System integration: definition, examples, challenges, benefits 

As organizations increase the number of systems they use, the need to integrate them will only grow.

After all, allowing on-prem systems and cloud applications to operate in silos prevents employees from accessing the data they need, when they need it, to carry out their work.

To help you integrate systems effectively, we’ll cover several examples you’ll likely care about, the benefits of implementing them, the challenges you might face when building them, and more.

What is system integration?

It’s the process of connecting systems, typically SaaS applications, so that they can share specific data freely with one another at a predefined cadence.

It’s worth noting that there are other interpretations of system integration. We’ll review all of them next.

Types of system integration

As you research system integrations, you’ll likely come across the following types:

• Internal integrations: a company connects its internal systems to streamline specific workflows

• Customer-facing integrations: a company connects its product with customers’ applications to help clients get more value from their solution

• Business-to-business (B2B) integration: a company connects its ERP system with business partners’ to streamline transactions 

• Enterprise service bus (i.e., horizontal integration): systems connect to a “bus”, or a bus-like infrastructure, that facilitates communication between the various systems

For the purposes of this article, we’ll focus on internal and customer-facing integrations.

System integration examples

Here are just a few common system integrations you can build:

Note: The first two examples of system integration are customer-facing while the remaining two are internal.

Automate user provisioning

Say you want to make it easier for clients to add, modify, and remove users in your product.

To help them, you can integrate with clients’ human resource information systems (HRISs) and let clients sync employees from their respective systems with your platform.

More specifically, if an employee gets deactivated on the HRIS, they’re removed as a user in your product; if the employee is added to the HRIS, they’re added as a user, along with the appropriate role based on their background; and if they’re modified in the HRIS, their modified accordingly in your product.

Related: How to automate user provisioning

Streamline ticket creation 

Now imagine that you offer a product that identifies security vulnerabilities in a client’s code base.

To help a client identify any issue your product pinpoints, you can connect your product with their ticketing system and build a sync where once you uncover an issue, a ticket gets created in the affected client’s system. The ticket can include details on the issue to help your team understand and resolve it quickly.

Deliver actionable client notifications 

To help your customer success managers (CSMs) stay on top of their accounts more easily and effectively, you can integrate your data warehouse (e.g., Snowflake) with your business communications platform (e.g., Slack) and build a flow where once a client crosses a certain level of product usage, the assigned rep receives a notification in your business communications platform. 

Within the message, the customer success manager can learn more about the client and usage threshold they reached, allowing the CSM to follow-up with the client in a more personalized, thoughtful way.

Related: Examples of software integration

Easily store key employee documents

Your employees are likely to sign a wide range of documents over time, from offer letters to non-disclosure agreements. To help you store, access, and review documents in a way that’s convenient and secure for your team, you can connect your HRIS with your file storage system and build a sync where once an employee document is added or modified in your HRIS, the same set of actions take place in the employee’s folder within your file storage system.

System integration benefits

The benefits of system integration largely depend on the type of system integration you build. That said, they generally offer the following benefits:

• Time savings: by allowing employees to access the data they need without moving between different systems, they’re able to save time and work faster 

• Fewer errors: enabling employees to avoid error-prone tasks, like data entry, helps prevent all types of human errors 

• Happier employees: letting employees spend less time on reentering data and hopping between applications not only helps them avoid tasks they dislike—it also gives them more time to focus on the work they enjoy and value

• Higher close rate: providing the integrations your prospects want will, all else equal, help you stand out from rivals and win more business

• Elevated retention rate: as clients adopt your integrations they’ll likely see more value from your product. Over time, this should translate to higher retention and even additional upsell and cross-sell opportunities

• Market expansions: by providing the integrations that organizations in your target market want, you’re more likely to get their attention and win their business 

Related: The top benefits of API integration 

System integration challenges

Unfortunately, the process of integrating systems can prove difficult.

Assuming you’re looking to integrate applications via their APIs, here are a few common challenges you’ll likely come across, based on our research.

• Integration performance: diagnosing and addressing every integration issue as soon as it occurs can prove extremely difficult 

• Difficult to scale: Each integration build comes with several time-intensive steps, from reading through the API providers’ documentation to testing the API connections in a variety of ways. Given all the work that’s involved for just a single integration build, scaling your API integrations can prove extremely difficult

• Challenging to secure partnerships with 3rd-parties: many 3rd-party API providers require a sizable monetary investment just to access their sandbox environment and/or API documentation. The prospect of forming these partnerships can, as a result, prove difficult, if not unsustainable

• API documentation is hard to access: In many cases, the API provider hardly provides any documentation, reserves it for partners, rarely updates it, doesn’t provide it in certain languages, etc., forcing your engineers to learn about the API through other channels (e.g., online forums)

How to integrate systems

To help you reap the benefits of system integration while avoiding any of the roadblocks, we’ll break down several popular types of solutions you can use to integrate systems.

Integration platform as a service (iPaaS)

An iPaaS lets you connect on-prem and cloud-based systems that are used internally and develop data flows across them. Depending on the vendor, you may also be able to use the platform to develop and manage API endpoints, workflow applications, or build customer-facing integrations (i.e., embedded iPaaS).

The platform’s versatility can be invaluable. Moreover, its integrations are generally secure, performant, and reliable. That said, the platform often requires technical expertise to use. In addition, the platform only allows you to build one integration at a time, which can prevent you from scaling your integration builds effectively.

Robotic process automation (RPA) 

RPA software involves using custom scripts (i.e., “bots”) to automate tasks at the UI level.

The platform is great in that it allows you to connect all types of systems, regardless of whether they offer APIs. In addition, a few established RPA vendors have purchased iPaaS solutions, allowing you to build both UI and API-based integrations with a single vendor.

However, like iPaaS solutions, RPA tools are often highly technical to set up. In addition, as you build more bots, the level of effort required to maintain the platform will increase exponentially. 

Unified API

A unified API solution (also known as a universal API solution) offers a single, aggregated API that lets you add hundreds of integrations to your product.

In addition, using Merge, the leading unified API solution, you can access intuitive yet robust Integration Observability tooling to manage each integration; receive integration maintenance support from Merge’s Partner Engineers; provide deep integrations through Merge’s Common Models and advanced features, like Field Mapping, and more.

Learn how Merge can help your team integrate at scale by scheduling a demo with one of our integration experts.