Business growth throttled by systems that don’t talk to each other

In an ideal world, one enterprise information system would perform all the functions, configured exactly to the needs of the business that deploys it. In reality, however, a typical configuration of multiple, distinct enterprise systems fulfil 80% of a company’s needs and the rest are served by a mix of ad-hoc, in-house developed systems and spreadsheets.

It is the mark of a proactive management team if the organisation has developed its own information tools and systems that serve needs that are very specific to the company. These tools, due to their very design, are usually applicable to one organisation and may include spreadsheets and standalone databases that are often periodically and manually reconciled with data residing in the rest of the enterprise systems.

The problem with multiple systems that are not connected seamlessly or are not referring to the same data sources is that there is duplicity of data, problems with reconciling, and a lot of time is lost updating databases and the team does not know which data set to believe.

In addition, companies that are growing rapidly due to acquisitions, often find themselves facing the challenge of integrating entirely disparate enterprise systems, databases and protocols. While in the long term, the merged entity may take on a uniform system, immediately after the acquisition, the leadership teams at the acquiring and acquired entities would want to focus on uniform information flow.

A software layer that seamlessly integrates multiple enterprise systems is typically a more cost effective, rapid and efficient alternative to imposing new IT systems from the acquiring company. This integration of systems results in continuation of business as usual without huge disruptions, risks and costs associated with new enterprise system implementations.

The enterprise application integration project would then not only connect the systems of an acquired company with that of the parent company, but at the same time also create data connections that can seamlessly ‘talk’ to systems of other business partners such as suppliers, buyers, freight companies etc. This future proof solution can continue to be utilised should any of the underlying systems change or new acquisition take place in the future.

To find out more about the integration of systems, download our free whitepaper Muster the best of breed.