5 signs your business has outgrown point-to-point integrations
Every business starts somewhere. You build a custom connector between your webshop and your ERP. You write a script to sync products from your PIM to your storefront. You set up a nightly export from your CRM to your email platform. It works — for a while.
But as your business grows, these point-to-point integrations become a liability. Here are five signs you’ve outgrown them.
1. Your developers spend more time fixing integrations than building features
When a system updates its API, every custom connector that touches that API breaks. If your development team is regularly pulled away from roadmap work to fix integration issues, the hidden cost of your custom integrations is already higher than a platform solution.
2. You can’t answer “where is this data right now?”
In a web of custom integrations, data lineage becomes invisible. When a product price is wrong in your storefront, is it wrong in the ERP? Was the sync delayed? Did it fail silently? Without centralised monitoring, you can’t answer these questions quickly.
3. Adding a new system takes months
Every new platform you add requires new custom code for every existing system it needs to talk to. With 5 systems, that’s potentially 10 new integration points for each addition. The complexity compounds exponentially.
4. You’ve had data-related customer incidents
Oversold products, incorrect shipping information, duplicate orders — these are the customer-facing consequences of unreliable integrations. One incident is a warning. A pattern is a structural problem.
5. Your integrations aren’t documented and only one person understands them
The “bus factor” problem: if the developer who built your integrations left tomorrow, how long would it take for someone else to understand and maintain them? Institutional knowledge stored in undocumented code is a significant business risk.
The solution
A centralised iPaaS like Alumio eliminates these problems by providing a single, monitored, documented integration layer for your entire tech stack. Talk to our team about how we can help.