Integration connectors play a key role in functional and strategic areas of the business. Businesses need to connect their applications to complete processes like order-to-cash—which often cross several different systems—in an automated way. They need to connect to their systems of record to get access to data for analyzing the state of the business. They need to connect to their partners to have access to additional business opportunities and get others to do the things they’re not experts at. And of course, they need to connect to customers to deliver products and services – preferably in a digital medium that enables customization, targeting, and better understanding of customer behavior.
Consider also how often organizations have to change how they interact with customers and how they produce goods and services to stay relevant within their marketplaces. In order to stay competitive, they must be agile – able to go to market faster and adapt to requirements and to their competition. For example, a new lead from a Marketo marketing campaign might be automatically propagated to Salesforce for follow-up by the sales team. This interaction is time-sensitive. This is only possible if the two systems are efficiently integrated so that they can “talk” to each other and exchange data without barriers.