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Integration has grown increasingly important as SaaS and IaaS become essential business analysis services. Cloud computing and big data have quickly become top priorities; therefore, integrating all systems together and processing information holistically to be considered big data solutions is necessary for the effective operation of businesses.
Benefits of Enterprise Application Integration
We will now focus on EYEs benefits and purposes. The pandemic today has prompted organizations to create interconnected systems that allow employees to access data anywhere, at any time.
A modernization strategy for enterprise applications simplifies collaboration and communication. It also reduces the number of data silos.
Systems that operate independently do not deliver the best results. Enterprise applications that are connected to each other can be used as a tool for increasing efficiency.
Has Many Advantages And Can Help Companies Perform Better
Business Process Simplification
- A strategy for enterprise integration combines processes to create a unified package. The IT process is simplified, and the infrastructure is connected in a manner that optimizes every step. Data is easily accessible, there's little waste, and the employees are able to connect with each other in order to reach their desired results.
- Likewise, the customers find it much easier to communicate with the different employees within the company. The system automatically routes customer inquiries to the appropriate department. Customers can reach their desired person without any hassle, while employees are able to better understand the processes.
Improve Application Effectiveness
- Enterprise applications can provide useful data to different departments. Integration of an app for product usage is one of the most effective enterprise integration examples. Integrating the app into the team's apps will allow for better insight and ultimately improve the result.
- When there is enough data, every team can make the best decisions to reach its goals and support its strategies. This is only possible if all Enterprise application development solutions are connected seamlessly, allowing data to flow freely.
Identify Opportunities
- Teams that are connected can identify new opportunities quickly. The sales team can identify up-sell and cross-sell possibilities if it has access to the correct customer data. The service team, meanwhile, can determine which customers require maintenance or support of their product. Integration of applications ensures that no opportunity is missed.
- Different stakeholders can control data with the enterprise application integration strategy. Everyone can reap the benefits of the same data. There are also opportunities for internal managers and employees to introduce a culture change in the company.
Make Better Decisions
- Although there are a lot of challenges to overcome, the results are well worth it. EAI can help you make informed decisions. Data quality is key to making positive decisions. When the CRM and marketing automation platforms are connected, this is one of the best examples of enterprise integration.
- The sales team will be able to decide, depending on their interaction with the Marketing team, whether or not to contact each prospect. The sales team can personalize their outreach and increase the chances that they will close the sale.
Better Employee Experience
- A better employee experience is another benefit of Enterprise application integration. Teams can work better when they don't need to jump from department to department looking for information. The EAI's centralized database architecture allows every employee access to data with no restrictions. Although authorizations will still be required, the access process is simplified.
- Employees can focus more on productive work when data is easier to access. As teams take responsibility for their actions, employee satisfaction will increase.
The 360-Degree Business View
Integrating business elements can provide a holistic view. Integration of customer data across multiple touchpoints allows for a comprehensive view of the customer's interactions with a business.
This includes multiple CRMs, customer sites, marketing channels, and physical offices/stores. Here is a successful example of an integration project.
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Domino's has developed a new marketing strategy after connecting CRM data with digital analytics. In the end, they saw a 6% increase in their monthly revenue and an 80% reduction in ad operation costs YOY.
Integration of order management with a customer support system allows Custom enterprise mobility development service to get up-to-date information on the customers, including their orders, activity patterns, returns, and more. This can be used by the department for better tailoring services.
It is much easier to create a long-term strategy for the development processes of a category when category managers have access to all information from centralized sources such as an inventory management system, accounting software, and vendor portal.
Alignment Business Processes
Connecting fragmented applications such as inventory management and vendor management can help businesses plan more accurately to replenish supplies or better manage their sales.
For example, they could raise the price to prevent an out-of-stock situation if the supply is delayed but demand increases.
Users Convenience
Constantly switching apps can be inconvenient and time-consuming and cause errors and duplication of effort. Integration of CRM with a document-management solution, for example, can make the lives of salespeople easier and improve their productivity.
When CRM is the primary tool used to work on a sale, sales teams can find similar information quickly (terms of service, scope of services, and cooperation models).
Modern Technology Offers More Possibilities
Integrating IoT and AI tools with core business processes is possible. You can also improve machine-learning algorithms by aggregating data from across the enterprise and making sure it is consistent.
Determine The Integration Level
You should first determine the kind of integration that you require. Your choice will be influenced by what you hope to accomplish with an integration project in the future.
Is It Important That Your Applications Use The Same Data Set?
Data integration allows applications to work independently with their own stores of data while also allowing them to reuse data from other applications if necessary to maintain data consistency throughout the company.
Would You Like To Reuse A Function Across Your Organization In A Beneficial Way?
