A simple CMS might have been enough when your business started. But as it grew, so too have the number of systems, technologies, and applications you use.

Now your tech stack has become a monster: your data is jumbled, your employees struggle to find what they need, and your customers are having difficulty navigating your systems. This is holding your business back from its true potential. How can we tame this beast? 

Through system integration.

What is Integration and Why is it Important?

Integration is the process of connecting separate existing components to form a unified experience.

Every day, businesses utilize varying technology to communicate with customers, partners, employees, and more, but bringing all this data from separate systems to create a seamless online experience is not an easy task, as these systems are often not built for each other. 

According to Scott Brinker’s Martech 5000, there are over 8,000 marketing technology solutions alone as of 2020. Consider how large this number becomes as you start including applications your support teams, IT department, sales representatives, and others across the company need to manage and maintain. 

Failure to integrate your tech stack will be costly and exhausting to handle. Your systems need a break, and so do you.

What Will Happen If I Don’t Integrate?

You might be thinking, “Our systems are running just fine now. Is there really an issue if tech stacks aren’t integrated?” 

But the lack of integration will only feed the growing tech stack monster, eating up resources from your internal teams and causing harm to your customers.

Internal Problems	External Problems
Misplaced or lost data	Repeat emails that confuse or irritate customers
Lack of focus and communication across the teams	Overlap of conflicting or wrong information
Resources overspent manually maintaining/upgrading systems	Delays in inquiries and feeling of neglect

 

In the long run, constantly trying to fix, maintain, and upgrade your technology to just “make things work” will inhibit your business from growing. Instead, integration can resolve your outdated and siloed systems and create a unified experience across the company. 

Benefits of Integration 

Tame the beast and unify your systems to not only run your business more efficiently but also provide better digital experiences. 

With an integration platform, like a digital experience platform (DXP), businesses are able to unite millions of data points across systems, equipment, and processes and derive actionable insights across the entire value chain, everything from product design to operations to customer support.

 

How Integration Reduces Costs

With a robust integration platform, there’s no need to exhaust resources to manage individual softwares and rack up unnecessary maintenance costs.

With a consolidated platform, businesses are able to leverage their systems to work alongside each other to provide more seamless experiences, instead of trying to spend money and resources trying to force incompatible technologies to get along.
 

Additionally, integration helps to reduce costs by:

• Providing clean, connected data in one place
• Increasing scalability of technologies
• Streamlining implementation of new technologies

With systems that are able to work alongside each other, your business can be equipped to provide a digital experience that can efficiently address customer needs in the ever-changing market.

How Integration Improves Efficiency

One specific way integration boosts productivity is by improving data accessibility, eliminating the need for employees to:

• Manually import data
• Share the same information across different systems
• Duplicate tasks

Consolidating your software into one cohesive platform can increase the productivity of your IT teams by freeing them to focus on higher prioritized tasks. Rather than spending time piecing together different information, they can now devote their time towards being innovative and efficient.
 

The Freedom of Integration 

Integration can be difficult, but don’t let routine or comfort keep you from growing as a company. Make the beast work with you, not against you. By integrating your systems, you’ll be giving the power back to your teams to operate your business efficiently and effectively. 

See what technologies can help your business bring technologies together.