One of the many struggles every growing company faces is choosing the best system to manage its business operations. At first, buying several stand-alone tools may seem cheaper and more effective than purchasing a complete software solution. As a consequence, a company uses several different applications that do not cooperate, making it impossible for employees to work effectively and for the company to prosper.
To stay competitive, a business can purchase off-the-shelf software, develop a custom solution to meet their exact needs, or integrate all of their existing systems and use them as one, saving not only money but time as well. However, time is not the only advantage of systems integration. If you want to discover how having your systems integrated can change your business, read on.
What is systems integration?
There is no better way to explain what system integration is than to describe it as the combination of various independent components so that they function as a whole. If your company uses several different systems or software, connecting them into one without losing valuable information can help you beat your competitors. Not only is it smarter to use one system instead of several, but it also ensures more accurate results.
What problems can using multiple apps cause?
Choosing various components instead of having a complete system developed can be a good thing to start your business. However, this solution is no longer profitable for evolving businesses. When you find that you need more tools to handle more processes, purchasing new components is cheaper, but it's also very detrimental to your organization. Using multiple apps instead of one results in:
- Inefficient data management: Storing data in different places is not only dangerous but also makes it impossible for your company to analyze it properly. Collecting and managing data manually from multiple systems will give you incomplete results.
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- Wasted worker productivity: Although your employees might be tackling their next tasks, they're stuck with data entry in every single app your business uses. Missing hours of work makes them too tired to remain productive and properly handle their upcoming responsibilities.
- Customer churn: When you face issues with data flow, you are unable to meet the demands of your customers.
Advantages of system integration
Systems integration is crucial for any business to succeed. It ensures seamless data connectivity and reduces error propensity, improving both an organization's internal workflow and market prospects. Having all your systems integrated into one helps your business achieve:
- Improve real-time visibility: Basing decisions based on outdated information can have dire consequences. When your reports on performance across sales, finance, and service departments aren't integrated, it takes hours to manually acquire this information, which may still not be accurate. Over time, some companies stop collecting and analyzing your data to focus on other tasks that take less time and hurt your business at the same time. Constant data connectivity ensures that all your employees are well informed and base their decisions on adequate data, which can be accessed from anywhere and at any time. System integration minimizes risks and allows you to make critical decisions based on accurate information and not on your instinct.
- Process efficiency: When it comes to employee productivity, you can benefit from integrating your systems in two ways.
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- Increasing the productivity of your employees: They can finally focus on their actual tasks instead of manually entering data into every subsystem the company uses.
- Limiting new hires: Now you can work on the quality of your team and not its size. Having your systems integrated and most processes automated help you reduce the need to hire new employees and, together with your existing team of qualified and experienced specialists, you can focus on more important and challenging tasks that can help your company grow and evolve.
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- Increased sales: Integrated systems have a huge impact on your overall sales. Data connectivity in all your areas is a great way to increase your results for two reasons:
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- Your customers: For example, running an online store requires you to give customers constant access to most of your data. This allows them to see if what they are looking for is available to buy and how soon they can receive the product. Inaccurate data can introduce chaos while the integration of your systems makes the checkout process simple and easy.
- Your employees: excellent customer service is one of the crucial factors that will help you beat your competitors. The regular flow of data allows your workers to address all queries immediately and meet customer needs, as the team has constant access to all information.
- Collecting valuable data: There is a reason why data is so popular today and it is because it allows you to analyze every decision you make in the company and detect every mistake. Having data centralized in one place not only provides more accurate results but also saves storage space on your computer. Every change is entered into the system automatically, which eliminates the chance of incorrect analysis and saves many hours of work.
- Cost savings: After integrating your systems, cost reductions can be achieved at every stage of all your processes. However, the biggest increase in profits is the result of making better and more accurate decisions, with greater agility. By automating some of the tasks, you and your team can focus on winning new customers and developing new skills that will help your business grow.
In short, system integration is a great way to keep your business competitive. It will help you meet the needs of your customers and better manage processes. In addition, it allows you to analyze what you could be doing wrong and what is preventing your company from being successful. Without automation, it is almost impossible to get accurate data. Having your systems integrated should no longer be a problem. Are you ready to integrate your systems?