Types of Business Process Integration

You want to reduce costs, improve customer service, streamline communication and help your organization stay agile amid changing market conditions. But how do you do that without disrupting your current state of business? You need seamless business process integration for your new and improved business processes, facilitated by process orchestration and automation tools.

Business process integration (BPI) is where an organization integrates and coordinates multiple business processes to achieve its business goals. BPI connects disparate departments, systems and people.

Business process integration aims to bring all your business data into a centralized repository for the relevant stakeholders to access. With automation, your integrated business processes can provide a single source of truth for your organization.

Intelligent automation (IA), also called process automation, uses robotic process automation (RPA) to automate repetitive tasks while also orchestrating your processes and systems through business process management (BPM) and artificial intelligence (AI).

Which business process integration software or system you integrate depends on your business needs, outcomes, technical expertise and existing infrastructure. You should research these options thoroughly and create a business strategy before integrating any major changes into your organization.

Native integration

Native integration allows you to connect directly with application programming interfaces (APIs) from another system without requiring third-party applications. Native integration is built directly into the software, allowing data to flow effortlessly between applications.

However, your integrations may not improve as quickly as something from a third-party integration due to the staffing and time requirements of your engineering team.

Process automation

Automating repetitive tasks can significantly enhance business efficiency and increase productivity. By implementing automation for routine activities such as order fulfillment, invoicing and data entry, you can enable business process optimization. Automation also improves communication and collaboration between departments, leading to more streamlined workflows.

BPM

Business process management allows you to oversee and track the performance of your business processes. BPM tools enable businesses to monitor internal processes, analyze their performance and make the necessary adjustments.

Business process reengineering (BPR)

Business process reengineering involves redesigning and reengineering existing business processes to boost efficiency and performance. This can include altering how tasks are performed or streamlining information management systems.

Tools such as process intelligence, task mining and process mining can help you uncover bottlenecks and inefficiencies in your existing processes so you can strategize how to execute business process improvements.

Point-to-point integration

In point-to-point integrations, your engineers can connect applications/endpoints (hardware, databases, etc.) using custom code.

This option saves you the time and costs of working with a third party. However, it can be time-consuming for your developers to build and maintain, which may hinder scalability.

User interface (UI) integration

UI system integration can help streamline navigation between your applications at the user interface level. It can use custom-coded scripts or RPA to streamline these tasks, such as copying and pasting data between applications.

UI integration is great for operating in legacy systems that don’t offer APIs. The caveat is that it can break from the changes made to an app’s UI, meaning some monitoring is required.

Data integration

Data integration allows you to merge and share data, such as reporting, across various systems. This can be done manually or with data integration tools. Integrating data ensures that all stakeholders have access to relevant information and ensures the data is accurate.

API integrations

With API integrations, you can allow two or more programs to combine their data through APIs.

Third-party integrations

You can combine third-party integration with your existing software and add an integration feature rather than needing to build it out yourself from scratch – also called a “non-native solution”.

Business process integration works best with BPM at its side. BPM is crucial for managing, automating and optimizing various business processes such as invoicing, order processing and customer service. It provides visibility and control over processes from start to finish.

What integration capabilities does BPM have?

Most BPM tools can integrate with your existing system. Integrating BPI with BPM ensures efficient management, streamlines operations, reduces costs and enhances scalability. This integration improves customer satisfaction and loyalty by speeding up order and invoice processing. BPM also monitors and evaluates process performance, helping businesses identify and address areas for improvement.

We’ll keep it simple with these five tips:

1. Understand your current processes: Using tools and strategies like business process mapping, business process modeling and business process documentation, you can map out your as-is processes. This will help you identify areas for improvement.
2. Prioritize opportunities: Start with integrating simple processes or those with the highest potential return on investment (ROI).
3. Create a strategy: Set out goals, timelines, resources, and roles and responsibilities for your BPI. Involve all stakeholders in this process to help you reimagine your processes.
4. Find a solution: Select a BPI integration and any other BPM or IA solutions that suit your business objectives and systems.
5. Test, monitor and optimize: With your tools in place, you must invest continuous efforts to check that your process integrations are working effectively, refining as you go.

Here are some of the reasons why businesses choose to integrate their business processes:

• Eliminate manual tasks: BPI often involves automation to reduce the time-consuming tasks taking up your employees’ efforts. This frees them to focus on more value-driven activities, such as strategic planning or ensuring excellent customer service.

• Increase efficiency: Integrating your business processes means less time spent switching between various platforms and applications to access data. Everything can be accessed from a centralized location.

• Reduce bottlenecks: Multiple systems and applications leave room for slowdowns and data siloes, forcing your teams to spend more time trying to access the information they need to do their jobs. By integrating all of this into a single source of truth, you can consolidate this data and save time for everyone.

• Better decision-making: By consolidating your business data and standardizing your processes through BPM and BPI, you provide your decision-makers with actionable insights. This gives them the data they need to optimize business operations.

• Stay competitive: BPI helps you stay agile in a competitive market by reducing inefficiencies and redundancies and improving productivity. It connects your systems and people, helping you focus on the high-value work first.

• Digital transformation: BPI lets you reimagine how your business processes work. This helps you and your team engage in more ways to transform and scale your processes.

Most organizations across industries and departments can consolidate their data and systems with a BPI strategy. Let’s look at a couple of examples.

Supply chain management

Your supply chain management can involve several systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and a warehouse management system (WMS). With BPI, your new and improved workflow can go as follows:

1. A customer places an order through the CRM system; those details are automatically transferred to your ERP system.
2. The ERP system tracks inventory levels and updates the CRM system in real-time, providing your sales representatives with accurate information about product availability.
3. While processing the order, the ERP system sends a request to the WMS, which manages and ensures the correct items are picked and packed.
4. The WMS synchronizes with your ERP system to ensure accurate inventory records and avoid stockouts or overstock.
5. Once an order is packed, the WMS coordinates with shipping carriers to arrange transportation.

New employee onboarding

Human resources (HR) teams must complete numerous steps across various applications to onboard a new employee. This can be time-consuming and easily leave steps forgotten or unfinished. By integrating these processes, you can let new hires access the applications they need from day one. Picture it like this:

1. Your HR team delivers a new hire notification. This triggers the onboarding workflow.
2. The hiring manager receives a notification in their communication platform (e.g., Asana, Slack, etc.) asking them to grant access to the appropriate applications the new hire requires to begin their tasks.
3. Once they’ve selected the appropriate applications, this notification is automatically sent to your IT team, who can then approve or reject the request with one click.

With BPI, you can achieve seamless data flow, enhance operational efficiency and streamline workflows. Regardless of which integration method you choose, the key is to select the right strategy and tools that align with your business needs and goals.

Prioritizing opportunities, creating a detailed strategy and continuously monitoring and optimizing integrated processes will ensure that your business remains competitive and capable of driving digital transformation.

Discover how you can effectively integrate your business processes with the SS&C | Blue Prism® Chorus BPM platform.