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3 Lessons from Tech Leaders on Mastering Growth Through Integration and Automation

by Sarah Kyo
May 14, 2021
Incorporating integration and automation into your operations can help your growing company gain a competitive advantage.

In fact, according to a recent survey, the general need to automate for scale is a top reason for tech companies seeking out an integration solution. Another key driver is dealing with too many manual processes. To become a more connected enterprise and reach the next stage, your team will need to address these concerns.

Luckily, you’re not alone in facing these challenges, so let’s hear from a few tech leaders who’ve been on this journey before – and found success.
 

Lesson 1: On the Integration and Automation Journey

BrandMuscle is the leader in integrated local and channel marketing. However, in order to both scale and automate the media-buying process for its customers, the company needed to modernize its legacy backend and rethink its entire operations. This included adopting cloud-based applications, such as NetSuite for their ERP.

Early on, they recognized that they had to also adopt an integration platform (iPaaS) to integrate their SaaS apps and help make their digital transformation a success.

“You will be able to implement more and more of these types of solutions just by word-of-mouth because of the proper planning and getting those solutions in place at the beginning rather than, ‘Oh, oh, now we have to integrate that.’ I think that was the biggest thing when I was doing this: doing it at day 1 rather than day 100 when I want to go live on day 150.”
– Brian Kuntz, VP of Corporate Solutions Delivery, BrandMuscle

While it took time to set up new processes, all of their planning and efforts paid off. After launching their integration solution, BrandMuscle found at least 6 other areas of their business to automate via word-of-mouth. One of their latest endeavors is a data science project, moving data from NetSuite into Snowflake via built-in connectors. 

Lesson 2: On Tech, Process, and People

Aryaka is a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) provider, offering global connectivity for any customer with a flip of a switch. During the past decade, they’ve developed a solid product, but they recently wanted to improve packaging and messaging to fit their customers’ needs. Part of this transition included finding an integration solution to connect existing disparate SaaS apps.

The company’s integration approach involved understanding their business processes first before introducing new tools, as well as identifying the key people that need to be involved.

“The business is what drives the whole thing when you are given a seat at the table as a technology leader in the organization. And then number two is knowing your people. People may be your own employees or the partners you work with like Celigo. And then the technology because what tools and technology you are using makes this whole value you want to create for the organization.”

– Venkat Ranga, Head of Business Information Systems, at Aryaka

As part of improving product packaging and messaging, Aryaka streamlined their quote-to-cash business process with an iPaaS. By integrating their tech stack around NetSuite, Zuora, and Salesforce, Ranga and his team of consultants and contractors improved operational efficiency. The proven ROI helped make a strong case for hiring full-time employees to maintain Aryaka’s integrations in-house. 

Lesson 3: On Business and Technical Value Achieved

GetBusy is a software company specializing in document management and productivity apps. For more than 20 years, their operations ran on a homegrown ERP/CRM system, but during a transitional period, they took this opportunity to rebuild their operations in a more modern, scalable manner. Since the product and pricing are individualized for each customer, the sales team needed access to critical invoice and billing data to accurately assess upsell opportunities and requests from existing customers.

With the right iPaaS, the company discovered real-time integration was possible without a huge amount of custom coding.

“Looking at real-time integration rather than sinking batches of data between two systems and having them argue which one’s primary and which one’s secondary was really key for us. It was a game-changer in our ability to be able to mobilize our business processes between our applications.”

– Jason Ross, Chief Information Officer, at GetBusy

With their integrations, GetBusy can scale their custom pricing while using agile finance. Without data silos, support engineers and salespeople are able to know which customers have or haven’t paid their invoices. The company is more aware of any special pricing, price increases, or price decreases for specific customers, so they can make more informed decisions.

Want More Integration and Automation Lessons?

These companies all reached a point in their operations where they needed to undergo a digital transformation. To transition to the next stage, they automated their business processes with pre-built and customized integrations on an iPaaS. To learn more from these three tech leaders, watch the on-demand webinar, Mastering Growth: Live Panel on Integration and Automation to Scale.

Additionally, you can contact us to speak with one of our integration experts to address your specific use cases.

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