By using shared business functions,some basic business functions can be shared (such as social security number verification, payment confirmation, etc.).
Reusable components can be used across enterprise applications in order to reduce costs, avoid duplication of functionality and simplify updates. Travelex, an internationally recognized provider of financial services, was able to reduce application development time and costs by 30% with the use of reusable components.
Would You Like To Implement A New Process Using The Existing Logic From Your Existing Applications?
By implementing a large scale distributed systems process, you can make use of existing code approaches in your existing applications.
The work of composite workflows can be coordinated by a separate component that manages integration, also known as the choreographer. By establishing links among vendor stock, shipping partners, and the retailer's own inventory, for example, retailers can give their customers advanced information on order status and shipping terms.
This type of integration helps increase the value and lower costs for app development.
Read More: What is EMM Market and Enterprise Application Development?
Would You Like To Eliminate The Need For Users To Switch Between Different App Screens?
Presentation integration allows enterprise apps to be displayed via a single interface to reduce errors and streamline work.
This choice of integration will determine the future architecture, communication patterns, and connection points for an integration solution.
Select The Appropriate Communication Style
Let's quickly look at the most common approaches for building integration to date - the old trusted shared database, the much-hyped service-oriented architecture (SOA), and the increasingly popular robotic process automation (RPA).
Database Sharing
One of the oldest options is to introduce a shared database and integrate multiple applications. In this case, several applications use the same data stored in a shared database.
For mid-sized and large companies, the estimated price of a project can range from approx $1 million to more than approx $10,000,000, depending on the solution's complexity and size.
Benefits:
- Data Consistency: is exceptional. All data changes can be accessed immediately.
- A Relatively Quick Response Time: There are no abstraction layers for the data to be passed through.
Limitations:
- Single Point of Failure: In the event that the database fails or stops, the applications connected to it will be partially or totally unavailable.
- Complex Changes: The changes made to the database must be synchronized with the other applications using it.
- Increased Security Risks: External applications can access the data directly.
- No Ready-made Product: Any platform-based applications, such as SAP ERP and Salesforce CRM, have their own database, which cannot be integrated in this manner.
SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture)
The SOA-based approach involves creating independent, agile, and reusable Web services. (Most often, these are SOAP or REST-based services).
A single system, such as an ecommerce platform, can be divided into a number of services that each perform a basic function. The interfaces of Web Services are exposed to other systems, such as marketing CRM.
The costs of implementing services are typically around approx $50,000. The ROI of SOA is largely determined by the frequency with which services are reused.
A business must carefully consider which business functions or services it wants to separate. SOA allows the introduction of new applications, modifications to existing services, and exposure to external systems.
You'll have to decide between the two most popular methods of SOA integration - enterprise service bus and point-to-point integration - if you choose SOA integration. We'll look into the specifics.
Integration Point-to-Point
Direct communication between services is possible:
Benefits:
- Integration: Is relatively fast and simple, especially when there are few services that need to be coordinated.
- More Flexibility: The system has more flexibility because of the abstraction level added (API).
- Low Cost: The cost for point-to-point integration can start as low as $3000 when minimal customization is required.
Limitations:
- Scalability Problems: The services are closely coupled, and any addition to the system requires changes to the APIs for all previous components which use the data of the new one.
- Use of Standard Protocols: The loosely coupled interfaces must follow a consistent format for data exchange.
- Vulnerability To Overload: A service may be overwhelmed by the increasing number of requests and lack resources to carry out its tasks. Every message is addressed to only one person, so every call that's interrupted will cause a loss of the message.
- Complex Maintenance: With five integrated services, you have ten connections that need to be maintained, and with nine services, 36. It is difficult to maintain efficient design environments with 15, 20, or 100 integrated services.
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
The integrated services will communicate via a central mediator in this scenario. The integration server is responsible for all communication and takes care of message enhancement and routing, as well as transaction management, process choreography, and security management.
Special adapters enable applications to communicate directly with the integration servers, transforming or translating the data of the messages (e.g., XML into JSON, JMS HTTP, XML into JAVA objects).
Pricing for ESB implementations is very diverse. Open-source ESB solutions are available for businesses to use at no cost.
The costs in this scenario will be limited to support (either internal or commercially available) and outsourcing. Commercial ESB is another option. The cost of a 16-core, one-year ESB license (including support services for the core) can range anywhere from $25,000 to $180,000, depending on which vendor you choose.
Microsoft BizTalk is one of the most widely used commercial ESBs. Others include Oracle ESB, IBM WebSphere ESB, Mule ESB.
Benefits:
- Resistant to Load: The messages do not depend on their specific recipient, allowing for failover and load-balancing.
- Reinforced Security: ESB protects services against unauthorized access by using authentication, authorization, encryption, and tokenization mechanisms.
