5 Simple Ways to Smooth Out Your Tech Integrations

Modern professional services businesses don’t just run on one type of software solution, they thrive on an ecosystem of technology that provides support for many different daily business needs. It’s no longer enough to simply create a project within a project management solution; organizations must also manage their resources in detail, organize the financial impact of every task, and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of their teams through business intelligence.

That may seem overwhelming at first glance, but it becomes more and more necessary with each passing year. The truly overwhelming aspect of it all comes from not having these software solutions properly integrated with one another. In new research from Kantata and Salesforce, which saw Forrester Consulting ask 383 professional services decision-makers about their challenges, 50% of respondents said they found it very challenging to integrate solutions in their current tech stack seamlessly to share relevant information across the organization in an accurate and timely manner. If that’s the case for your business, then the sheer amount of exporting duties and manual tasks needed to help your solutions inform one another to prevent contradictions in business processes and serious mistakes from occurring will keep your team from having the time needed to actually work on projects.

Great businesses run on a healthy ecosystem of software solutions. And great ecosystems come from effective software integration strategies. Are you looking to improve how you do business? The following 5 tips will help you smooth out your tech integrations and improve your day-to-day business processes.

1. Identify Gaps In Your Integration Capabilities

Do you have software solutions that simply can’t be integrated with other pieces of technology? Is this because they’re outdated, in need of major updates, or were simply never properly deployed? In any case, knowing where your tech stack shortcomings are is the first step in smoothing out your integrations. If you don’t know where the actual issues are, then you can’t solve them. When you’re done taking a complete inventory of your software and its integration capacity, you’ll need to determine if upgrading your solutions or completely replacing them is right for you.

2. Create An Integration Strategy Team

While some software solutions will have an easier time integrating with other technology, it’s vital to have a dedicated team for the process and its maintenance. This may consist of several people or just one dedicated manager, depending on the amount of software solutions and the size of your company, but in either case, having appointed leads is critical. These team members will communicate with representatives from the software provider and help other employees use the integrations correctly.

3. Document Your Integrations

With integrations come lots of necessary documentation about how data should be organized and how certain processes should be handled. In addition, any potential error codes should be thoroughly documented, which will help any users immediately understand what complications might be affecting their work. Even the best integrations will run into some hiccups and the solutions being integrated will be used by many different people at a company. As such, having your integration strategy team document the software will help everyone perform better.

4. Build Your Stack With Integration In Mind

It may be that your company is very early in creating its own technology stack. Whether that means upgrading current systems, buying multiple new pieces of software, or purchasing a new comprehensive piece of technology that provides an integrated tech stack on its own, you need to have integrations in mind before you purchase. With integrations informing your purchasing decisions, you won’t run into unexpected complications that can compromise your in-progress stack.

5. Use Solutions With OpenAPI Technology

OpenAPI is a publicly available application programming interface that provides developers with access to a proprietary software application or web service, specifically with a set of requirements that govern how one application can communicate and interact with another. When your technology uses OpenAPI, you can be more assured that your application will more easily integrate with other programs. Of course, the details of that integration will change from solution to solution, but integrations should happen more smoothly. When considering a professional services software solution, review if it uses OpenAPI and if not, what it offers instead.

Whether you have already implemented some or none of these practices in your company’s software solution network, continuing to strengthen your integrations will only result in less unnecessary work for your teams and better, more reliable results from your technology. When used together with strong business practices and experienced management, the sheer amount of useful insights and automated processes will improve your organization’s level of success in tangible ways.

Integrate Better, Perform Better With Kantata

The Kantata Professional Services Cloud is purpose-built to create an ecosystem that revolves around, integrates with, supports, and improves your unique needs as a company. Want to learn more? Contact Kantata today.