Why should businesses explore iPaaS solutions

It is 2023. Almost three years since the onset of COVID-19, which shook the world and forced businesses into digitization at lightning speed. If data was big pre-COVID, now it is massive. For businesses to use data optimally and analytically in real-time, it needs to flow seamlessly from one system to another, be it old or new, on-premise or on-cloud. Integrating these systems and applications is an important consideration for businesses given the fact that, on average, they use up to 10-20 of them across teams. Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) is a known solution that has existed for a while, but its use and scope have grown significantly with several unknown global developments. Its core capabilities remain unchanged and yet relevant in these changing times. 

An efficient approach

Disconnected systems that don’t speak to each other lead to data loss and a lot of chaos. With organizations examining their tech stack for consolidation and rationalization, implementing iPaaS is the next step towards optimizing tech investments. It helps teams build scalable infrastructure with no-code/low-code/pro-code options readily available for both power users and citizen developers to connect apps, microservices and enterprise databases. iPaaS supports on-cloud, on-premise and hybrid formats to build journeys that allow data to flow across systems with zero manual intervention. It provides visibility to the developer or end-user with an event trace of what has failed and error(s) that may have caused the failure. iPaaS is the building block of workflow automation that brings innumerable efficiencies with business logic. Business logic involves setting up scenarios for each journey wherein, if and when specific criteria are met, it triggers the next steps. Several vendor-based iPaaS offerings help businesses save extensive resources on building an in-house solution for this requirement.

A horizontal platform

One size rarely fits all; in case of iPaaS, it comes close. iPaaS is a horizontal platform which is industry-agnostic, function-agnostic and platform-agnostic. It contributes effortlessly to building and deploying an integration and automation pipeline for every foreseeable use case across industries, functions and platforms. iPaaS supports a wide range of SaaS and enterprise applications across domains like Accounting, BI, Analytics, Communication, CRM, Customer Support, Developer Tools, Ecommerce, ERP, Event Scheduling, Forms, Payments, Project Management and others. Business teams struggle to make their systems work in sync, and iPaaS helps with this pain point. It solves for every integration-related use case with a very short turnaround time and allows for changes in application or business logic by injecting low-code or pro-code.

A synergistic solution

iPaaS is an enabler for businesses to initiate their integration and automation journey for process optimization. It relieves the workforce of manual tasks and menial maintenance of legacy systems by helping them set up flexible environments where their infrastructure is regulated in the cloud. Cloud integration is the flywheel of iPaaS because it provides better storage, computing power and security as compared to on-premise databases. This is critical to the overall functioning of teams that often have employees and ecosystem partners working remotely or on the field. iPaaS unifies disparate systems, entities and automates the activity that runs between them. It provides a synergistic solution to business teams looking to increase operational visibility and make better decisions that increase revenue. 

With iPaaS solutions today, the focus is not just integration but largely workflow automation. With the present take on the future of work, affordable and sustainable iPaaS solutions are a must-have for businesses looking to make technology work for them rather than the other way around.

The article has been written by Kiran Tawari, AVP (Business Development), Quickwork