The Unexpected Costs of Failed Integrations

Today, every business relies on integrations. 

Whether you’re a supply chain vendor that integrates with warehouse management systems to move goods or a payment processor that relies on integrating with a gateway to facilitate transactions, integrations are the lifeblood of the modern business.

Despite this fact, however, a recent report by NTT found that half of large enterprises with 1,000+ employees in the UK admitted delaying digital transformation projects due to the amount of barriers present and the impact on their internal IT teams. In other words, though integrations are crucial for many businesses, they are often deprioritised due to a lack of urgency or a lack of internal technical resources. 

Determining which integration projects are “nice to have” and which are crucial to moving your business forward can be hard work. One integration project that seems critical for a short-term fix may not have a large impact on future business growth, whilst another integration project may open up new avenues for expanding your business and bottom line. 

Whilst outsourcing the integration process could well be your best bet, prioritising your most important integration points by performing an ROI analysis is always a smart first step. Potential sales and new market penetration are important to consider, but soft “costs” can also have a huge impact on your profit margin. 

Here are a few of the costs to consider when determining how, when and who will handle your next integration project. 

1. Customer Impact

One of the first questions you should consider when planning an integration is “How will this impact my customers?” Many integrations have a direct impact on customer experience, whether that is via your website, mobile app or customer support. 

Will this integration mean downtime for your customers, and how will that directly or indirectly impact your earnings? Will ordering, production, provisioning or billing be affected, and how can you reduce the impact your customers feel? Once the integration project is complete, will the customer experience improve? In other words, will your customers feel any downtime is ultimately worth the trouble for a better experience? 

2. Integration Rectification

Taking on an integration project internally is not without risk. And when errors inevitably occur, your team will also need to deal with the time and costs to fix them. 

From determining what caused the error, diagnosing probable cause, allowing time for correction, reworking the integration to avoid the issue in the future and testing to make sure it does not malfunction again, major issues are a real risk, particularly when you consider that your internal teams are likely also working on ongoing, business critical tasks. Any distraction is a huge hit to their productivity and a threat to process efficiency. 

And that is only true for a business integration that is not mission critical. Say you sell a new product based on this integration, only to find out it comes with major bugs that your team has to fix by essentially starting over. Consider all of the contracts, lost orders, late payments and cancellation of services you may face due to not delivering on your promises.  

3. Market Movement

A powerful integration initiative with a strong partner can solidify your place in the market. Unfortunately, a failed integration project can have quite the opposite effect. If your integration project is delayed or comes with technical problems for your customers, your competitive position in the market could be compromised. 

Although it is hard to quantify financially, hiccups with your product really do have an impact on who decides to do business with you, both now and in the future. Can you afford the reputational risk? 

Piling another project on your busy IT team is not always the best option. And it is also not the only option. Qore Integration as a Service provides enterprises a complete integration solution with guaranteed service levels, removing the high costs, high risks and long project timelines that typically come with implementing an integration infrastructure.