If you were to start a business today, would you consider business integration? But before you answer this question, you would probably ask, what is business integration?
Let’s get that out of the way, shall we?
Business integration is a way that brings together information technology, business culture, and business goals to enable them to work in harmony. The term refers to bringing all your software solutions and data silos together so you can derive better insights, create better marketing campaigns and improve processes and your bottom line.
Business integration is a driving force and a catalyst for business growth. Through business integration, organizations can influence people, technology and information, which enables them to remain competitive in an otherwise cut-throat business environment.
Ready to integration your business solutions like eCommerce platforms, CRMs, ERPs, ESPs, accounting software and more?
Let’s get you started 100% FREE!
On the other hand, business integration can occur when two or more businesses merge but that’s a story for another day.
Business integration is a good example of how information technology is being used as a critical function of business today.
It is good to understand that in the present time’s business integration is the best way to have your business grow faster and with a lot of stability.
Therefore in this article, we take a closer look at the top benefits of early solution integration how integration affects your business both positively and negatively.
Image Source: IT Chronicles
So, as a business owner, how does system integration benefit you or your organization?
First of all, having the right IT applications in place enables the company to run smoothly by designing ways for everyone involved to work well. This means increased productivity.
Image Source: Salesforce
So what are the benefits of integration?
Data accessibility becomes easy with the help of well-implemented system integration. With better availability comes accelerated business growth and better decision-making among the people in the organization.
Improved connectivity within a well-integrated business enhances communication between co-workers in different stages of production in the organization.
It also enables the various teams or departments in the organization to easily share information that was otherwise difficult to access, expensive, and time-consuming to sort out.
A well-integrated business that has excellent connectivity benefits immensely from increased productivity.
Picture this: if data can be accessed quickly, then communication and collaboration between departments and teams are greatly enhanced. It, therefore, becomes easy to put more time into production hence improved productivity.
On the other hand, if the data is not easily shared or accessed, then your employees will waste time on menial tasks and on looking for data. Hence reduced productivity.
Integration means the employees can now spend more time on essential tasks, therefore allowing the business to thrive.
If all the valued data of an organization is in one palace, then the employees will find it easy to access and share. Being able to see every part of your organization from one point makes work easier for everyone.
A business on its growth path is also prone to obstacles mainly due to an ever-changing business environment or dynamics.
But with integrated software in place, it becomes easy to solve such problems.
With all the available data at your disposal, you are also able to easily and accurately identify what products or services to upsell or cross-sell. That way, you will be able to hit your sales target more easily and in a sustainable fashion.
Early solution integration is cost-effective. It provides a single, easy way to use the system from which you can manage the activities of your organization from a central point.
This consolidation of company activities saves costs in terms of maintenance, the result is operational efficiency. Also, you get to apportion your money to more critical business needs.
Apart from reduced costs, a well-integrated platform enables organizations to employ secure protocols and encryption procedures plus other security measures in a more manageable way.
Image Source: Business Intelligence Best Practices
Can you imagine a system where the IT solutions are unintegrated? It is challenging to manage its security needs. Besides, it’s very cumbersome managing the security needs of each system separately.
Having a secure system ensures a protected business in terms of business and customer data.
Finding a good system integration provider can be a daunting task. But if you are sure of what you want and how much you are willing to spend to get your system integrated, then it’s not difficult at all.
So, what are the factors to consider when shopping for the right data integration provider for your industry?
Integration, just like any other business activity, is a huge investment. You, therefore, need a budget in order to deploy an effective and efficient integration system in your company. To make sure you have the right budget, you must be aware of what kind of integration will work for your business. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution with a fixed price tag.
Know what exactly you want your integration provider is capable of delivering and at what cost. Some reputable integration providers have different packages that fit different sizes of companies.
They can also tailor-make an integration solution specific to your needs and make sure it aligns with your overall business goal. If you are unsure of what you want, you can also try their free demos. This will help you get a feel of what to expect. For instance, you could try this free demo now!
