As teams throughout your organization work to streamline workflows and automate processes, integration naturally becomes the starting point. Integration enables your core systems to share data, which is crucial for successful automation. 

However, while integration requests often come from different departments across your organization, IT teams shoulder the burden of executing these integrations, leading to backlogs. Integration backlogs can quickly overwhelm your team and prevent them from focusing on other key initiatives like digital transformation, security, and implementing AI.

On top of that, budget constraints and hiring freezes prevent IT teams from bringing on additional developers to handle these integration requests. So, what can you do?

The answer lies in democratizing integration. Let’s explore what this can look like for your team.

The root of the problem

Unfortunately, integration backlogs are a common issue. With modern tech stacks averaging 130 applications, integrating all your systems is time-consuming. And, new best-of-breed applications are being adopted every day, making it difficult for your team to keep up. 

The longer your team takes to complete integration projects, the greater the risk of negative impacts on your business. These backlogs can cause employee frustration, poor customer experiences, and even lost revenue.

3 tips for democratizing integration

To reduce your integration backlog and prevent it from recurring, start by democratizing the integration process. This involves empowering business technologists–the digitally adept employees on your teams–to build, manage, and monitor their own integrations. 

Successfully transitioning to a more democratized integration process hinges on effective planning. Explore three key steps you can take to prepare your organization: 

1. Build an integration roadmap

With numerous ad-hoc integration requests flooding your IT team’s inbox, prioritizing them can be challenging. That’s why it’s important to build an integration roadmap. By mapping your current systems to your business processes and determining your biggest pain points, you can effectively prioritize integrations and create a timeline for implementation. 

Even after you democratize integration, this roadmap serves as a valuable guide for your teams to help them determine which of their applications to integrate first. It can also help you pinpoint areas for automation.

2. Identify business technologists 

Business technologists are the key to reducing your integration backlog. These employees are often already leveraging technology to configure their own analytics, process automation, or solutions. This makes them well equipped to build their own integrations. 

To identify these employees on your team, look for digital natives, power users of applications, and early adopters of new technologies. With business technologists empowered to build integrations, your team is freed up to focus on complex integrations and other strategic initiatives. 

3. Adopt an advanced iPaaS

In order to build their own integrations, business technologists need an integration platform that is user-friendly, designed for non-technical users, and doesn’t require coding. It also helps if the solution you choose enables DIY ingenuity, experimentation, and innovation, as business technologists are looking for these capabilities in technology. 

By adopting an advanced iPaaS, like Celigo, you can give business technologists the tools they need to be successful. Advanced iPaaS platforms offer your teams an intuitive and low code environment to build integrations. They also have AI features that make it easier than ever for business users to understand integrations and configurations. 

Reduce your integration backlog

Integration backlogs have been a worsening headache for IT teams over the last few years, as tech stacks continue to balloon. Rather than getting rid of key applications or accepting a never-ending backlog, democratize integration.

This shift not only alleviates the pressure on IT, but also enhances collaboration across departments. With integrations democratized, your IT team can focus on digital transformation initiatives, and your business teams can complete integrations faster than ever–boosting innovation and agility. 

Learn more about how you can empower your business teams and integrate your tech stack end-to-end with our ebook, “From busywork to brilliance: How IT can champion smarter workflows.”