- Scaling: Quick updates are possible without rewriting all APIs, as is the case in point-to-point integration. Updates are only required for the adapter of a service that has changed.
- Integrating Legacy Software: The components do not have to use modern protocols such as REST and SOAP. This is something that older software often cannot handle.
- Support is simplified due to the increased transparency and visibility of the requested journey.
Limitations:
- Possible Total Freeze-up: similar to a shared database, the stopping of ESB could paralyze all enterprise mobility solution provider IT structures.
- License Costs for Middleware: may be significant in complex systems.
Automated Robotic Process (RPA)
Software robots are able to mimic human actions, such as typing and clicking or copying data between applications.
This can automate up to 45% of all business processes.
RPA pricing begins at approx $10,000. Research indicates that RPA software represents only 25%-30% of the total cost.
Benefits:
- There is no Interference Implied: No programming or changes to existing applications are needed.
- APIs are not Required: The integration is done at the interface level.
- Rapid Implementation: A RPA solution is available within a few weeks.
- Rapid ROI: Case studies on Robotic Process Automation estimate ROI of 30% to 200% within the first year following implementation.
Limitations:
- Problematic Changes: Any minor modifications in the application. The robot will need to be adjusted.
- Application Limited: Only standard business processes that have clear triggers and where the robot productivity is higher than human productivity can RPA be used.
Combining Several Methods
Rarely does a communication pattern cover all connections required in a complex business environment. Businesses usually have to combine several integration methods.
A group of services, such as shipping tracking and rate-route services, can be connected directly. As a whole (a module for shipment management), the modules share a common interface that allows them to answer questions from other systems/modules, such as order processing and customer service.
Eliminate Potential Integration Risks
If you are serious about making integration a success, there are many things that must be considered. To achieve a fail-proof integration formula, you will need to do the following:
Ensure Data Quality
Data quality problems are common with integration solutions. There are many reasons why this is the case, including:
- Incompatible data structures are used by integrated applications.
- The wrong data can be transferred from one system to another (where they may have been manually entered).
- The data can be copied.
While traveling through the different layers of integration and applications, data can get lost or be damaged.
Poor-quality data can lead to wrong decisions, damage the customer's experience, and process interruptions. For these risks to be avoided, you should implement mechanisms that ensure data transformation and validation, create compensation events in the event of failed or incomplete transactions over a long period, and design your data structure so it is flexible for adding new fields and tables.
Consider implementing common data models, like the CDM, across your entire company, especially if there are employees who have both the knowledge of the business and the essential skills of data modeling.
Information Security Is Important
Information is easier to access when it's integrated into one system. When granting direct access to data from other systems, you should be selective and cautious in order to prevent any security business issues.
Integration often involves remote communication over the network. This poses grave privacy and security concerns. Consider using additional encryption methods, as well as implementing security policies, access controls, and proven authentication protocols.
Plan Your Comprehensive Quality Assurance (QA) Activities
Due to new integrations, decoupled processes, asynchronous messages, and time-driven and event-driven transactions, there is a potential for failures and errors.
Working with different languages and protocols is required to test an integration solution. The existence of legacy applications may complicate the creation of a shared testing environment. Multiple stakeholders are also involved (for example, business partners or vendors who provide a packaged product).
The QA process may require the participation of multiple stakeholders (business partners, vendors, or packaged solution providers).
For these partitioning issues, you need a continuous testing team with experience in integration projects. They should have a good understanding of middleware and enterprise integration patterns, as well as a complete knowledge of the integration architecture and design.
Before integrating applications, a QA team and testers should ensure that they work correctly in separate silos.
Testing should include checking all bi- and unidirectional queries, ensuring the transactions are complete, approving the handling of exceptions, and confirming the failure over/recovery mechanisms.
Performance Testing also deserves attention. A component with low performance can affect the entire integrated system.
Testing should be done to ensure that the architectures and technologies chosen are able to guarantee the performance of every component.
Conclusion
Integrating applications is an efficient and time-efficient way of cutting costs associated with standalone apps, eliminating data discrepancies, and using comprehensive information to streamline business processes.
EAI works best as part of an organization-wide effort that unifies department efforts by linking applications together in order to produce business results and produce greater data connectivity for decision-making purposes. Companies seeking improved data decision-making capabilities as well as connected networks often prioritize EAI as one key strategy for increasing decision-making power and creating stronger organizational connections and should prioritize enterprise mobility management software development application integration as part of their organizational strategy.
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Get a Rock Star Integration Solution:
- Start by defining your integration goal.
- Choose which applications you want to integrate.
- Take into consideration the available communication and integration models. Components.
- Attention to increased performance and security risks.
- Assure enterprise-wide data quality.
- Ensure that QA activities cover integration processes in full.