When you go for a job interview, you will always be asked about your work experience. Under normal circumstances, the more years of experience you have, the better the chances of you getting the job.
The same applies to data integration providers. You must ask them how long they have been in the business, What are some of their achievements over the years and how they are going to use their expertise to make your systems efficient.
You should look for a service provider that matches your cost. Do not be in a hurry to pick the first vendor you find.
Sample two to three vendors and compare prices. Also, ask if they have any hidden charges. There is a tendency of vendors to give one quotation at the start only to change and start asking for money mid-project. At the end of it all, you realize you have spent much more than you had budgeted for.
So be clear from the start about how much it’s going to cost to have your system fully integrated.
Looking for a service provider who can identify and take care of cropping issues sooner than later is a plus.
This means that by the time they finish your project, you will have close to zero issues with your systems for a given duration before it needs servicing.
As a service provider, do they have a comprehensive customer support system? Are they available 24/7 in case your systems develop issues?
Also, ask for how long they are going to provide these services? You want to choose a company that has been in business for a long time and plans to stay this way. Otherwise, it will be a huge hassle to move all your affairs to the next provider.
How much control will you have over your data after the integration installation is complete? Is your service provider able to give you updates every step of the way?
A good service provider will give train all the relevant personnel and ensure everyone involved fully understands how the new system works.
Being able to monitor how the data migration easily and closely is important in ensuring the project runs smoothly and at a lower cost.
So you have finally decided it’s time to integrate, right? Well, apart from identifying the right integration partner, choosing the right integration tools is equally important. The right solution will ultimately help your business to grow.
Below are some useful pointers to help you choose the right integration solution.
The right solution for your integration project has to be accessible to everyone in your team. It also needs to be user-friendly. It should be cloud-friendly and with low overhead costs.
An easily customizable integration tool is every company’s dream come true. The fact that everyone can use the data from anywhere makes running of the company efficient and hence profitability.
Is the solution serving the immediate need of your business? Is it also designed to meet your future needs without too much fuss?
The answers to these questions must be yes. You see, a business needs to evolve with time. Therefore, you need an integration solution that can deliver today and in the future.
Since you will be moving and using data from different departments in the company, having an integration tool in place to make you do this with ease is a plus.
Take SyncApps, for instance, it can integrate the software your entire team uses today, bidirectionally. That way you save time, seamlessly sync all your data and, most importantly, stay productive.
It’s also easy to train your employees on how to use the new system if it’s less complicated to understand.
This is a very crucial point to note before you go out shopping for the right integration tool.
Do your homework on researching on the various vendors in your area and their reputation in offering integration services.
Familiarize yourself with some of their projects by studying some of their case studies as well as their subscriber stories.
How much will it cost you to install the integration tools? Buying vs subscription cost, running costs and other overhead costs that you may incur as a result of using the tools in your system. All these are important factors to consider when embarking on such a demanding project.
Image Source: GE Healthcare Partners
There is tough competition out there, so if your data is not secure, your business is also not secure. Data integration performance, governance, and security should never be left unattended.
Without a clear mindset on how to adapt and use the new system integration in your company, you will face challenges. For example, due to complications that may arise, your productivity goes down, and you make losses, or your data is compromised, and therefore you fall prey to competitors.
When you opt for system integration, your main goal is to have all your data in a central place. When you are unable to centralize it, you end up losing out in terms of productivity and profits.
Therefore to beat these challenges need the help of a smart data integration platform that will do the heavy work for you, enabling you to focus on important issues.
Having data that is not formatted correctly is another challenge. Also, deciding to format it manually can be very time-consuming. So how do you overcome this challenge?
By simply using data transformation tools that analyze the original base language, determine the formatted language, and rectifying it.
It is very annoying to wait for your system to give you important information when you need it.
So how do you ensure that this problem doesn’t cost you valuable man-hours?
