Article: Business Driven System Integration

Many corporations win by deciding faster with more informed systems. Also, many customers interact with business only through digital channels. These connections are often built over years with problem solving and business decisions. Core processes are often outsourced and hard to change. Here I write about how to get the business focus into system integration projects without relying too strongly on the financial controlling mindset of cost-cutting but rather showcase a balanced approach for your project portfolio of integrations.

Most enterprise frameworks connect strategies with the solutions we build. Theoretical framework is not the issue at hand. The real issue is how to invest time and resources in the same direction as the company and market, while tuning in to larger technological trends. As much as we are proponents of economical thinking, the general financial controlling mindset is geared to other objectives than pure delivery of systems. Conversely, a purely technical driven approach is not optimal either.

Today we take the business perspective in the changing system integration world.

Modular thinking

One lesson from the digital age is that modularity clears thought and structure business value trough reusable components that are shaped by business input. System Integration does not provide this by itself, but a business-oriented integrator should adjust the decision traits to favour reusability and modularity because the solution come and go, but evolutionary practices tuned with time have a tendency to be reused or recreated.

How system integration is forged with business

System Integration is both you existing connected interfaces, and also those we build for the future. Your integrations normally solve a longstanding issue that packaged solutions cannot solve, a tailored way to realise your strategy over the years.

Interesting, the emergence of the digital global economy, corporations have experienced success with a API first mindset. For the Nordics, I think a balance is appropriate. Standardisation when the information traffic is enormous, but build new areas with an modern connecting approach to explore the new. When customers connect to your systems trough APIs, they are investing in a future business partner. In the Nordic smaller scale, the focus is more on practical electronic document, invoicing, variants of receipts etc., but in European industry, the trend is to build whole supply chains integrated trough information flows and here interfaces play a key role in shaping these highways.

The ownership approach

In good framework, silos are cut, and ownership is encouraged. We have come a long way with cross-department integration the last decades. The real issue is ownership, especially in the Nordics. The real owners are the corporation itself, they the long-term success of the business. In our experience, system integration architects have great skills and amazing knowledge, but the ownership is what’s pushing especially the requirements forward and in the second wave the implementing solutions in the systems design.

The greater force is often regulatory, from the EU or nation. The aspiration for systems integration is to modernise with cloud providers in harmony with the legacy system, but this overall is fragmented and seldom continuous.

What can be done

When you set up a new integration, you are opening a new information channel, a new trade road. It does not turn into a highway the next day. Piloting the new networked connected economy is also about learning for the future. Observe what’s working and how the system integration landscape is evolving as a major trend, trough these pilots. Scale the projects that have proven value over years. In this way you balance the pragmatic with building strategic knowledge. When industries refresh their systems, all other supply chains follow, and you get change. The value is building solid integrations that can modularly be expanded as the process thread expands, but the business thinking and drivers are what should be iterated, and perhaps not driven from the technical side by selling business cases. This long-term incremental approach can show you the effects over longer horizons and in that manner gradually synchronise with world standards.

The right sizing of Integration

There must be a balance between system integration and packaged solutions. The objective should be to standardise large volume processes for cost and efficiency reasons. There is a tendency that this convergence happens by itself over time. Also, integration is usually not a key strategic business area in the Nordic and should be part of a project portfolio mix but have sufficient attention to drive progress.

Takeaways

1. Be industrial and business oriented in the system integration approach
2. Be involved in the value system integration creates trough information platforms
3. Don’t let external forces manage the long-term direction but rather let the business harmonisation be a guiding middle road.
4. Right size the system integration approach, never close it, be mindful of controller-led system integration, and use the projects as a continuous dialogue shaping future information exchanges with innovative customers, and standardise the approach when it gets traction.

Call us today to discuss your system integration project portfolio from a business perspective.