LogicShark: Creating Value Through Digital Transformation

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LogicShark

Rick Macartney, Vice President and Principal EIM Strategist & Robert Kraai, Chief Technology Officer, LogicShark Rick Macartney, Vice President and Principal EIM Strategist & Robert Kraai, Chief Technology Officer
Today, digital transformation is not a long-term goal—it is happening now, in a very Darwinian fashion. For businesses swaying in the middle of their digital transformation journey or others that chose not to plan and commit to it, the COVID-19 pandemic is a clarion call for change. With evolving customer demands, limited in-person interactions, and remote employee needs, the pandemic has shown that organizations are no longer sweating over the “why” but the “how” and “when” of their leap to digital. Even the digital laggards are taking the plunge to keep up with the leaders. A recent IDC estimate reveals, “Direct digital transformation (DX) investment is growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.5 percent from 2020 to 2023 and is expected to approach $7.1 trillion as companies build on existing strategies and investments, becoming digital-at-scale future enterprises.”

In the “new normal,” organizations must reorient their strategies around digital transformation quickly while managing complexity and driving competitiveness to thrive. For successfully achieving digital transformation, companies need a strategy that includes careful technical planning, infrastructure investment, and operations management alongside the integration of mission-critical platforms through which their data and documents are available, accessible, and usable. The question is, “how to get started with a clear digital strategy that can make a digital transformation initiative successful?” As organizations ponder over the possible ways, digital transformation specialists like LogicShark are clearing the air with a definitive answer—leave it to the experts

“We believe that EAI is a core enabler of any successful digital transformation initiative, but there is more to it. And our methodology is designed to address it all”

As experts in enterprise information management with extensive experience in Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), LogicShark is changing the game for companies that are ready to embark on their digital transformation journey. From strategizing digital transformation to integrating mission-critical platforms and consolidating data/content, the professional services-led organization has the experience and expertise to drive significant results. “We specialize in delivering content-centric business process solutions that drive revenue growth and cut costs while enabling organizations to better serve their customers and market. Our core focus is on helping our customers achieve their digital transformation objectives through strategic planning and platform integration,” states Rick Macartney, Vice President and Principal EIM Strategist at LogicShark.

The Beginning Chapters

Since 2002, LogicShark has been delivering excellence backed by a team of experts from a diverse set of backgrounds. The company came to the fore as an enterprise content management service provider at a time when the ECM market was still maturing. ECM platforms were starting down the road to being accepted as a necessary part of the technology stack for companies. Over the years, the focus for LogicShark shifted from installing and configuring ECM platforms to integrating ECM into mission-critical business processes and line of business systems. “We learned early on that the ability to integrate with a robust business process management platform is crucial. Our ECM experience extended into software integration experience as the need for creating content-centric business process solutions continued to increase,” explains Macartney.

We specialize in delivering content-centric business process solutions that drive revenue growth and cut costs while enabling organizations to better serve their customers and market

With each of the implementations, LogicShark continued to add capabilities to its library of solutions, such as encryption and compression, along with added support for new APIs, protocols, and databases. As the library evolved over time, the company productized it as an enterprise application integration library in 2012. When approached by its first licensed client, a healthcare software provider that needed a solution to identify records spread across their numerous line-of-business applications, LogicShark realized the need to transform its library to a platform. Since that time, the company has added the ability to integrate with SAP, OpenText, SharePoint, as well asother enterprise platforms. In its latest release, LogicShark has added the capability for a fully configured data connection and application user interface, which allows presenting content from multiple data sources on a single user interface (UI) screen. The easy data aggregation and universal interface generation capability elevates the software to function as a low-code application development platform (LCAP).

Seamlessly Creating an EAI Solution Architecture with Comprehensive Platform

LogicShark works with leading LCAPs, like Tibco and Mulesoft, but it also has its own platform, the LogicShark Connexion EAI Framework, for customers looking for a more economical solution. Designed to simplify the creation of an EAI solution architecture, clients can quickly and easily integrate their ERP, CRM, ECM, and other legacy lines of business applications into the LogicShark Connexion Framework for them to function as one enterprise platform.

