Enterprise software integration is essential for the elimination of data silos. jtel makes it easy for you to converge different systems, bringing all your communications data from the contact center and making it immediately available so you can integrate at your own pace, in line with business priorities.

Specialised business software brings huge benefits – but can create new silos

All businesses use a range of different software solutions. Some, like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics, are widely used across all sectors. Others are industry specific or even bespoke and built by customers themselves and are optimised to deal with a particular set of processes.

Today’s businesses also use a range of different communications channels and software – for example Microsoft Teams or Zoom - and their customers are likely to use just as many, if not more. In B2C sectors, for example, companies may find they have to embrace other tools such as WhatsApp, as well as more traditional tools like the phone.

As a result the enterprise software domain has become increasingly crowded and, while each tool has its merits, this is creating a problem. Businesses depend on insights to drive process optimisation and improvement. Every platform generates its own KPIs and data based on customer interactions, orders, appointments and so on. The problem is that in many cases this data remains isolated and trapped in silos. Mightily effective silos to be sure, but silos all the same.

Integration helps you to eliminate software silos

That is changing, slowly. Organisations are seeing the need to bring silos together via integration, so that they can share data and create a more unified view of information from across the company. Actions in one system should drive actions in another via process interconnection and integration.

For a long time, achieving this was difficult. It required the work of experts, systems integrators able to perform custom integration projects and to connect, piece by piece different platforms, taking different, proprietary programming interfaces and gluing them together with specially written code.

Now, that’s no longer always the case. Most modern software solutions offer some form of documented API – usually based on REST principles – while many provide resources and examples to help with the task of integration. Further, many offer widgets that provide pre-written solutions to accelerate the process still further. Yes, some customisation may be required, but the process has become far more common and within reach of more and more organisations.

Prioritise the integration you need for your business, enabled by the contact center

All this means that companies can take a systematic view and optimise the processes which have the most gains in the short term. They can prioritise one integration over another, according to their needs, whilst still being in control of their processes, reducing the need for complex integrations driven by external consultants. And they can be agile, changing tack as their needs and their market demands.

We’re finding that communications and the CRM or ERP – whether a specialist medical platform or a more general solution, such as Salesforce, SAP or Zoho – are generally first on the list for integration.

That’s because customer communication – across different channels, such as Teams, the PBX, WhatsApp, and so on – provides actions and outcomes that need to drive related processes in CRM platforms (an appointment, scheduling a clinician, booking an initial test, and so on), and provide key records that need to be integrated with other data. So, they are obvious targets for a quick win – and that’s exactly what we are seeing.

Because we bring together different communications channels into a single integrated contact center experience, most of the job is done already. We blend these different channels and then provide aggregated output via our open and documented APIs, ready for consumption by other platforms, considerably simplifying the task.

The beauty, though, is that this can happen very quickly. It’s generally a matter of a few days to accomplish the requisite integration and, if it’s not undertaken on first deployment, it’s definitely something on the near-term agenda.

So, wherever you are with your integration plans, rest assured that, when trying to eliminate silos in your business, jtel will ensure you can close gaps and create a seamless experience that enables you to make the most of your data.