Enterprise Software Integration

The Future of Software?

There is scarcely a software-as-a-service offer on the market today that doesn't offer some sort of API. Others integrate with Zapier or a similar service in order to provide API-like automation capabilities for their customers.

With so many good "out of the box" software solutions available, the demand for integration has been on the rise for a number of years.

Small start-ups have begun offering very specialized software that appeals to particular types of businesses. Larger and typically more established vendors create software that appeals to much broader markets which deals with well-understood and well-solved problems.

That's not to say that there isn't room for disruption in any market or that custom software development is no longer relevant. It does mean that a number of challenges with processes or technologies may now be more easily addressed by connecting systems together rather than creating a solution from scratch.

Power Versus Pain

APIs can be extremely powerful. They may also be extremely painful. Powerful because utilizing an API to connect disparate systems together for the purposes of synchronizing data or automating work can be very beneficial. Painful in the sense that APIs are often the neglected feature of many services with poor documentation, inconsistent access, and sometimes even poorly implemented.

The question of power versus pain is primarily a matter of ROI. Like all technology, APIs change and therefore integrations must change as well. There is an ongoing cost as well as a risk involved in integration.

Is it worth it? Only if the initial cost of integration plus that ongoing cost of maintenance is justified by the benefits received.

Build Versus Buy Versus Integrate

Integration is a bit of a wild card in the discussion of build versus buy. Buying an existing solution may provide built-in integrations. Building a custom solution may require no integrations at all. On the other hand, an existing solution that has no capability for integration is certainly a red flag. And it may be impractical for a custom solution to meet every need -- requiring inregrations as well as custom software development.

Software integration represents a lot of moving parts. It can be a great solution to some problems, and indeed may be the only available solution if entrenched technologies cannot easily be replaced.