Running a modern business of any size is a complicated matter. Even small-scale businesses utilize tens of thousands of business, marketing, and operational applications.
These applications should work in tandem to achieve the results that are most important to the business. Business integration attempts to accomplish this by connecting and enabling members of an ecosystem to function as one whole.
The right design is crucial to an effective business integration. In many cases, an integration is created using a code style that makes it hard to alter the design. This type of design error can result in a system that’s difficult to maintain and manage, and also costly to run.
In the past, business integrations were predominantly focused on integrating IT systems and software such as CRM and ERP solutions. This kind of integration, referred to as application integration, is usually accomplished with APIs or other tools to facilitate the connection between systems. These types of integrations tend to be restricted in their scope and often require a team of dedicated technical managers in the field to maintain and manage these integrations.
The crucial element for modern business integration success is a holistic approach that focuses primarily on the integration of business services. This is accomplished by mapping the necessary business services to the proper technology. It also involves the creation of the necessary components for integration, including connectors and data mappings. A thorough testing and deployment process is also required in a controlled environment. Following that, a monitoring process and optimization process is put in place to ensure that the business integration is able to meet its objectives.