Data integration remains in focus, but key success factors need more attention

The recent acquisition of ExactTarget by Salesforce has many potential implications for the CRM software marketplace. For ISVs, the deal is further evidence of the consolidation of business system providers and suggests, among other things, the need to increase the relevance of their apps through easy, effective integration, according to experts.

A new report from Scribe Software, which surveyed over 900 businesses worldwide,  puts forward new data suggesting that "[c]ustomer data integration has become a core business issue as organizations struggle to attain the ideal of the connected enterprise and drive business value from IT investments while managing increasingly complex IT environments."

But the survey results also reveal that the vision of fully integrated systems remains elusive for many businesses. Despite the talk about the importance of integration, many business systems still operate in silos or are only partially integrated.

What companies need is a practical, sequential approach to data integration so they can easily access the huge amount of unstructured and structured data, social, mobile, online and offline application data they need to make the best business decisions. And that means as more and more companies move to the cloud and hybrid environments, ISVs have to take steps to ensure customer data is integrated across all business systems, Scribe officials said.

The top considerations for both businesses and systems integrators when it comes to choosing data integration software continue to be ease of use, which is even more important than cost, according to the survey.

"Hands down, it's ease of use," said