
Show me the integration.
About three-fourths of tech professionals say better third-party software integration is essential in raising their confidence to allocate spending on enterprise applications, according to a survey of 895 IT decision makers and influencers by Futurum Intelligence.
What is more, two in three want clearer demonstrations of how a software application can provide a return on investment.
“While features and functions, including generative AI and user-friendly interfaces, are quickly becoming table stakes for vendors, it’s clear that the ability to play nicely with other applications within the enterprise technology stack remains extremely important to technology decision-makers,” Keith Kirkpatrick, research director of enterprise applications at Futurum Group, who wrote the report, said in an interview.
The survey, which was conducted in the fall of 2024, offers a snapshot into the choices customers face over the price and functionality of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and other apps while assuring management they are prudent investments. At the same time, tech vendors offering agentic AI like Salesforce Inc., Adobe Inc. and ServiceNow Inc., are increasingly under “incredible pressure from Wall Street” to show customers are snapping up the new technology, Kirkpatrick said. Some vendors are considering consumption models in which clients pay for software as they use it.
Robustness of support offerings (63.7%) and software costs (48.2%) remain important factors in software budgets.
According to the survey, 31.1% of respondents said they typically use between three and five different applications, and 29.6% use between six and 10 apps. More than one-fifth of respondents said they deploy more than 11. More than half (56.1%) said their application technology stack blended applications developed in-house, while 43.9% said that they mostly bought apps.
Consequently, most organizations employ a heterogeneous technology stack that incorporates a mix of home-grown and purchased applications.
Furthermore, 62.2% of respondents said that they use an application platform supported by additional point solutions, and 24.6% said they use a best-of-breed approach to select software. Just 13.2% of respondents said they solely use a single vendor-supplied platform.
“Despite many vendors’ desire to have their customers migrate all of their software needs to a single platform, the reality is that vendors must support deep integrations with even their top competitors in order to attract attention and spend from customers,” Kirkpatrick said. “Vendors that play nicely with others ultimately will be well positioned to thrive in a market where automated AI agents that work across applications and platforms are likely to reinvent how work is done within and between enterprises.”