An Expert's Take on Dilbert and Data Integration

For over 30 years, IT professionals have witnessed the little, satirical, and surrealist moments of their professional lives reflected in the daily comic strip Dilbert. The main character Dilbert is a white-collar office employee who navigates the ins and outs of daily corporate politics and satirizes the micromanagement of his superiors. Even three decades later, the humor remains relevant for readers. We at Kitepipe really like this exchange about integration - led by the clueless Wally.

Yes, even Dilbert finds himself in situations where his integrations go awry, or his peers underestimate the difficulty of some integrations. While he hasn’t dealt with a Boomi integration issue yet, Dilbert’s integration issues are something every integration expert at Kitepipe can relate to. 

The Kitepipe experts thought they would help Boomi users (not to mention Dilbert himself) understand some of the Dilbert integration comics in order to shed some light (and some humor!) on how to navigate some of the issues Dilbert is facing.

Wally Lays Out the Importance of Integrations to Dilbert 

DILBERT © Scott Adams. Used By permission of ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION. All rights reserved.

Few understand the humor, frustration, and integration knowledge that Dilbert integration comics better than Kitepipe CEO Larry Cone. Larry sat down to offer his interpretation of Wally’s integration rant.

Question: What’s the misunderstanding Wally, Dilbert’s co-worker, is trying to explain? 

Answer: Integration is complicated. Kitepipe are integration specialists and knowledgeable customers know that the quick path to business values is engaging with integration experts like Kitepipe. Because we work "way up here in the integration layer!"

Question: How do the processes described in the first panel assist in achieving greater business velocity? 

Answer: Although written ten years ago in 2010, Dilbert here captures the transition going on in modern enterprises. A better description today would be that Boomi implements the integration interface between applications, some in the cloud, and some on premise.

Question: Are integrations as important as Dilbert’s coworker, Wally, is making them out to seem? Or is it more complicated than that? 

Answer: Wally has it right here! As organizations move their business processes to best of breed applications in the cloud, these applications must exchange transaction and master data.

Question: The comic strip is suggesting that non-integration experts undervalue integrations’ roles in business flow. What is Kitepipe’s opinion on the message of this comic strip?

Answer: We see this every day. Customers implement a new system or application and belatedly realize they had not thought about integrating with their operations. In the modern enterprise, integration is a key part of everything from onboarding new employees to processing ecommerce orders.

Move Over Wally, Kitepipe is Here to Save the Day 

While Wally may flaunt his integration work in a way that’s a bit more—dare we say— comical than our consultants would be, he’s right on the money about integration complications. You can’t just read up on Wally's "integration layer." To improve the speed and effectiveness of integrations, you need to get an integration consultant.

Learn more about Kitepipe’s consultants and integration services here.