If you’re like most businesses, you’re probably using a variety of different software applications to run your operations. And if you’re looking to streamline those processes by integrating some or all of those applications into a single workflow, you may be wondering why Saas integration is hard.
During this process, you have to decide what integrations are best for your business and how they’ll be implemented. Then you need to figure out the logistics of implementing those strategies into your IT infrastructure before deciding on whether or not it’s worth monetizing that process.
When a company integrates their product with each other, they’re always having some struggles. In this article, we’ll look at where the SaaS integrations team is struggling and how you can help them. And this is how we will answer your pertinent question – why SaaS integration is hard.
Integration approaches commonly used can be ineffective, risky, and expensive.
With the high demand for IT infrastructure and digital marketing talent, it’s difficult to find talented professionals.
In a recent survey of 100 executives in this field, we found that organizations turn to consultants or build integrations internally. Click To Tweet
Want to see how many people have been using automation in finance-related workflows. And it turns out that only 2% of respondents said they were implementing automation across finance-related workflows.
It turns out that internally-built and off-the-shelf integration services have their drawbacks, so switch to a different solution.
- In-house, custom-built integrations: Integrating with in-house systems has time constraints and a complex process during the transition phase for your development team. In addition, each application integration requires custom coding that is difficult to scale and leaves your organization vulnerable if key employees leave. A professional cloud integration services platform can simplify this process, making it easier to build and maintain data integrations.
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Native integrations: These can be limited in scalability as each app may only have a few out-of-the box integrations. You may need to create an in-house solution if your organization requires access control, specific integrations, or business applications not available through native apps.
Integrating different apps would be the best practice. It’s not enough to just have one app; you need at least two for them to interact with each other, and there needs to be some sort of way that monitors the integration capabilities between those two systems.
There is a better option: this uses an iPaaS (integration platform as a service).
The good thing about Google Sheets is that it’s centralized and easy to use, but not everyone in the company will build integrations without a lot of technical expertise.
Do the point-to-point integrations do they work as an advantage, or are they a greater burden?
Companies are dropping their apps in favor of new ones every year, you will find that many integrations need to be re-implemented.
In the world of custom-built cloud integrations, your business can easily be left in the dust.
Finding integrations that use the new apps your company has adopted can be a frustrating process. Replacing those old, incompatible ones with newer versions is equally difficult when employees who built them are no longer around.
This is not to say that you should never build a custom integration. But, if the time and resources are available, it’s best to focus on your other business-critical activities while building new integrations rather than letting them distract from those tasks.
The focus of the team
It’s easy to work on more pressing tasks like sales when you’re a small company, and the integration needs to be done.
When you are in a product roadmap meeting, it’s clear that my team of 8 developers can’t keep up with the 10x backlog. We need to figure out which features are worth spending time on and when we should work.
When you have a hard time making decisions, my go-to is to use the following three questions: What can be cut? What should get deferred until later on in life or another day? And what do you need to focus on today and tomorrow so that it will all work out for you?
When building an integration product, it’s hard to integrate requests from your customers because they are not as valuable. When someone asks for a new feature directly related to your company’s core and all you do is integrations, there’s no way in hell that request will be fulfilled.
We all know that SaaS companies love to put up APIs, but many of them don’t seem to realize how much they need their customers’ Saas integrations to be met.
While it is best practice to deploy an API, your customers are left with no other option but to work with third-party solution integrators or iPaaS vendors if you stop there.
Before you get too deep into the development of integration, it’s important to calculate how much money integrating will make. This is a good way to stay grounded and avoid wasting time on something that won’t pay off.
If you’re a startup, don’t forget to consider the revenue potential of your product and how much time cost it will cost for integrations. Always be on top of maintenance costs as well.
You can unlock your SaaS revenue potential by deploying integrations or any other feature sooner because the earlier you start collecting from subscriptions, the more money that will be generated. This is compounded ROI.
How does experience matter in integration, and why is Saas integration hard?
Many SaaS product teams know they need to build integrations, but building them successfully is another story.
A specialized engineering discipline, integration requires an understanding of several things that make it work. You can’t just know how to write code and expect your system will integrate well.
Modern DevOps technology and processes .Microservices, serverless, and horizontal scaling .- Cloud computing.
Monitoring systems and support/operations process .- User interface.
Understanding all of this information will help you better understand your customers and their needs and what they need from the API.
The truth is that most engineers have never built a scalable integration product before. They may be really good, but you can’t will your way through this without paying the price.
If you’re new to the integration game, then the chances are that your lack of experience will show. You may find yourself dealing with many faults or errors; crashes because of volume spikes and customer requests for help might overwhelm a support team.
What can you do if you don’t have experience?
When you’re building a team and experience is not found on the current roster of employees. You’ll need to go out looking for people who have that expertise to make up for it.
To get your team up and running quickly, you might
What if the product is not completely ready for the integration stage
Many SaaS teams know they need to integrate with other platforms but don’t have a plan yet. They’ve just allocated some budget for it.
Early-stage Saas software companies are often so focused on the product that they forget to design APIs. The result is an API designed for a user interface, not its independent system.
Other companies have been using public APIs to make the customer experience more enjoyable, but they are mostly used to respond to specific requests.
Software companies, you should deploy APIs.
If you don’t take the time to think about your API and document it, develop tools for developers or have a community of support behind it, then integration from outside sources will be difficult.
A few indicators might tell you your product is not ready for integration. 1) Your company does not have any reviews on Google Play or the App Store 2) You don’t know who’s selling your products, which means no one has been incentivized to do so yet 3) No sales from retailers distributors
- Availability of standard application (REST, OData, GraphQL, etc.)
- It doesn’t offer simple facilities such as answering queries and CRUD
- It doesn’t offer upgrades and follows the old authentication
- Frequent, technical issues and error messages
- Offers secured system with products internal functioning being protected
When a product is not ready for integration, the only thing you can do to get it there is to keep working on making it better. And if “forget about” and “wait until later” are your answers when faced with this problem, then I’m sorry, but success will be out of reach.
Before you even think about writing code, refactoring, or paying off technical debt for your product. It would be best if you looked at why Saas integration is hard, why it ended up where it did and how to avoid ending up in the same situation again. It’s not enough to blame software – there are systemic realities that contribute.
Sometimes the best way to improve your product is by changing fundamental aspects of how you work. This can mean thinking about new ways to design, testing different architecture principles, or seeking expert help with understanding integration-ready software. Click To Tweet
I learned from this to write code that integrates well with the systems you are trying to connect it to.
Why Saas integration is hard?
It’s not always easy to integrate new people with a team, especially if they are coming from another company. This can be challenging, and it is important that you don’t get discouraged.
As a specialized engineering discipline, integration is difficult to master. It takes time and effort for anyone looking to become great at it. The current leaders in the market are still not doing nearly well enough.
It is important to identify your strengths and focus on areas of improvement. Progress is made by small improvements over time. Don’t try to be perfect, just do better than you did yesterday.
Conclusion
SaaS integration can be a challenge for businesses of all sizes. While the benefits of integrating multiple applications can be great, there are several factors that can make this process difficult. But don’t let that scare you away!
With the right tools and services, and a little bit of planning, you can overcome these hurdles and get your business processes running more smoothly than ever. Next time, whenever you want the answer to why SaaS integration is hard, all you need to do is go through this article.
