Benefits of software integrations

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To find out more about the software integrations with Kx sytems download our free ebook.

 

Universities are constantly facing decisions over whether to invest into new technologies. On average, companies use 7 to 10 applications for various business purposes. The usual path would be buying several cheaper licences from various software companies as it seems like you are spending less of that precious budget. And there is nothing wrong with this strategy, short term. However, long term, your company will get to the point where you have various pieces of software that are not even necessarily talking to each other.

There is nothing wrong with using multiple systems to manage your company operations as long as it suits your business needs and those systems are communicating with each other. Now, in the real world this is hardly achievable as over time the systems are getting old, the company needs are changing and people who implemented these systems are leaving.

The Utopia would be having one system that could do it all, but this system hasn’t been created yet. Why? Because every company is different, it needs a different tech stack and one platform simply can’t cover it all.

So, what is a system integration?

The best way to describe it is to think back to your childhood and to those lovely colourful jigsaw puzzles we all used to play with. How would you feel if you could only put together half of that tree, or a third of a horse on the picture? You need all the pieces and, most importantly, they must fit together to form a full and functioning picture. So, all your systems are the puzzle pieces that need to fit together for your department to function, grow and be able to beat the competitors.

 

What happens if your systems don’t cooperate with each other?

Firstly, it produces unnecessary manual work and as a result, duplicated work which results in lost hours, money, customers and growing team frustration. But that’s not all…

What this means for your financial team? It would present danger of potentially losing the financial data, miscounting profits or spend, incorrect contract, invoices etc. This will result in inaccurate presentation of your real financial situation and future planning. Storing data in different places is not only increasing the risks but also makes it difficult to analyze and report on.

For your IT team it means a risk of data loss or damage as you will probably end up with various overlapping databases. It creates challenges when setting up an efficient IT infrastructure integrating, maintaining, and acquiring current versions of all your applications. Furthermore, it presents difficulties in keeping the IT security to high standards as your infrastructure will be so fragmented.

Last but not least, for your wider team it means increased frustration about the amount of manual work they have to complete, which means wasted productivity and higher potential of errors occurring. It also potentially means losing customers or prospects as you won’t be able to offer the same level of service as your competitors. Furthermore, the internal and external communications might be impacted as departments won’t have one centralized system for storing information.

 

So, what are the benefits of system integrations?

After going through the complications that the lack of system integrations may provide for your university, let’s see how your operations would change after uniting all systems.

Improved company processes

First, you will reduce the amount of manual work which will lead to increased productivity and employee satisfaction. Your teams will be able to focus on exploring new business opportunities rather than trying to catch up on administrative tasks. By improving the automation processes you would need less people to complete certain tasks which will allow you to focus on the quality of your team rather than its size.

Increased data visibility and insight

When all your systems are integrated, it means they have the same information flow. You don’t have various versions of databases anymore, you can get one overall view of all the details. Your analysis and reporting will be made easier and more efficient as well. Why is this important? Because you would be able to make decisions based on accurate numbers and insights.

Increased profits

Every conferencing department operates on the basis of creating profits. Once your teams have access to the same information, they start to speak the same language. Increased efficiency will result in higher sales and decreased costs based on improved decision-making and operational processes.

 

Who could you integrate with?

Kinetic integrates with a broad variety of financial, EPOS, payment, facilities, room booking and other systems. This will increase your team productivity and reduce IT costs, it also will make your event management processes from enquiry through event planning to invoicing more efficient. Our interfaces are fully customizable, please check out the full list of integrations we have already implemented below.