With today’s standards and expectations, agility, speed, and data accuracy are essential for a successful business. So why are many of us still struggling and just ‘getting by’ with disconnected software systems that slow us down, cost us money, and frustrate both our staff and customers. Business owners might not like to admit it, but disconnected software is more than just a minor inconvenience – it’s a hidden drain on business performance.
The Real Cost of Disconnected Software
Disconnected software doesn’t just create technical headaches for your staff; they create business challenges that can impact everything from profitability to customer satisfaction. Below are some of the most common – and costly – consequences:
Double Data Entry (and Double the Risk)
If your team manually enters the same data into multiple systems – whether it’s customer information, quotes, service details, or invoices – you’re wasting valuable time and increasing the chance of human error.
When human error inevitably occurs, you’ll then waste even more time having to go back and fix the error – and even potentially risk frustrating a customer if the error causes a delay.
Inaccurate and Inconsistent Data
Without a single source of information, your data can become fragmented and unreliable. Your reports may not align, decisions are likely being made on outdated or incomplete information, and there’s a high chance your customer records are full of gaps and inconsistencies.
Not only is inaccurate or missing data very irritating for your staff, they may even end up wasting a lot of time trying to find the correct data that should’ve been there from the beginning; but that’s only if they realise the data is incorrect in the first place – there’s no guarantee!
Delays and Bottlenecks
Disconnected systems introduce friction throughout your business processes. When critical data is siloed across departments, even routine tasks become cumbersome.
Generating a quote might require jumping between your CRM and other platforms, manually checking pricing or inventory and compiling the information into the quote. Sales teams may struggle to get real-time visibility into pipeline health, leading to missed opportunities or inaccurate forecasting. Meanwhile, service delivery suffers from miscommunication and delays, forming cracks in customer trust. Instead of focusing on growth and customer experience, your team is constantly fighting unnecessary daily inefficiencies.
Overwhelmed Teams
Your business didn’t hire its staff to spend lots of time entering the same data into different systems – not only is that a waste of time, but it’s a waste of the valuable skills you hired them for! They’re supposed to be focusing on high-value work, doing what they do best. Yet, disconnected software forces staff into tedious, repetitive tasks and workarounds, leaving them feeling frustrated, bored, and demoralised.
Unnecessary Licencing Costs
When everyone needs access to almost every system just to do their job, such as CRM, finance, and ERP platforms, you end up paying for far more licences than necessary. It’s not worth frittering away money, paying premium rates for users to perform basic functions like checking a customer balance, confirming product availability, or generating a simple quote when it could all be centralised.
How to Fix It with Integrated Software
Thankfully, fixing your disconnected systems doesn’t require a rip-and-replace approach. An integrated software solution enables you to connect your existing systems into a seamless, automated, and centralised system tailored specifically to how your business works.
There are four different ways in which you can connect your systems, depending on your business requirements:
Custom Connectors
A custom connector joins up your CRM system with your operational systems to share key information. You could have either a simple one-way connection, for example, viewing data from one system within another, or a two-way connection, such as synchronising data between your marketing platform and your CRM system. This type of systems integration is designed more as an app-style connector rather than a fully customised integration.
A data warehouse is a central location and permanent storage area for data and information held around your business. It is used to share data between all business applications, along with automating communication between staff, customers, suppliers, and/or other external organisations.
Having a data warehouse gives you complete visibility over your business and enables advanced reporting, automation, and GDPR-compliant data management. Benefits are seen very quickly, so you’ll see instant value at a low investment point.
Integrated software applications (also known as middleware) overlay functionality across all your business systems, enabling your staff to work in a central place, safe in the knowledge that the data is being saved to the right places. Think of them as the “brain” of your operation.
There are two main drivers behind why businesses invest in Integrated Software Applications:
Better profitability: Businesses either have a high volume of transactions they need to process – like quotes or contracts – or need to keep their companies lean while closing more business. An Integrated Software Application saves a huge amount of time and money.
Competitive advantage: Organisations are looking for a more streamlined and accurate way of working. They want to stand out from the competition through their unique customer interactions with a solution that is completely tailored to their business.
A web portal is a digitised way to share your business information with people outside of your organisation. For a customer, this might be the ability to view their invoices, past orders, and quotes that you have created, as well as membership or subscription information, enabling them to get this information on a self-serve basis.
Web portals can also be used to collect information from people outside of your organisation. For example, the ability for your customers or suppliers to log a support ticket, or to request a quotation for supply of goods and services.
The portals pull information from your operating systems on-demand and in real-time. As no data is stored by the web portal, it enables you to keep your customer data secure, whilst maintaining absolute control of the information made available.
The main benefits of having a web portal are the saving of substantial time and costs and enabling businesses to deliver exceptional customer experience.
Does your organisation relate to the frustrations and challenges of disconnected software? Start improving business performance, reduce your workload, and focus on high-value work Read more about ten benefits of integrated software and get in touch today.
We hope you found this article interesting and informative. For more ideas on how to streamline, automate and digitally transform your business (thereby saving you time and money):
Starting out as a supermarket delivery driver, Jess has worked in Marketing ever since.
Her superpower is turning our content into engaging videos, beautiful images, creative documents and sharing it all on our social media channels.
An avid traveller, her holidays are often spent on the road exploring as much as she can.
