Enterprise Data Integration- What it is & Why it Matters

Enterprise Data Integration March 29, 2021

Mary Kate Morrow

Writer

The Importance of Enterprise Data Integration

In simple terms, enterprise data integration utilizes technology to combine data sets. The need to access data from many different sources is in no way a new business concern. Disparate sources of enterprise data have long been discussed both in the United States and the larger business world. The desire to produce a unified view of data has also been a consistent objective for high-performance organizations. As enterprise data integration increases in popularity, businesses are more frequently looking into establishing an integration solution of their own.

Over 80% of enterprise business data operations leaders believe data integration is crucial for real-time business operations. Unsurprisingly, enterprise data integration is increasingly considered essential to achieving and sustaining a high-performance organization.

Enterprise data integration is executed in various different ways dependent on business needs and objectives. Data integration solutions can rightfully feel intimidating for businesses to address. However, with ever-increasing data sources to analyze, enterprise data integration is a necessary consideration.

There are various indications that an organization should contemplate enterprise data integration ranging from application integration to data analytics issues. Data sets contained in disparate sources indicate that accomplishing a unified view of data is difficult if not impossible.

A unified view supplied through proper enterprise data integration allows businesses to access data and analyze it accordingly. As a result, everything from data analytics to data governance is positively influenced. Without enterprise data integration business intelligence and data management are negatively impacted. Enterprise data integration supports both real-time decision-making and swift data analytics processes.

With more cloud-based data than ever before, legacy systems are an increasingly pressing business concern. Although legacy systems serve their original function they are often incompatible with newer cloud-based data applications. Thankfully, enterprise data integration offers a solution for legacy and cloud-based data compatibility issues.

With increased data integration capabilities, information technology departments are better equipped to perform their role. However, in order for IT professionals to accomplish and maintain enterprise data integration outcomes, specific tools are necessary. When proper integration tools are supplied and enterprise data integration achieved, the benefits businesses receive are exceptional.

Enterprise Data Integration Benefits

The benefits enterprise data integration offers businesses are outstanding. Effectively implemented enterprise data integration solutions influence everything from data quality to digital transformation efforts. A significant benefit of enterprise data integration is increased productivity.

Increased productivity is accomplished through lessening data management burdens for various departments. In fact, departments ranging from financial services to the information technology department benefit from enterprise data integration.

There are even more notable ways that an enterprise data integration solution bolsters productivity. Templated workflows and reusable business intelligence are two productivity benefits that enterprise data integration supports. The ability to swiftly access data allows businesses to realize the value data assets contain quickly.

Extracting value from data assets promptly helps businesses identify crucial insights. For example, opportunities, strengths, weaknesses, and threats can be identified and properly addressed. As a result, businesses that accomplish enterprise data integration can obtain and sustain a competitive advantage and bottom-line profitability.

A unified view enhances visibility across business processes and overall business operations. With enhanced visibility comes increased accountability and organization across different business processes and departments.

More often than not, multiple business processes are simultaneously occurring within one organization. Without a unified view of data, business processes may be incorrectly performed which can result in disastrous long-term consequences. A unified view of data also influences business intelligence and reporting capabilities immensely.

Reporting and dashboards are both crucial for successful data analytics and business intelligence initiatives. In fact, 67% of businesses rely on data integration to support business intelligence and analytics platforms. An additional 24% of businesses plan to do so within the upcoming year.

80% of business operations leaders ranging from supply chain to service delivery consider data integration crucial to their success. Considering the quantity of data sources required for various business processes this figure may not be shocking. Businesses must keep in mind that operations rely heavily on the data pipeline and integration for both aggregation and visualization.

Enterprise Data Integration Initiatives

There are various enterprise data integration initiatives that all business professionals should be aware of. A widely known and incredibly common enterprise data integration initiative is big data integration. Big data integration utilizes an enterprise integration platform for big data solutions.

As a result of big data movement solutions, service continuity and reliability are optimized. Application integration is another noteworthy enterprise data integration initiative. Sustainable application integration architecture allows businesses to increase operational profitability.

Cloud and business to business integration are also powerful enterprise data integration initiatives. Business to business integration solutions is a top United States IT department concern. Successful business-to-business integration facilitates real-time high-data quality business exchanges.

Cloud integration is essential for both data management and document distribution. Cloud integration also assists with business to business integration processes within the cloud. Ultimately, enterprise data integration initiatives massively improve business processes and operations.

Key Takeaways for Enterprise Data Integration

Enterprise data integration is essential for business intelligence and analytics.
Common enterprise data integration initiatives include big data and cloud integrations.