With 90% of organisations deep into digital transformation – and global tech spend forecast to hit $3.9 trillion by 2027, according to McKinsey – it’s clear the appetite for innovation isn’t slowing down.
Despite the fact that firms no longer need convincing that IT upgrades are essential, however, many companies are unintentionally holding themselves back by underestimating just how much integration is slowing them down.
Regardless of market or industry, the competitive landscape is shifting rapidly, meaning companies can no longer afford to integrate new tools at their internal IT team’s own pace. Yes, the in-house workforce can build bespoke system integrations, but these systems prove costly and time-consuming to create and maintain, often resulting in the organisation falling behind its competitors, whilst failing to deliver the desired results from the digital transformation.
This is where managed integration services like our new LEO platform step in. Transforming more than a company’s tech capabilities, LEO enhances both the pace and potential of digital change, proving the smart choice for future-ready businesses that want to fast-track transformation, without the usual frictions, costs or delays.
The hidden bottleneck holding back your tech stack
System integration is an absolute must in any kind of digital transformation. Whether you’re adopting cloud ERP or building a modern SaaS stack, integration is the glue that holds it all together. Without it, data silos creep in – and transformation stalls. Not to mention the fact that disconnected systems can lead to poor user experiences, which are certainly not conducive to growth.
Custom-built, in-house integrations therefore lose their appeal quickly. Not only do they come with unnecessary time and economic costs, but they also prove difficult to scale, as in-house teams already burdened with other tasks struggle to stay on top of integration workloads or turn to external vendors who may lock the company into costly, slow-moving contracts. MuleSoft’s 2023 Connectivity Benchmark Report actually revealed that IT teams will spend an average of 38% of their time on integration tasks, leading to a loss of other core tech activity across the company, whilst simultaneously resulting insufficient if organisations are to keep their integrations secure and up to date. Indeed, 80% of organisations admit that their current approach to integration is slowing their digital transformation, according to the same MuleSoft study.
Why managed integration beats in-house
Managed integration services exist, not just to remove the technical burden, but also to dramatically improve the agility with which businesses can change. Indeed, these ready-to-go integration solutions reduce costs, free up IT teams for more value-added tasks, and allow any new tech services to be scaled and improved without companies being stuck at the mercy of already limited working hours or prohibitive costs.
Managed integration offers the following benefits over traditional services:
1) Businesses gain speed to value
In-house builds often take months to design, test and deploy – particularly when managing legacy systems or strict ERP constraints. By contrast, managed integration services like LEO come with pre-built connectors and will be updated on your behalf automatically, cutting deployment time dramatically, whilst helping to keep your organisation secure – eliminating the risk of breach- or compliance-related delays. When migrating to Unit4’s Cloud ERP, Auto Trader witnessed these benefits first hand. The organisation began working with LEO in order to integrate its new tech solutions more rapidly, benefitting from a plug-and-play approach that allowed transformation plans to immediately get off the ground. Compliance with Unit4 Cloud requirements was furthermore guaranteed from the outset, without the associated infrastructure overheads, which would have otherwise been difficult to predict.
“With LEO, we hit the ground running – adjusting to new tech without any of the usual integration headaches, delays, and unexpected costs.” – Auto Trader on integrating Unit4 Cloud ERP.
2) Scalability and flexibility are built in
Another key aspect to consider with integrations is that, as your business grows, so too do your digital needs. In-house integrations often require ongoing investment to adapt and scale, whereas managed services are built to evolve with your company, adding new connections, handling data growth and supporting new models as and when needed.
RSBG UK has benefitted from this with LEO. As an early adopter, the organisation implemented LEO’s AI Invoice Recognition Connector, automating invoice processing from email to ERP. Automatic updates mean integrations can expand as needed – without extra IT effort or cost surprises, allowing the company to easily scale solutions predictably, without the additional monetary burden of maintaining its own integrations or AI pipeline.
3) Total cost of ownership is reduced
Ultimately, the hidden costs of custom integrations can soon add up: infrastructure, updates, security, patching and ongoing developer support all come into play – and this is before accounting for staff turnover or knowledge gaps.
A subscription-based integration-as-a-service model like LEO offers predictable pricing, on the other hand, with no hidden infrastructure fees. IT budgets are freed up to implement further changes, led by the newly available IT team members who now have the time to focus on more creative, strategic, value-adding tasks. It’s a win-win for any organisation.
So, what should organisations look for in a managed integration service?
Not all integration services are created equal – with CTOs encouraged to ask the following questions:
- Is the service architecture cloud-native and secure?
- Does it support both on-prem and cloud systems?
- Are AI capabilities built in or available via pre-built connectors?
- Can it scale with future needs?
Built on Microsoft Azure, LEO was developed with these priorities in mind, ensuring it’s ready to meet real-world digital needs.
Digital transformation is no longer a one-off project but a continuous evolution – and it’s our job as providers of trusted managed integration services to ensure your organisation can make that evolution faster, without complexity or unnecessary costs. We’re here to support infrastructure, so that you can innovate and evolve the main order of business.