What Is Integration & Where Is It Heading?

February 8^th, 2021

Remember back in 2010 when Apple trademarked the phrase “There’s an app for that”? Well, over one decade later, there are a lot more apps for “that.” Technically speaking, and in line with the legalities of the phrase, the App Store has significantly grown in size. From a technology perspective, business applications, systems, software, and solutions in general, have exploded to the point that it’s hard to keep up.

If only it were as simple as browsing an all-inclusive marketplace—one that’s specifically tailored to your business needs—and pressing ‘Get’ so that the application (or whatever else) is seamlessly installed and ready for use. This would eliminate 99.9% of the integration-related complications businesses are facing today. Realistically speaking, that’s a far-fetched dream. Instead, businesses are in a constant position of playing catch-up, continuously confronted with new technology to add to their already toppling stack. Even more, the XaaS (Anything as a Service) model is locking businesses into an increasing number of monthly contracts, all of which must be regularly evaluated to make room for bigger and better things.

Want to skip ahead to the conclusion? Start reading from The Future of Integration

Building Your Technology Stack

Every business has to begin somewhere, and that starting point is typically the foundation that dictates all major IT initiatives moving forward. In other words, every business has a core (or multiple cores), which is more often than not an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. But as a standalone investment, a core system will never support all business-critical activities out-of-the-box. Instead, it has to be enriched with both internal and external applications and additional (often third-party) software. This creates a whole web of disparate systems and scattered data.

That’s where integration comes into play—but we’ll get to that later. First off, there’s a long list of solutions that, like an ERP system, have the sole purpose of managing day-to-day business processes. The thing is, everyday tasks vary greatly from one business to another. Thus, the solutions available in the market today reflect a broad range of business needs. So aside from an ERP, which solution(s) do you need?

Here’s a list of common back-end systems and a brief explanation of each:

Solution Overload

As you can see, there are a lot of interrelated solutions that perform similar, often overlapping tasks depending on the business scenario. That’s why most businesses operate using a combination of the solutions listed above. It gets even more complicated with large companies and SMEs that have location-specific requirements and/or preferences, because then it’s not as simple as having a company-wide ERP system, or a company-wide WMS.

You get what we’re trying to say—it’s very easy for a single company to add to their technology stack. And food for thought, we haven’t even touched the surface on business applications and other third-party services, like marketing automation platforms and, quite literally, any other web-based service that requires a monthly payment.

Service Models

Whether it’s an ERP, CRM, WMS, or any other back-end software, application, system, or solution, chances are, it’s sold as a service. Although on-premise solutions still exist, most forward-thinking companies are migrating their data to the cloud. We’ve already briefly touched on how the XaaS (Anything as a Service) model has infiltrated the tech industry—and for good reason. There are a lot of upsides to this model in terms of flexibility, scalability, and even cost.

However, the fact that anything can replace the “X” in XaaS has caused a bit of confusion in regard to seemingly identical solution offerings being offered as one type of service as opposed to another. For example, TIE Kinetix delivers SaaS solutions for EDI while another company offers an iPaaS solution for EDI. What’s the difference? And can multiple service models be employed simultaneously?

Below you’ll find a list of common, subscription-based service models deployed in the cloud:

Did We Clear Things Up for You?

If your answer is yes, you might want to stop reading now—we don’t want to confuse you all over again. If your answer is no, you might as well keep going. We’re going to have some fun.

Overall, there are a lot of solutions and a lot of service models to keep tabs on. And to add to the confusion, definitions are seemingly melting into one another, making it nearly impossible to perform side-by-side comparisons and truly understand the differences. Can your EDI solution double as a CCM tool? Can it also serve as your CMS? Does the SaaS contract with your EDI provider also give you access to advanced analytics as if it were a AaaS contract? Probably!

You’re Not Alone

These blurred lines are even causing confusion within the tech industry. For example, if you analyze the way in which tech industry reports have evolved over the years, you’ll notice that what may have been referred to as an Integration Brokerage (IB) in 2014 is now referred to by Gartner as a Multienterprise Supply Chain Business Network (MESCBN).

Two things are very interesting here. First, adding to the confusion even more, it’s not common for a service provider to market themselves under any of these categories. For example, many service providers that are designated as top MESCBN providers by Gartner deliver SaaS solutions for EDI. Second, evolving definitions from leading market research firms, like Gartner’s MESCBN category, more accurately describe what these service providers offer—even more so than the individual company’s own marketing tactics (i.e. the corporate website), and even more so than any of the definitions we’ve provided thus far.

The Future of Integration

Our conclusion is that fully integrated, end-to-end XaaS solutions are on the rise. No matter what you call it, companies that are beginning to adopt this strategy (like TIE Kinetix) can offer their customers a more comprehensive solution—one that ultimately eliminates the need to enter into additional service level agreements (SLAs) and face the inevitable integration challenges that come along with them.

Keep in mind that every individual system and application in use within an organization, especially those that may contain duplicate data, must be integrated sooner rather than later. Otherwise, there’s a high risk of encountering competing information that could potentially have a devastating effect on the business. Ideally, with an end-to-end solution, there’s a standard API or pre-built connector for every possible software, system, and/or application integration scenario.

A Word of Advice

The key word above is ideally, because no service provider has reached that point to date and probably won’t for quite some time. As it is, standard system integration solutions are limited. However, you should keep in mind that the technology industry is, in general, moving in that direction. So if you’ve already done more research on back-end systems and integration solutions than you care to admit and still can’t make sense of it all, we’ll offer you some advice in regard to choosing a service provider.

Don’t worry—despite this long, complicated blog post, it’s actually quite simple:

1. Clearly define business needs and know your existing technology stack

Has the solution been right in front of you all along? Engage in regular, open discussions with your existing service providers and you might be surprised; even if they don’t currently offer the solution you’re looking for, they might very well develop it. After all, hearing something directly from a customer is prime market research material!

2. Consider the overall corporate business strategy for every service provider that you evaluate

Ask: Is your potential service provider keeping up with industry-defining trends and proactively forming new partnerships in order to add value to their existing offerings?