Planning Stages

Most businesses use some type of management program to streamline things. Whether that be a simple Customer Relationship Management (CRM), a more intuitive Professional Services Automation (PSA), or an end-to-end Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, your company relies on software to get the job done.

Today, there is an opportunity to mix your business' production software--whether it be communication integration, file sync and sharing, another form of back-end integration, or a customer-facing application--with your management platform. Planning an integration like this can have big benefits, especially if you are beginning to use analytics to help you make critical business decisions. After all, the whole point in integrating your various business components is to make data flow better.  

The main hurdle to accomplishing this is, of course, how do you go about getting this done? If your organization doesn’t have on-staff developers, outsourcing your integration project quickly becomes your only recourse. If you are going to pay someone outside your company to connect your proverbial pieces, then you need to have an idea of what you want to accomplish ready when you start the relationship. It is essential that the outsourced developer knows your needs, and that you provide them with tools and access needed to complete, and thoroughly test, the integration. Most simple integrations can be done cheaply, and can provide massive returns on your investment, while larger integrations may not see the immediate return, but over time can provide massive cost-and-time-saving benefits.

Integration Benefits

Speaking of benefits, we’ve already touched on the main benefit of software integration: Unimpeded data flow. Integration can also result in:

• Cost savings
• Increased end-to-end efficiency
• Organizational growth
• Improving business with no downtime
• Enhanced business analysis and intelligence

According to one study, small businesses that build a completely integrated suite can boost sales by upwards of 12 percent, reduce overhead by increasing inventory reporting, and increase revenue-creating situations by almost 50 percent.

If your organization has seemingly tried it all to boost productivity and efficiency, you may be missing out on a great way to improve both, while also providing a way for businesses to better plan for the future. Do you think that integrating your business’ software will help your business? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.