Operation integration: Don’t lose time to app complexity

Once considered a perk, workplace flexibility is now a prerequisite for many employees. Flexibility is expected in working hours, office spaces, and even tech stacks. To work efficiently, staff are keen to use devices, systems, and applications they're familiar with.  

The problem? Multiple, personalized digital experiences lead to an increase in apps. Often this is done without enough consideration for how they all work together.

The solution? An integration strategy that manages complexity and supports a better user experience. Let’s dive in.

In this article:

Are personalized digital experiences a recipe for complexity?
Is an integration strategy the perfect palate cleanser for complexity?
What does good integration look like for users?
What does good integration look like at TeamViewer?

Are personalized digital experiences a recipe for complexity?

Are personalized digital experiences a recipe for complexity? The short answer is yes. But only if you overlook the importance of connecting your team’s favored apps.

This issue is prevalent across multiple businesses. Salesforce's third State of IT report reports that the number of apps across a typical enterprise has risen by 26% in just two years. Yet the majority of these apps remain largely unconnected.

This lack of connectivity is not to be taken lightly. It can negatively impact your employees, your customers, and your business as a whole.

Your employees

Employees can lose up to five weeks a year navigating between applications. How do they accrue this time? Research reports that users must jump between an average of 14 apps to do everyday tasks. Without an integration system in place, this is sure to eat up valuable time.

What we haven’t touched on is the adverse user experience that also occurs. Employee app fatigue — the sense of exhaustion an employee can experience from managing too many applications — can weigh heavily on your team. Developing a personalized digital experience is only valuable when it serves its user.

Your customers

Neglecting connectivity can spawn external issues too. Nowadays, 72% of customer interactions are digital.

When dealing with your company, customers expect seamless interaction. They do not care about how many apps are working in the background to support their use case. Their data should be aggregated and available regardless of its sources.

Your business

Timewasting, employee and customer dissatisfaction aside, connectivity issues can often lead to data silos.

Miscommunication, poor working relationships, and even missed sales opportunities — data silos breed big problems for businesses. Also, in terms of goals for growth.

A survey, conducted by MuleSoft and Salesforce, found that 81% of respondents felt that data silos were hindering their digital transformation efforts.

Is an integration strategy the perfect solution for complexity?

The short answer here is also yes.

So, what is an integration strategy?

To answer that, we first need to understand integration.

Integration is the process of connecting multiple enterprise systems to work together as a whole.

An integration strategy, then, is the plan and process an IT team follows to effectively connect a business’s apps.

With everything connected, users get to have a digital experience that suits their working needs without worrying about time wasting or app fatigue.

What does good integration look like for users?

In a nutshell, effective integration ensures employees have timely access to all necessary resources from a single platform. Moreover, it caters to numerous use cases, such as customer success agents utilizing ServiceNow and Slack, and sales leaders navigating between Salesforce and Microsoft Teams.

Let’s look at these use cases in detail.

Packages

	Support manager Maria	Support agent Alex

The situation	Maria is an IT support manager leading a team of agents. Her team is the central IT support for several business entities that are part of the same conglomerate. These entities act independently from one another. They have their own systems, including their own separate support apps.	Alex is a support agent eager to solve issues quickly for his colleagues. He works as part of a global conglomerate that owns companies across multiple industries. The colleagues he supports use a vast variety of different devices, machines, systems, and applications.
The goal	As a team, the goal is to resolve 100 cases every week.	His goal is to close 10 cases a day.
Without good integration	Maria does not have an easy way to track which team members are efficient in resolving cases and which ones may need more support. Currently, each team member manually tracks their cases through typed-up notes, which they email to her at the end of each week. She constantly has to remind staff to send these notes, and when she does receive them, they are often too anecdotal to provide a clear analysis.	Alex is an IT genius; his colleagues, on the other hand, may find it difficult to explain their issues to him. They are also incredibly time poor. So, whether they are in the office or working from home, they prefer to contact him via Slack rather than going to the service desk. Alex has to engage in long (and often tedious) conversations via chat, to try and understand what is actually wrong with their device or OS.
With good integration	Maria has access to integrated analytics within the team’s central IT support app. Whether the team uses ServiceNow or Zendesk, Maria has access to instant reporting. That means she’s up to date on how cases are managed, answered, and resolved.	As soon as his colleague raises the alarm, Alex can start a TeamViewer remote control connection to investigate the issue. He never has to leave the Slack app, and all of the details shared by his colleagues remain accessible. With remote control he can troubleshoot the issue and start working on a resolution.
The impact	Maria knows how her team is performing and where she can offer them more support.	Alex can hit his targets, having the tools he needs to troubleshoot and amend issues fast.

What does good integration look like at TeamViewer?

With customers spanning multiple industries, we know the importance of providing connected technology that supports even the most niche of use cases. Connection is at the heart of what we do, and integration plays a huge role in that.

At TeamViewer, we improve workflows by seamlessly integrating into other software suites. This eliminates the need to switch between different systems. All of which improves the experience for your employees, customers, and business.

For your employees: Integrations help to manage the complexity of a tailored digital experience. They have the apps they need when they need them and don’t waste time trying to access them
For your customers: Their success agents have the right data and information to give them the experience they deserve — anytime
For your business: Data silos are broken down allowing you and your team to access the information needed to work productively

How will integrations help your business? Learn more about TeamViewer’s integrations today.