Modern business integration can be a powerful accelerator for modern organizations who want to increase their growth, unlock revenue streams and improve their customer experience. It allows companies take advantage of their current technology, people and process to stay on top of competitors.
Traditionally, many companies have a combination of legacy systems and on-premises software applications as well as cloud solutions. These disparate technologies and their associated data do not inherently communicate, which is why businesses need to build a robust business integration strategy.
Modern integration makes it easier for these business relationships to flourish in the digital world. This allows systems and applications within and outside of lines of business to seamlessly exchange vital information. This is known as B2B (business-to-business) integration and involves a number advanced protocols, including AS2, SFTP HTTPs Web Services, proprietary high-speed file transfers, and Web Services.
Financial services, healthcare, logistics, and other industries are common use cases. These industries all require robust security capabilities to connect multiple trading partners securely, with audit trail, governance, and robust security.
Another common application is horizontal integration. This is where two or more companies from the same industry combine their efforts to offer a broader range of services or products. For example, women’s apparel companies might integrate with fashion brands that cater to teens and young adults in order to introduce them into new market segments.
Modern integration techniques enable these companies extract the right data and convert it to a form compatible with their partner’s central organisation device. The data can then go to the target app for processing. This can help automate and streamline a process, improve business collaboration and decrease the chances of human errors and delays, all while ensuring speedy growth for the business.