Make use of an automated data integration tool. With this tool, you are assured of real-time data anytime you require it saving you recourses.
Lack of proper communication among teams is another major challenge in system integration.
You can solve this challenge by making sure that your integration vendor has put in place a solution that allows easy communication between teams.
Image Source: CIO InsightCIO Insight
The inability to produce high-quality data can be very devastating to an organization. It results in losses and destruction of company image. According to a report by Gartner, businesses are losing over $13 million per year as a result of poor data quality.
So, to avoid this problem, you will need to validate your data as soon as it’s consumed, monitor your data pipelines for errors before they become a big issue.
Duplicate data is bad for business. It makes it difficult to identify your customers, especially if your sales and marketing teams have the same contact in their system.
It also becomes difficult to make follow-ups since you are not quite sure if there’s been prior communication or not.
Image Source: Zoho
This is what you need to do:
For any kind of business interaction to succeed, you have to put the right integration strategy in place.
So what are some of the factors to put in place to ensure a smooth integration process?
However, even with the right strategy, you will encounter a few challenges along the way, which is to be expected, really:
Without the right plan, transferring data can be a very chaotic experience. And without the proper understanding of the kind of mobile policy, how data will be moved, and what sort of APIs will be used, you may suffer mismatch and repetition of files in your system.
This is where your third party integration provider comes in handy. They have the necessary experience and expertise to ensure not just a smooth transition but a secure one as well.
Integration is a difficult decision to make, especially when you don’t understand how much to integrate and how quickly to proceed.
Therefore, having an application integration strategy in terms of technology usage, integration platform, and integration architecture is very important.
Choosing the right technology can be tricky but with the right framework, you can achieve your goal.
Interactions fail most often because of the lack of the right people policy. The right people policy entails clear directives concerning employee training and transition to a new system.
Having the right people policy enables you to choose the right tools such as public APIs, connect with the best consultants and ensure continued post-implementation support.
At this point, it’s good to note that maintenance and support of the integration application is an essential part. However, most vendors and clients don’t bother asking about it. But it’s essential to have it in the strategy before getting into integration.
Without the right integration strategy in place, you are bound to face IT governance and policy issues. It’s essential to adopt a top-notch integration model that the integration is implemented in incremental levels.
Image Source: Software Testing Help
Most companies tend to choose complete cloud architecture or hybrid architecture.
However, existing and incremental architecture is the best model to use when looking at an app integration solution.
Also, remember that there are regulatory policies that you need to comply with and the document before integration takes place.
If not followed well, then the company may suffer a major setback.
There are a couple of things you need to get right at the very beginning. These are;
List the risks that you may encounter and how you intend to solve them.
A detailed company structure, assigning roles, and a clear roadmap of the full business integration implementation are fundamental to its success.
Also, list all the deliverables that are you will need after the integration is done to avoid confusion and chaos.
You might have all the data coming from all the right sources but if the quality is not up to scratch then it will not help your business. Poor quality data means missed opportunities, insights and even lost revenue.
Image Source: Hi-Tech BPO Services
Having the right integration system in place ensures that your data is cleaned and formatted correctly so that it can be used to make accurate decisions. Clean data also enables innovation, which is what helps companies grow and boost their revenue.
Poor quality data can also be in the form of duplicates. According to research, over 90 percent of companies acknowledged that there was some level of data inaccuracy within their data. The same survey also found out that over 92 percent of organizations admitted to having duplicate data.
As stated above, for system integration to succeed, a lot of factors need to be taken into consideration. Yes, the entire process can be challenging but the good thing is that with the right approach and expertise, you can achieve your integration goal.
This is definitely not something that you can do alone. It requires proper planning and buy-in from all the departments and management for it to succeed.
Finally, find the right integration partner to get the ball rolling. Their expertise and experience in data integration systems installation will enable you to get the most out of your data.
As a result, the company grows in terms of service and product delivery to its customers, and enhanced employee productivity.
