specialised functions may result in the Enterprise iPaaS adding industry specialisations as add-ons, e.g., as Packaged Integration Processes (PIPs).

Can a DS-iPaaS evolve to become an Enterprise iPaaS?

Yes, provided that the industry specialization is added as components and microservices that can be readily removed from the DS-iPaaS implementation, rendering only the industry-agnostic critical capabilities.

What makes a DS-iPaaS a Telco DS-iPaaS?

This question has many facets and will be a dedicated subject of a future blog. Globetom’s Orcha iPaaS is a Telco DS-iPaaS for the following reasons:

Telecommunications Integration Critical Capabilities

The Telecommunications Industry Vertical has unique characteristics, including a multi-faceted product, service, and resource portfolio that is continuously evolving. These characteristics result in complex, multi-step integration orchestration and/or choreography services for product order fulfillment, to name just one example of process complexity. Telcos are experiencing growing integration transaction volumes as they race to the bottom on one hand and introduce new digital service models on the other to enable new revenue streams. The growing volume and complexity of integration mean that redundancy, high availability, and low-latency transaction processing are non-negotiable characteristics of a Telco DS-iPaaS.

Telecommunications Industry Specific Capabilities

A Telco DS-iPaaS must possess critical capabilities in support of integration solution enablement that are unique to the Telecommunications Industry Sector.

Open Digital Architecture Support Capabilities

Every Telco is on a unique journey to transform from a traditional Telco to a Techco, i.e., from a Communications Service Provider to a Digital Service Provider. A DS-iPaaS must have unique characteristics to support this transformation.

Summary

Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) has evolved from legacy integration architectures to modern cloud-based solutions that enable agile and cost-efficient system integration, critical for digital transformation and ecosystem building in enterprises.

Evolution of Systems Integration:

Systems integration has progressed from point-to-point and legacy platforms to modern iPaaS, addressing agility and cost efficiency challenges in expanding integration landscapes.

Drivers for iPaaS Adoption:

Key drivers include commoditization of integration tasks, the shift to composable enterprises, increased cloud adoption with hybrid architectures, and leveraging microservice orchestration.

iPaaS Market Segmentation:

Gartner divides the market into Enterprise iPaaS platforms with broad capabilities and Domain-specialized iPaaS (DS-iPaaS) platforms that offer industry-specific functions not available in general Enterprise iPaaS.

Orcha iPaaS Positioning:

Globetom’s Orcha iPaaS is a Telecommunications-focused DS-iPaaS based on TM Forum API standards, certified for extensive API implementations, but it also serves other verticals like airline reservation systems.

iPaaS User Personas:

Identified personas include the Citizen Integrator (Data Scientist and Digital Ecosystem Builder), Ad-hoc Integrator, Enterprise Integration Specialist, and the Digital Integrator AI Bot, each with distinct integration needs and roles.

Distinguishing DS-iPaaS:

DS-iPaaS platforms specialize deeply in industry verticals, enabling tailored solutions with less breadth than Enterprise iPaaS, though both types can evolve by incorporating or shedding vertical specializations.

Characteristics of Telco DS-iPaaS:

Telecommunications DS-iPaaS must handle complex product portfolios, high transaction volumes with low latency, and support transformation to digital service providers, reflecting unique industry integration needs.

iPaaS Market Segmentation and User Personas