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Modern technology has revolutionized traditional business systems and companies around the world are transitioning to digital solutions to improve work efficiency. However, multiple branches of operations within an organisation can sometimes make it difficult for various systems to work alongside each other. Systems integration is the key to bringing together different modules and making them work as a single unit.
What is systems integration and why is it important?
Digital transformation alone doesn’t guarantee success, especially when every business operation has an independent system. Look at it this way: You are a business owner with various departments in your organisation. You implemented accounting software seven years ago in your finance department. Four years after that, you decided to digitalise your supply chain management system and now you are considering introducing a new system for your sales department.
While each software system is independent, there are areas of risk due to double capturing into the various systems. Systems integration allows the data flow to be optimized across an organization, so there are no gaps and information internally and externally with customers/suppliers can flow freely. This can be within ERP systems, CRM systems, client-facing systems or any software a business uses.
Benefits of Systems Integration
Here are some advantages of using an integrated system compared to one that is disconnected and unorganised.
1. Enabling automation
Automating business processes is an integral part of a business’s digital transformation. An integrated system ensures that relevant and correlated data is aggregated from all subsystems. This helps facilitate data flow channels, making it possible to automate and streamline processes ultimately.
Automated operations improve productivity, increase performance and reduce operating costs. It also ensures the availability and reliability of business data.
2. Increasing efficiency
When the different departments within an organisation are disconnected, it means that a change initiated by one subsystem has to be manually updated by the others. An integrated system helps a business achieve greater efficiency by eliminating the need for repetitive manual data entry and reduces errors, but also allows for normalised data that can be reported easily.
Hence, an integrated system makes the workforce more efficient and productive.
3. Saving costs
Repetitive manual tasks can take up considerable time and resources. An integrated system enables the business to cut back on the unnecessary costs relating to duplicate capturing. In addition, once you have an integrated system in place, upgrading it with the latest technology is less expensive. You can simply integrate the new system into the previous one to make it work harmoniously.
This way, you can save money that would otherwise be spent on implementing a new system from scratch, and it can also save the time required for staff training for using a brand new system.
Conclusion
Looking at the fast pace at which technology is evolving, we can expect many changes in business operations and systems in the coming years. For an organisation to retain its competitive edge, it is crucial to stay on top of technological advancements. Systems integration is often required to harmonize the flow of data across a company.
