The value of integrating your business data
As technology is changing and businesses look for new models to provide new revenue and value-producing opportunities, data integration solutions have become an essential element of business innovation. These solutions can be applied to many different use cases, regardless of what kind of business model we are looking at – having a unified view of the combined data of all systems, instead of trying to navigate with several blind spots when seeking out information, brings many benefits.
For businesses operating without data integration solutions, it can be a tedious manual process to add new datasets to already existing ones to have a full picture of all the data contained within an organization. It is not only a time-consuming course of action, but one that poses many risks, such as information or process errors that can lead to ineffective decision making, therefore affecting the company’s overall performance.
The value of integrating business data can be approached in many different ways, as the benefits go beyond financial advantages – while those can certainly be a result of all benefits combined, by affecting all areas of the business. It is an opportunity that directly leads to businesses becoming more efficient, more competitive and able to make better decisions, both on a short and long-term basis by supporting transparent communication across all departments and significantly mitigating risks.
Accelerating productivity and efficiency
With all industries across the world becoming more fast-paced, being able to deliver information in real-time is essential. Businesses need to be able to adapt to changes, regardless of where they originate – changes with customers, changes in the market or even regulatory ones –, and in order to do that, they need to have insight into the progress of all of their departments, at any time, without any delays.
Data integration allows this to happen in a way that lets the company recover much quicker from any errors or disruptions, whether it happens within its value chain or comes from an external source.
Having good data management is important for any business, regardless of its size – if they use more than one system to cater to their daily tasks, data integration can bring tremendous benefits to their efficiency. Most companies use lots of applications, systems or data warehouses, and it is vital to have these connected so the information they contain can be accessed in a single place in real-time. Systems integration supports changing environments, improves data management and can accelerate delivery and value creation.
It reduces costs by eliminating potential process errors across the company’s entire value chain and leads to better time management and improved productivity across all business aspects.
Reducing risks
Making decisions largely depends on having access to good information, and separately handling and processing different datasets can lead to decisions based on information that has become outdated by the time it is being reviewed. It is difficult to have a complete view of data when it is scattered across different sources, and the time and effort it takes to process everything puts more pressure on the business and its performance, as employees will be forced to reduce the time they can spend on their most essential activities and remain productive.
The use of siloed datasets can cause many setbacks in the company’s processes, both financially, as well as efficiency-wise. Data and process errors that aren’t recognized and treated on time lead to bigger costs, as well as the risk of harming the company’s relationship with its stakeholders.
Better and more effective communication across all systems gives the chance to avoid issues that might arise from different sets of data being inaccurate by the time they are needed the most, thus avoiding unnecessary financial and human efforts being spent on damage control, not to mention the unforeseen long-term consequences that each issue may lead to.
Improving competitiveness
Across all industries, customers are becoming more sophisticated as their expectations are adapting to the newest and most advanced trends on the market. This is a natural progression that all businesses need to adjust to, and data integration gives the perfect tool to make it as seamless as possible by letting companies fully focus on areas of improvement for their customer experience, instead of complex problem-solving in ways that could have been avoided.
Having an effective data integration tool allows businesses to not only focus on survival but future success as well, especially in such a fast-paced and unpredictable environment as today’s economy. Faster response, better intelligence on operations and more informed decisions mean providing better customer service and customer experience, which is a key element in remaining competitive, and an essential part in growing a company’s value.