As a multi-tiered application development platform with a layered architecture, the LogicShark Connexion EAI Framework contains a collection of microservices, containers, and APIs available at every level.

The bottom layer is the platform services layer with the interfaces or connectors that enable LogicShark to retrieve and store information across a variety of platforms and protocols. The company plans on adding enterprise technology systems focused on education technology software while also managing numerous enterprise content management solutions, including SharePoint.

The application configuration layer in the middle includes a system data model and a database that houses the internal settings and parameters that allow the framework to function.

At the service level, LogicShark offers a collection of services that provide specific functions that an application will likely need, such as encryption, event handling, authorization, and transformation—all available via well-defined APIs.

At the process level, the framework consists of engines that provide process orchestration alongside a user interface generator that creates application screens and forms on demand.

The LogicShark Connexion Framework provides all this so that application developers can leverage these capabilities to develop applications quickly and easily, as is evidenced by their ETL and COVID-19 Attestation applications, both built on the framework. For example, the recently developed COVID-19 Attestation mobile application allows school districts to assess and track the COVID-19 status of their faculty and students in real-time. The app presents a series of symptom screening questions, allowing users to affirm whether they are COVID-19 symptom-free or indicate the current symptoms they are experiencing. LogicShark has been at the forefront of helping school systems transform digitally through the integration of leading SIS and LMS systems with ERP, ECM, and HR applications.

LogicShark’s completely functional, modifiable, and configurable ETL tool provides the ability to consolidate platforms and retire obsolete applications while making the information they hold more accessible from enterprise platforms. ETL services deliver large-scale efficiency by automating the continuous stream of archiving, migration, upgrades, configuration, environment synchronization, and business operations activities associated with an ECM platform like OpenText or SharePoint. Besides, the LogicShark Connexion ETL functionality successfully addresses the challenges associated with operationalizing a digital transformation strategy.

Make the Move to Digital

According to Macartney, CIOs are being asked to play a larger role in driving business strategy because of the need for digital transformation. The need to find new and innovative ways to better serve customers has been driven to the point of urgency by the pandemic. Meeting customer needs and generating fresh revenue streams calls for efficient access and utilization of data floating around in an organization. And while LogicShark understands that, they also understand that it takes more than technology to make a digital transformation initiative yield results. A well-defined strategy ensures a plan of attack that incorporates a company’s culture so that organizations have an idea about how a new technology will take root in the company, how it will be received, and what its overall impact will be.

With its digital transformation strategy and roadmap engagement service, LogicShark helps organizations craft the vision for their future, supported by a set of clearly defined transformational initiatives serving as the lens for staying focused on what must be achieved. The company understands the impact that the transformed business will have on the existing employees and accordingly creates a portfolio of prioritized projects that include change management. “This serves as the roadmap to keep the initiative on track. We leverage our EAI experience and LCAP technology to deliver processes that achieve the transformation imperatives identified during the strategic planning process,” says Macartney. “We believe that EAI is a core enabler of any successful digital transformation initiative, but there is more to it. And our methodology is designed to address it all,” he adds.

Ensuring Excellence through Experience

Robert Kraai, CTO at LogicShark, asserts that digital transformation is not a trivial undertaking. As such, the company tends to hire individuals with a strong IT and customer service background. Not to mention, LogicShark’s team of expert consultants comprised of former CIOs, COOs, CKOs, and IT Managers holds extensive collective experience to assist clients with every aspect of digital transformation. “We look for people who are self-sufficient, confident and are not afraid to voice their opinion both within the company and to our clients. We strongly believe that following these principals has enabled us to find people that our clients value and are a good fit in our corporate culture,” he explains.

The pandemic has driven the need for digital transformation services and LogicShark is well positioned to turn a negative into a positive. The company has increased its employee strength, added new clients, and continues to deliver on its software product roadmap.” While 2020 has been a difficult year for everyone, it has afforded us a tremendous opportunity to leverage our experience and help our clients adjust. We are on track to emerge from 2020 as a better company with a stronger ability to serve our clients in the coming years,” concludes Kraai.

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