Not every company needs an iPaaS. If you’re working with one or two systems that already have a stable connection, there’s little reason to change. An iPaaS really pays off only when your systems reach a certain level of complexity and growth. The following signs provide a good indication.
You’re working with three or more systems that need to exchange data
At this scale, the number of possible integrations increases exponentially. Four systems can theoretically have six different integrations; six systems can have as many as fifteen. An iPaaS scales with your needs, whereas custom solutions rarely do.
Employees routinely spend time manually retyping data
Typing data from an order system into an ERP, or processing exports from a web store into the accounting system. Once this becomes part of your daily routine, you sacrifice productivity and expose your business to operational risk. An iPaaS takes this work off your hands.
You lack a central overview of what’s happening
Individual integrations usually work, but they fail silently. Customers report a missing order before you even notice it. Without a central dashboard, you’re constantly playing catch-up, and putting out fires in a disorganized manner becomes the daily norm.
You’re facing an ERP migration or a new software selection
An ERP migration is the moment when all existing integrations are reviewed. If you use that opportunity to consolidate integrations onto a single platform, you’ll prevent the same issues from recurring a few years later.
Your integration landscape has grown without anyone designing it
Integrations have been built over the years on a project-by-project basis, often by different parties. The documentation is incomplete, and no one has a complete picture. An iPaaS offers a path to transform this unstructured growth into a manageable landscape.
