Whether you’re a small business or a multinational company, the right tools can make your work more efficient and productive. 

When you start a business, you mostly start with minimum resources. As your business grows, you start to seek tools that can help your business, you oftentimes need to make choices. Choices like whether your business needs an integrated business software or not? In this article, we’ll be helping you to determine the same.

But first, let’s start with the basics.

What is an Integrated Software?

Integrated software “suites” are a set of different software specially designed to help businesses for various purposes. All the software in an integrated bundle can be accessed through the same launching pad. This is extremely beneficial for businesses because all the software is interconnected and this causes zero to no error as the files can be imported without the need to convert. 

The most common yet popular software suite is Microsoft Office, which has software like PowerPoint, Excel, Word, etc.

Want to know more about such software?

Let’s start with the pros and cons of integrated software suites.

Pros of Pre-Built Integrated Software Suites

Such integrated software suites have been there for many past years and you might even have used at least one of such services either at school or office. Here are the pros of integrated software for companies of all sizes

• Integrated software bundles cost lower than buying each application separately.
• With integrated software bundles, you can install only the applications that you need or all the programs at the same time.
• They offer to switch from one application to another.
• They allow the users to share details between one application to another.
• You can update either of the applications or all at the same time.
• They can be used by any business regardless of size.

Cons of Pre-Built Integrated Software Suites

• Might seem costly for small businesses.
• All applications in integrated software come from the same parent company. So if you prefer one application from one company and another one from some other company then that can be an issue for you.
• You might end up purchasing more than you actually need.
• Installation of multiple websites at once can take up a large space in your storage device. 

So now that we have uncovered the pros and cons of an integrated business solution, let’s take a sneak peek at how your business can be benefitted from such bundles.

How Choosing An Integrated Business Software Eliminates Multiple Dependencies To Streamline Your Business Performance?

Boosts Productivity

Siloed applications can cause time-consuming and labor-intensive manual work. The reason being that in this system the employees have to repeatedly enter the same data. For example, at first, the salesforce types order details into a CRM then shipping staff enters these details into the order fulfillment system. The accounts department then repeats the process to generate invoices and when the right time comes to create reports, managers start to find the right data in spreadsheets across the company and on average spend 19% of their time on finding resources, documents, and information related to their job. 

Here integrated business software can change the game. As an integrated software solution stores all the data in one place it eliminates the unnecessary need of entering data multiple times at different places. Moreover, such software also frees the managers from searching for data through multiple spreadsheets to find the right data. Hence the process becomes faster and productive. Shared data can also boost business processes. For instance, when purchasing managers see that there’s a new order, they can instantly reorder any necessary inventory without having to wait for an email regarding the new order. 

Provides Accurate Data and Decisions

When data is entered manually by humans, the chances of error increase and inaccurate data can lead to wrong decisions that can affect the overall business success. Moreover, if that wrong data is stored in multiple places, the organization will have different versions of the data. Moreover, if that data is updated over one place and not in other places, it may create a lot of confusion which can lead to many complications. 

With a centralized data repository, you can easily eliminate the chances of inaccuracies. Just one version of the truth will allow the rest of the process to go smoothly without creating unnecessary confusion. 

Provides Greater Visibility and Insights

Silos can make the process of getting the right data to the right people at the right time a strenuous task. The reason being that with siloed applications managers have to manually extract the data from several applications which can take a lot of time. This can result in one of the below-mentioned results-

1. Organizations make slow decisions because they have to waste countless hours in generating reports.
2. Organizations can remove the reporting process and start making decisions based on gut instincts. 

Wrong or late decisions can have a disastrous impact on your organization’s ability to meet its customers’ expectations, analyze the results, and stay above the competitors. 

Integrated business systems provide you with tools that can help you extract all the data from the data repository to boost business planning and analysis of results.

Reduces IT Costs

Organizations using siloed applications may face several unnecessary expenses. These include capital expenses for both hardware and software, IT management, maintenance for multiple applications as well as up-gradation costs, and more. 

So when the IT department doesn’t need to procure, install, and maintain various hardware and software solutions, you can easily chop off the operational costs. 

So this was all about why your business needs an integrated business solution. But do you know what essential functionalities you need in it? Let’s explore.

Essential Functionalities in Integrated Business Software

Here’s a fact– implementing integrated business software isn’t a breeze. It involves complex tasks like managing and manipulating humongous amounts of highly variable data. It’s not just about the big data but also the rapidly changing data. So before picking your integrated business software, make sure that it has all the following essential qualities-

User-friendly Modeling

Embedded modeling logic that can be managed by the users themselves is imperative. In this way, the user wouldn’t need any coding skills or prior experience to adjust the business rules, update drivers, and modify the dimensions and hierarchies to do the job.

Process a Lot of Data

You need software that has the ability to process a humongous amount of data across multiple dimensions. Data is growing across the world as well as within individual businesses. An ideal solution should grow with you and have the ability to handle millions and billions of pieces of data. In the process, this should include you to modify or replace the data from time to time. Additionally, utilizing cloud VMS enhances relevance by offering scalable infrastructure, ensuring efficient management of extensive data volumes while seamlessly adapting to your evolving requirements with high performance and reliability.

Convenient Integration

It’s unlikely to easily find a single software solution that can meet all your business’s expectations. This means that you need to rely upon several systems– and getting all of them to work together can be quite tricky. Systems that offer open APIs and other features that let them be integrated easily with other platforms and can also help you to keep the internal process streamlined are the ones you need to go for.

Flexibility

All businesses are different and so are their needs. So finding a one-size-fits-all solution isn’t possible. Try to find a bundle that offers additional modules or APIs to integrate and suit all your requirements.

Customer Support

No matter what software you choose, a great customer support system is a must. The reason being that no matter what kind of software you use and how expert you’re at it, you will need professional help at some point. So you should always pick a company that offers great customer support. Some of the basic things to look out for are- dedicated account representatives, 24×7 customer support, active social media accounts, and a plethora of available online resources. 

Final Thoughts

Integrated business solutions can provide you with clear visibility across your business. As it allows you to easily check historical and real-time data, improve the overall business process, and continually analyze the progress to make corrections as you move forward. This means that you can easily grow or evolve with the changing business conditions. This, in turn, will result in more customer satisfaction rate and provide you with a competitive edge. 

If your organization is looking for integrated business software that can provide you with all the amazing benefits mentioned above, run your business on Deskera and take your business to the next level.