You’re Losing Revenue Because of Poor Integration

Companies are losing revenue due to poor integration and most aren’t sure what they can do about it. But what if there are some basic steps they can take to overcome?

COVID-19 has ravaged global supply chains in ways that will have a lasting effect for years to come, and it’s those companies who have adapted, evolved, and embraced modern integration technology that are best equipped to thrive going forward. The pandemic has forced companies across many different industries to re-examine their integration technology, with an eye toward the cloud.

According to Cleo’s 2021 State of Ecosystem and Application Integration Report, nearly 9 out of 10 companies (89%) made operational business decisions to change course in response to the global pandemic. More than 96% said that COVID forced them to change their business strategy for 2021 as they look towards growing their digital commerce channels, accelerating cloud migration, and focusing on digital transformation.

But here’s where the lack of modern integration really hurt companies in 2020 – right in the pocketbook. Companies lost more revenue last year due to integration issues than they did in 2019, and COVID-19 was the primary reason.

When asked how much annual revenue was lost in 2020 due to poor integrations, 66% of respondents said their companies lost up to $500,000, compared with just 43% losing that amount in 2019, and 10% said they lost up to $1 million in revenue.

You heard that right - $1 million in LOST revenue.

If you’re one of those companies that found themselves losing revenue because you continued to rely on legacy, disparate technologies, the simple fact is your B2B integration is broken. You cannot best serve your customers and drive more revenue when you don’t have end-to-end integration visibility across key internal and external business processes such as Order-to-Cash, Procure-to-Pay, or Load-Tender-to-Invoice.

In light of COVID, as we approach the nearly one-year mark, CFOs should take this opportunity as an inflection point to look at all of the integration gaps within their supply chain processes. The numbers don’t lie, they reveal just how much those integration gaps can impede revenue and threaten the very survival of their business.

Seventy-four (74%) of companies said that they lost more revenue due to integration issues in 2020 than in 2019. When companies are faced with integration issues, they end up bleeding more revenue than they realize, and that became more apparent than ever in 2020.

The business world’s urgent response to the pandemic last year has caused companies to analyze just why they have lost so much revenue. COVID has shined a light on what companies know, don’t know, and need to know about integration technology, which already puts them a step ahead of where they were last year.

The time to hesitate is no more, embracing an ecosystem integration platform strategy in 2021 will ensure that you put a stop to lost revenue and are “go” for growth.