Point-to-point integrations vs central integration platform

In today’s digital world, businesses rely heavily on software systems to operate efficiently and effectively. These software systems, however, often operate in isolation from one another, leading to disconnected data, duplicated efforts, and increased costs. To connect these systems, businesses often rely on point-to-point integrations, which can be a costly and labor-intensive process. In this article, we will explore why point-to-point integrations are bad from a cost, efficiency, and labor perspective, and how an API platform can resolve many of these issues on mid and long terms.

Let’s meet Chriss. Chriss is the director of a large logistics company, and he’s planning to make a substantial investment in new software that will connect all their global branches through central route planning software. This shift alone can result in savings on operational costs, improve delivery speed, and open up possibilities for new products and innovations. However, since this is a major infrastructure investment, Chriss decides to take a step further and understand if there are any potential risks that could delay the project, add unexpected deployment costs, and have a significant impact on product delivery speed.

After conducting a thorough analysis, Chriss identifies a significant problem. The deployment of new infrastructure software will require most of the existing system integrations to be rebuilt as part of the BIG BANG approach, rather than a gradual change. Furthermore, the infrastructure for those integrations must be rebuilt (items like logging, analytics, user control, access management, lifecycle management, etc.), and the delivery of future innovations and products will be much slower since many points will require development for any changes.

Chriss acknowledges that investing in new software will yield numerous benefits. Nevertheless, it is crucial to account for potential risks that may arise during the deployment process. By conducting a comprehensive analysis, Chriss can ensure a successful deployment, avoiding unexpected delays and costs.

One of the key considerations is evaluating existing integrations and assessing the long-term savings after implementing an integration management platform as part of a major IT initiative. Furthermore, it’s important to recognize the benefits of aligning IT processes with business processes, as it can improve operational efficiency and productivity.

Why do I need integrations?

We can guarantee that your company has them already. The problem is – they might be manual, require lots of labor and can be extremely hard to change. Think of this simple process: your front-desk gets a call with a new order, order is entered in the warehouse software then the warehouse employees use their route planning software to plan the delivery, they mark their estimates in the system and once the delivery is done this and all other orders from this month gets saved in an excel file and sent to accounting where they import it in their system (assuming there are no errors) and do their magic. 

All of these “exchange points” between systems are integrations. Now imagine the same on scale – with thousands of orders per day, hundreds of delivery routes and an accounting department with as many accountants as you can count. It’s clear that any small improvements your competition can do (and you are not doing) to improve these points (and yes, they have the same bad integrations as you do) will help them in la ong-term to win and leave you far behind. Even if you are the only kid on the block, for now. 

Imagine having 1 application that can handle all this process flow. Imagine that your IT infrastructure represents your business process and you can change how you work (or test out new ideas) within weeks, not months or years. Imagine if you could create a new digital product or approach every month that you could test in parallel with your existing products and determine if you should follow or not. That is the magic of integration platforms. 

Cost

Point-to-point integrations are costly. Each integration requires significant development effort, which can be time-consuming and expensive. Furthermore, maintenance costs for these integrations can add up quickly over time, as businesses need to keep track of updates and ensure that each integration continues to work properly.

Efficiency

Point-to-point integrations are inefficient. Each integration typically requires custom code to be written, which can result in duplicated efforts across different systems. Additionally, these integrations can become a bottleneck as businesses scale, limiting the speed at which data can flow between systems.

Increased requirements for engineers

Point-to-point integrations require a significant amount of labor. Each integration requires a team of developers to design, build, and maintain the integration. Additionally, each integration needs to be tested and validated before it can be put into production, which can further increase the workload for development teams.

Legacy systems

Point-to-point integrations are often considered less desirable than integration platforms for legacy systems due to several reasons. Firstly, point-to-point integrations can be complex and time-consuming to develop, test, and maintain. With each new integration, additional development work is required, leading to an increased risk of errors and a longer deployment cycle.

Scaling

Point-to-point integrations are not scalable, making it difficult to manage a growing number of integrations. As a result, any changes to the system require re-testing and re-deploying all the integrations, which can cause significant downtime and affect the system’s reliability.  This can be particularly valuable for organizations that are expanding rapidly or experiencing a significant increase in system complexity.

Flexibility

Point-to-point integrations lack flexibility, making it challenging to adapt to changing business requirements. This is because each integration is custom-built, making it difficult to reuse components across multiple integrations.

In contrast, integration platforms for legacy systems offer a more scalable, flexible, and efficient approach. Integration platforms provide a central point of control and monitoring for all integrations, reducing the time and effort required to develop and maintain them. This approach also provides a more modular design, making it easier to manage integrations and adapt to changing business needs. Furthermore, integration platforms typically offer pre-built connectors and adapters for common systems, reducing the time and effort required to integrate them. This pre-built functionality can also be extended through custom development, making it easier to integrate unique systems and meet specific business requirements.

Solutions?

Yes there are and the best plan is to implement them together with other major changes as if you already have to re-think your process, strategy and you are making an investment. 

Centralization

To address these issues, businesses can turn to API platforms, which provide a centralized way to manage integrations between systems. With an API platform, businesses can create standardized interfaces that allow different systems to communicate with one another seamlessly. This approach reduces the need for custom code and minimizes duplicated efforts across different systems. Additionally, API platforms provide a single point of control for managing integrations, making it easier to track updates and ensure that each integration continues to work properly over time.

Streamline the process

API platforms can also improve efficiency by allowing data to flow between systems more quickly and easily. This approach removes the bottleneck that point-to-point integrations can create, allowing businesses to scale more efficiently and effectively.

Cost reduction

API platforms can reduce labor costs by providing a more streamlined approach to managing integrations. With an API platform, businesses can reduce the amount of custom code required, which can reduce the workload for development teams. Additionally, API platforms can automate testing and validation, further reducing the amount of labor required to manage integrations. Integration platforms can save organizations money in the long run by reducing development and maintenance costs. With pre-built connectors and adapters, organizations can reduce the time and effort required to develop integrations, which can result in significant cost savings over time.

No-code solutions

Business can shift to building blocks. This approach is labor demanding at first, but after a while – businesses can start to create their own products, business flows and processes without full IT involvement. Instead IT would deliver the crucial parts, but reusable items would already be available and could be connected with a clock of a mouse. 

Time-to-Market

Integration platforms can speed up time-to-market, allowing organizations to quickly integrate legacy systems and get new products and services to market faster. This can be a significant selling point, particularly in industries where time-to-market is critical.

Improved Customer Experience

Integration platforms can improve the customer experience by allowing organizations to integrate systems and data more seamlessly. This can help to reduce errors and improve data quality, leading to better customer experiences and increased customer loyalty.

Competitive Advantage

Integration platforms can provide organizations with a competitive advantage by allowing them to respond more quickly to changing business needs and market conditions. This can be particularly valuable in industries where innovation and agility are critical to success.

Continuity of use

Integration platforms can provide circuit breaker functionality if one integration or component is not available, platform switches and starts consuming data from alternative sources. For example: your customer database is not available, but your billing system has a full list of customers, but with 50% less detailed information – you wouldn’t choose this as the main source, but during an incident it’s better to have something than nothing. 

In conclusion, point-to-point integrations can be costly, inefficient, and require a significant amount of labor. API platforms provide a more centralized and standardized approach to managing integrations, reducing costs, improving efficiency, and reducing the workload for development teams. While there may be some upfront investment required to implement an API platform, the benefits on the mid and long terms can far outweigh the costs.