
“No technology is an island. ERPs, supplier catalogs, and spend management platforms are all examples of technology with which purchase-to-pay solutions are likely to integrate. Technology vendors will always claim, “Yes, we can integrate with that,” but at what cost and effort? Has it been done before? Will the integration be real-time or daily batch upload? These are all questions to consider before even selecting a technology, let alone implementing one.”
Artificial intelligence has already emerged as the most sought after technology for every Procurement organization. But is buying an A.I. driven solution sufficient for meeting organizational objectives? No.
Ease of deployment and integration is emerging as a deciding factor for organizations to choose a solution. Organizations vouch for the fact that successful integration is essential to value realization from a solution implementation. While extended integration timelines delay implementation, a poorly integrated solution hurts ROI realization. The problem with integration is that it is a tedious task, and solution providers put organizations to this task.
It is a new dynamic in integration where you are trying to integrate the cloud with on-premises. This entails several problems like:
Did you know?
Outsourced costs for System Integrators tend to be 3x more than in house IT costs.
Why the industry is ditching the traditional integration solutions
The three popular integration solutions are:
In this approach, customer ERP is at the task of converting the code that comes from the solution provider. Also known as ‘heavy lifting’ in industry terms, it consumes the largest amount of time and operations. Maintenance time is equally high because every change request requires a change in the code. Most upgrades and integrations take years to be implemented because budget approvals get delayed. As a result, the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) – which includes the price of the solution, people, and training, is very high.
The next generation of integration solutions included Middleware. It operates in the same way, with one exception of having a nifty UI with drag and drop functionality. The need to know the provider’s language remains.
These are like software that can be installed on the Middleware. With some basic configuration, transformation is done. The maintenance time is huge because the provider has to take care of multiple ERPs, multiple ERP version upgrades, and multiple generations of ERPs. With any change in the tech stack, the customer is not able to upgrade.
Comparing the 3 integration solutions
So what do the experts suggest?
An essential part of the discussion with solution providers should be their integration approach.
Zycus Approach to Integration
Organizations are at different stages of technology adoption, and their procurement practices are different- as a result, we need to create tailored approaches based on complexity for integration. Zycus has defined two basic approaches to integration: minimal and extensive.
These approaches take into consideration factors such as process complexity, volumes of data for exchange, and maturity of the source system. Our seamless integration services ensure that value realization starts immediately post Go Live of our Merlin A.I. Solution Suite.
Some Factors for measuring process complexity
Integration Approach | Process Complexity | Volumes of data for exchange
| Maturity of the source system |
Minimal | Low to Average
| None/ Low to Average (less than 1000/ month)
| Low to Average
|
Extensive | Above Avg. or High
| High (1000+/month)
| High to Very High
|
iSaaS: Zycus’ Paradigm Shift in ERP Integration Technology
iSaaS is the industry’s first value innovation, which makes implementation timelines of 2-3 months a reality. With the reduction in implementation time, the Total Cost of Ownership reduces drastically while Zycus takes care of operations and maintenance. This gives us enhanced flexibility to handle customizations in integration across multiple generations of ERPs. Multiphase, multi ERP integration is easy with the Build Once, Deploy Multiple Model. Zycus product configuration can go parallel with integration try-out for fail-fast and configure the right philosophy.
Check out this case study of how a US-based electric power company increased visibility and compliance by integrating the existing system with Zycus.
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