There is no question that the cost of doing business is rising, whether due to inflation, supply and demand or legacy data-driven technologies. In such cases, companies often have to absorb increased costs or pass them on to customers by raising prices. Either way, the business will be more likely to make a loss.
From healthcare units to BFSIs and more, it’s in every company’s best interest to ensure they are operating as efficiently as possible to keep business costs in control. That is to say, the company can reduce business costs by performing data-driven operations, such as onboarding and data integration with speed and precision. Self-service integration solutions have a major role to play here.
Self-service integration helps businesses reduce costs by minimizing onboarding delays. It enables non-technical business users to implement business connections in minutes instead of months, and so the risk of delays is eliminated. Also, because business users can implement onboarding and customer data connections, IT is freed to focus on other priority projects, which can often have a cost-saving element. Additionally, it can lower expenses related to sales by streamlining the onboarding process, removing potential customers’ concerns about its complexity and cost.
This blog post discusses three ways companies can reduce business costs using self-service integration solutions in detail.
Three Ways to Reduce Costs with Self-service Data Integration
1. Free Up IT HeadCount
IT feels overburdened when traditional data integration methods are used. Not to mention, the delays in processes such as data onboarding and data integration are beyond compare; it takes weeks or months of calendar time to onboard customers. Further, a considerable amount of time goes into performing subsequent steps of data integration. Such delays have a direct impact on business costs.
Self-service integration cuts down the onboarding delays and frees up IT headcount. It enables non-technical business users to onboard customers faster by up to 80 percent. At the same, IT is freed to focus on other priority projects, especially those that help companies save costs. Self-service integration also offsets the need to hire more expensive and hard-to-find IT experts, thus reducing costs further.
2. Improve Business Users’ Productivity
Because the waiting time is huge, in cases wherein traditional data integration methods are used, customers are forced to wait to connect with business workers. And during that time, business workers are involved in fulfilling other duties required for onboarding, such as gathering data field information, serving as liaisons between customers and IT data integration experts, tracking customer data, and more.
The good news is that self-service integration can help companies navigate these challenges. It puts the onboarding process largely in the hands of business workers, who can get the job done 80 percent faster. So, it doesn’t require much work from IT experts. At the same time, it releases business workers from the burden of fulfilling the duties mentioned above.
Now, by turning the onboarding process 80 percent faster, business teams can get customers live on production systems with less effort and less time, eliminating the need to hire additional workers.
3. Reduce Cost of Selling
Traditional data integration methods make onboarding lengthy and complex. Now, such complexities raise concerns in the minds of customers. For that reason, customers ask for additional scrutiny and reference checks, proof of concept (POC) material, and testimonials from other customers, all of which cause delays and additional expenses in the sales process.
By leveraging self-service integration, companies can streamline the onboarding process and remove potential customers’ concerns, thus lowering expenses related to sales.
Companies that take three practical cost-reduction measures described above will improve their profit margins and customer loyalty and will be equipped to respond more effectively to future shocks, inflationary or otherwise.