Why Your Growing Business Needs to Integrate Its Applications

Modern businesses of all sizes use a vast collection of applications to meet their needs. But these systems don’t always integrate, leaving employees to move data manually.

The simple solution is to integrate these disparate systems.

If you’re ready to scale your business processes, then you need to integrate your systems. To inspire action, here are 10 benefits of integrating the systems in your growing business.

1. Better Data Access

If you use multiple systems within your business, that means that you have multiple data siloes you have to manage (and that puts you at a huge disadvantage). Finding documents and information becomes a time-consuming nightmare.

Integrating your systems combines these data siloes, giving you better access to your data.

2. Real-Time Data

Without connected data streams, you have no way of getting real-time reporting. Instead, you typically need to wait at least a day for employees to run and combine reports. As a result, you’re put into a reactionary position instead of a proactive one.

Gone are the days when you felt in the dark about your business performance.

Integrated systems transfer data in real-time into a single data dashboard that allows for quick reporting and data interpretation.

3. Single Customer View

Removing bad and duplicate data is the only way to get a single customer view in your organization. With integrated systems, you’ll remove irrelevant data points and capture a more accurate view of your customers.

4. More Sales

With a better view of your customers and accurate reporting, you can better serve your customer needs.

From more engagement to cross-selling services to more accurate promotions, you’ll know what your customers want and you’ll be better positioned to deliver on those expectations.

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5. Save Time and Money

Manual data entry is the bane of an employee’s existence. No one enjoys staring at spreadsheets, waiting for data to populate, and being held responsible for manual entry errors.

It’s not fun.

Integrated systems remove the need for these menial tasks, giving your employees more time to focus on what really matters. Best of all, you’ll need fewer employees to manage these tasks.

That means you’ll keep your business lean and scalable without overworking your staff.

(We’ve saved our clients 1000s of hours with integrated systems.)

6. Improved Work Culture

Burnout happens because employees feel like they have to work harder and hard without making any real progress. Meanwhile, mind-numbing tasks like manual data entry and finding documents pile up, leaving them scrambling to find time to focus on high-level tasks.

If this happens for a long period of time, your employees will give up and move on. After all, inefficient systems are one of the main reasons employees quit.

By integrating your systems, you’ll reduce your employees’ workload (and turnover). They’ll be less stressed. As a result, they’ll have more bandwidth to focus on tasks that can grow your business. This will make their work feel more meaningful and improve the overall work culture.

7. Avoid Costly IT Expenses

Legacy systems are problematic. But, they’re often costly to replace, and training new employees on new systems are time-intensive as well. if you’re currently tied to your legacy systems, integrations help you extend their life.

By connecting new applications to your existing systems, you can keep up with market changes and customer demands with the features you need to stay competitive. (Without breaking the bank.)

8. Data Forecasting

Integrated systems provide cleaner data. And cleaner data opens the door to better data forecasting. With connected applications, you’ll have the power to make better predictions that can give you the edge and position your business for continued success.

9. Reduced Bottlenecks

Inefficient systems mean more slowdowns. From communication delays to siloed data, the ability for a large organization to act quickly with disparate systems is greatly reduced.

Integrated systems break down those bottlenecks and reduce the need for unnecessary back and forth. This results in greater efficiency across your organization.

10. Improved Data Security

Spreadsheets aren’t secure. Even if they’re password-protected, anyone with access to that password can access all of your customer data. All it takes is one missent email or an employee to click on the wrong link, and you have a major data breach on your hands.

Integrated systems remove the need to use spreadsheets to capture data. Instead, your sensitive information is collected into a secure database.

What Is Systems Integration?

Systems integration is the process of connecting disparate data platforms to form a larger, functioning system that provides a single source of truth for a business with cleaner data.

Most application platforms focus on optimizing their offerings and don’t prioritize their platform’s ability to connect with other applications. Whether you have a custom application for your business or an off-the-shelf solution, this can leave you with two disparate data streams.

This data does not move between systems. Instead, employees have to manually pull the data and collect it (usually in spreadsheets). This manual data entry and transfer process are error-prone and time-consuming.

Systems integration solves that problem by using application programming interfaces (APIs) to connect the two systems. APIs are basically bridges between different platforms that allow information to move seamlessly between them.

Building APIs from scratch usually has a high initial investment. However, they tend to pay for themselves in cost savings over time. Luckily, low code application platforms like Workato and Quickbase make it much easier for users to rapidly build custom integrations for much cheaper.

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Why Data Integration Matters

Data integration matters because you cannot compete in this digital age without accurate, real-time data sets. Anything less than that has you acting on impulse and intuition.

Neither lead to regular, predictable business success.

Instead, with the benefits of data integration, you’ll better understand your customer, prospect, and the shifting digital landscape. As a result, you can make impactful decisions that amplify your success and take your business further.

Best of all, you’ll keep your customer data protected, reducing unnecessary risks to your business. And you’ll reduce menial data entry tasks in your organization, saving you time and money while drastically improving your work culture.

What Most Businesses Get Wrong About Data Integration

Most businesses take the wrong approach to systems integration. They don’t build a proper roadmap to improve their workflows. As a result, they waste time and money integrating the wrong platforms first. Worse, they build solutions that aren’t sustainable.

The key to successful data integration is to move your data from siloes into a streamlined, single data repository. And to do this in a way that yields the highest ROI without minimal interference with the day-to-day operations of your business.

That’s no easy task.

However, by working with an integration specialist, you can avoid the pitfalls of data integration and streamline your systems faster (and with less of a headache).

Integrate Your Business System Faster and Cheaper

At Quandary Consulting Group, our process consultants can help you improve your workflows and systems by building custom applications and integrating your disparate systems.

Always within budget. Always delivered on time.

See how we've helped our clients improve their businesses and get insane ROIs by checking out our case studies below.