In our more than 30 years in the IT industry, one of the most frustrating challenges we see companies struggle with are systems that do not talk to each other.
Most companies have separate software for their financial, customer relationship management, project management, and operational systems. Often, they have purchased these systems over a number of years. Some may be custom software solutions that were built 15 or more years ago.
Why Systems Integration Matters
The challenge with managing multiple systems is that they cannot communicate. The financial software is not integrated with the operational system, and the customer relationship system is not integrated with the project management tool.
Unintegrated software systems create redundancy that decreases the productivity of your team. Unintegrated systems also create data silos that sequester data in one system, forcing your staff to spend time duplicating the data to use in another system. This increases the chance of human error and exposes your company to risk.
Your company’s unintegrated systems are likely costing you revenue, too. When all of your software is connected, you can pull and analyze data to uncover opportunities to increase efficiency or reach an untapped market.
How Custom Software Can Bridge the Gap
Custom software can bridge the gap between all of your separate software systems, breaking down data silos and eliminating the need to reenter data. Companies who integrate all of their systems find their team’s productivity increases and they are able to make better-informed financial and marketing decisions.
Imagine your team is working on a project for a client. With integrated systems, they are able to dump data from your customer relationship management system into their project management system, turning an estimate into an active project. As they work on the project, the project management software communicates with your financial software to track time and resources. The team is alerted when they’re getting close to their budget limit. Once the project wraps, the team can pull reports that integrate data from their project management and financial software to determine if they met revenue goals and how they can improve next time.
Without system integration, your team would have had to reach out to your marketing department for information about the estimate and communicate regularly with your financial department to make sure they were on track. Then, they would have had to request data from each department and sit down together to analyze it for insights. All those extra steps cost you time, money, and can leave you open to risk, too. Curious how custom systems integration software could make your team more productive? Jurrens & Associates is here to help you discover all the possibilities. Contact our team today for more information.