ROI of Enterprise Application Integration

In today’s volatile business environment, modern enterprises are increasingly adopting newer and smarter applications to improve business workflows. The integration of these apps is even more critical to streamline the functioning of enterprise-level activities. Rishabh Software enables organizations to realize the ROI from enterprise application integration (EAI) solutions that influence business productivity and revenue.

Businesses of today depend on multiple applications such as accounting software, CRM systems, analytics platform, HRMS systems and more to manage their essential day-to-day operations. The integration of these enterprise applications offers transparency and order to business processes for organizations as they reveal the hidden potential of the existing systems. While modern businesses are increasingly adapting to this trend to improve business workflows, it is vital to consider the ROI impact from the said integration.

It is a critical component of CIO focus where they consider integration merits and further make a case of how an EAI tool helps save software development time and maintenance cost. They need to showcase how integration supports the business strategy by improving the customer service, optimizing inventory, and improving the product’s go-to-market time by “standardizing” the business processes

Through this article, we wish to discuss the ROI-led advantages of enterprise application integration offered by Rishabh Software, as an enterprise software development services partner. By considering them, we assist the IT leaders from future-ready organizations in increasing business productivity and implementing application integration processes.

Traditionally, there exist two types of integration strategies: 1) for cloud applications and 2) for on-premise applications. Enterprise applications are software programs that can either be hosted on-premise, private/public cloud servers, or managed by third-party service providers. And, with an increasing number of applications being deployed on the cloud within an organization, a hybrid integration framework is emerging to optimize for both types of applications. This lowers initial and ongoing IT costs and maximizes value over time.

Typically there are three types of application integration models

• Traditional on-premise integration platforms: These platforms can be used to integrate cloud applications though the deployments tend to be costly with a longer deployment time and offers limited/less flexibility to support changes over time without specialized expertise or consultation
• Tactical point-to-point connectors: Subscription to necessary and prebuilt cloud connectors helps connect discrete cloud application data fields in other cloud and on-premise applications. It incurs low initial and a stable ongoing cost with rapid time to deploy. Though they are often not architected for enterprises as they fail to meet the scalability and reliability requirements
• Ad-hoc, project-based integration: Leveraging the existing employee skill sets and developer tools or through external consultation, companies can connect cloud and on-premise applications. Though, this approach doesn’t scale over time and often requires specialized knowledge for upgrades or making changes.

Enterprise Application Integration strategy can be defined as the use of technology services and computer applications to help unite all hardware and software solutions within an organization.

It includes but not limited to:

• Reduced IT Cost and Investment: EAI enables integration of the old and new software with seamless data sharing across all channels that allow organizations to cut down the cost significantly. It helps reduce initial and ongoing software investment. Though, depending on the project scope, the cloud integration solutions charge an annual subscription fee, typically starting from a few thousand to a few hundred thousand a year. However, based on our experience, the yearly subscription cost is much lower than the ongoing license maintenance cost that is associated with a traditional integration platform.
• Automates Workflow: EAI improves coordination and fosters communication across various departments in the organization. It enables the sharing of data or information with a click, accessible by other employees. Thus, it helps prevent data duplication and enhances overall employee efficiency. For instance, CRM data can be used to automate marketing campaigns and create reports to evaluate its effectiveness.
• Simplifies Business Processes: Organizations use multiple applications with complex IT structures, making it challenging to streamline processes and integrate data. The use of pre-built components enables saving coding time with less costly developer resources to complete more projects in significantly reduced duration. It further reduces the dependency on static personnel costs as the support and maintenance of code are under the cloud provider’s purview.

The technology trends are rapidly changing and the organization needs to be ready to implement those changes to stay ahead of the competition. Enterprise Application integration allows organizations to improve business operations and leverage comprehensive information exchange by eliminating data discrepancy. It further helps the enterprises to address shifts in markets.

Rishabh Software helps connect enterprise applications across sectors & domains to enable flexibility and agility to maximize the ROI from cloud investment.