Modern business integration is a crucial accelerator for contemporary organizations that want to accelerate growth, unlock new revenue streams and improve customer experiences. It allows companies to use their existing technology and processes, as well as their people, to stay ahead.
Many companies use both on-premises solutions and legacy software. These disparate technology and their associated data are not inherently communicative, which is the reason why businesses need 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 often referred as B2B Integration and can involve a range of advanced protocols – AS2, SFTP HTTPs, Web Services and proprietary fast file transfer methods.
Financial services and healthcare are examples of common use cases. These industries all need to securely connect multiple trading partners with robust security, governance, and audit trail capabilities.
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, a clothing company for women might integrate into a fashion brand that serves teens or young adults to introduce the company to new markets.
Modern integration strategies enable these companies to extract the right data from their front-end applications and convert it into a form that is compatible with their business partner’s central organization device. This can then be sent to the target application for processing. This can automate and streamline processes, improve collaboration, and reduce the likelihood of human errors and delays.
