There are two ways to look at integration:

Integration is a cost: poorly planned system procurement and development means that we carry the technical burden of multiple applications with overlapping concerns. Data must be replicated between systems in order for them to function. The mechanisms we use to perform this replication are decided by individual projects and as a result we have a hotch-potch of hundreds of interfaces, in different languages, using different tools, realtime, batch and manual re-keying.

Or,

Integration is an opportunity: no single application does what we need to run our organization. No application is an island, so it behoves us to make integration a core competency. By externalising data, processes and events, by making those capabilities addressable from the outside, we can develop and maintain a platform that allows us to build our unique organizational capability on top of our choice of commodity or best of breed applications.

We've seen many examples of these two views and often within the same organization. We'd have to admit the "cost" view is far more prevalent than the "opportunity" view.

But the winners are the organizations that take control of their integration. These organizations recognise that individual applications don't bring much value in themselves. Instead true value comes from the way they use the applications—the way that applications integrate, collaborate and work together to provide end-to-end business value.

At Deloitte Platform Engineering we firmly hold the view that integration is an opportunity. We know that a sophisticated attitude to how you use your information systems is a necessary enabler in a complex information landscape. Deloitte Platform Engineering doesn't just do integration for its own sake. We routinely build distributed business solutions that become strategic assets for our customers.

But we feel that our current message doesn't really do justice to the work we deliver. So we're planning to broaden the conversation beyond just middleware, message buses and ESBs. These elements are all important foundations, but they don't tell the whole story.

Over the next few weeks we'll round out the conversation. Introduce you to the higher levels of our solution architecture and introduce you to some new friends.

The work that we do is dynamic, challenging and excitingly diverse and we'll enjoy showing you more.