The Challenges of Software Integration

Have you ever tried to open a file that someone shared with you and it wouldn’t open? Switching screens between the applications trying to view and edit data? These dreaded situations are examples of a lack of something called software integration.

When your business software is well integrated, documents, data and transactions pass seamlessly from one platform to another allowing you to access or manipulate the content in different ways with the most appropriate software. When software is not well integrated, documents can only be opened in certain platforms or the data can be corrupted when it is moved from one platform to another.

While there are some tricks to navigating around issues of software integration, the simplest way (excluding weeping until someone does it for you) is usually to have multiple screens open on your computer so that you can manually copy and input information stored on one platform into another platform to be manipulated, submitted, or stored and this can take a lot of time. Some people, companies, and firms even resort to hiring in-house IT staff or paying for contractors to do such tedious work as moving data from one software program to another.

A more troublesome problem of software integration comes when more than one kind of software is used to complete a task, especially if the programs were made by different companies. Individuals and even some small businesses can avoid these problems because a single large company like Microsoft, Google, or Apple often create several integrated programs for simple tasks and package them together in what are called “suites” – not to be confused with the suite that you incorrectly claimed for that jerk in accounting.

Most businesses eventually reach a point where the kinds of applications in these basic suites are no longer sufficient for their needs – accounting and payroll can’t be a simple spreadsheet forever, after all. The problem is that more advanced and specialized software for managing a business is seldom produced by a single company – and when they are, like SAP and Oracle ERP systems, the suites are very expensive – so businesses pick and choose different software to meet their growing needs only to find that these programs are likely not compatible with each other and still cost a lot.

So what’s a person supposed to do? Close the shop and become a farmer in the Ozarks? You wish, Greg. kpi.com, with its six essential cloud-based business management apps, promises a solution for just about any need that your business may have at low subscription rates and, because they’re all made by kpi.com, you never need to worry that the software won’t be compatible. Look at it this way: If you need it to work together, we can make it happen. Put that in your travel claim, Greg.