Top 5 reasons to build integrations with code

Why should your organisation invest in an enterprise integration platform when you can code your own scripts? This is a pretty common question we get in early conversations with prospective clients. It’s a fair thing to ask; after all, every organisation is unique. Here is a roundup of the top 5 reasons you should invest in code-based integrations for your enterprise in no particular order.

1. You have unlimited time and budget

Developing code-based integrations is perfect when you have unlimited time and budget. Specialist software developers with integration experience are expensive and scarce. This means that you have a convenient place to burn that budget as long as you don’t mind waiting. Plus, the next time the enterprise system changes its APIs, you get to spend a bit more all over again – a great result.

If you do have pesky budget constraints, many organisations don’t actually track internal costs. So a popular approach is to leverage someone on your team who has a little coding expertise. It’s usually much easier to hide the true cost of development and risk to the business if you’ve got someone who is enthusiastic about learning new skills and experimenting as they go on production systems.

2. You have no strategic technology roadmap

Code-based integration is perfect for propping up systems in an organisation with no strategic technology investment. Database scripts, batch scripts, Azure Functions, AWS Lambda integrate in isolation so you don’t have to worry about being consistent across your architecture or building a capability with reusable patterns. This means that your technology team can work in a silo, avoiding the frustration of collaborating with business units and pointless time spent governing a strategic capability. After all, it’s much easier to fix something when it breaks than to demonstrate business value to executive leaders – they just don’t understand technology.

3. You love to reinvent the wheel with every trend and programming methodology

Building your integrations with code frees you to change your approach with every trend and programming methodology. Next.js, Express JS, Nest, Fastify, AdonisJS, Gatsby, Meteor, or just straight up Node.js – these are just a small sample of the backend JavaScript delights. Or a recent graduate learned some Python in a university paper and is keen to practice on the job. It means that your developers can enjoy bleeding on the edge, experimenting with the latest and greatest. This is perfect for organisations who not only have unlimited time and budget but enjoy the rich adrenaline rush that comes when operational information and analytics are untrusted across the business.

4. You get excited about managing connectivity across multiple generations of technology products

You get to code exponentially more integrations when supporting multiple generations of software. Do you need to sync SQL 2008, 2014, 2019, and 2022 to support legacy finance system modules you extended to manage service requests and automatic door locks? Or perhaps you need to integrate two versions of your ERP because the latest version doesn’t support timesheets the way your field staff are used to. This means that you can continue to band-aid personnel and business process problems while protecting your job forever.

5. You enjoy hunting for solutions across your enterprise

Everyone loves a good scavenger hunt. Code-based integrations are the gift that keeps giving, especially for organisations with virtual infrastructure deployed across on-premise hardware, private and public clouds. Developers working in isolation for the business and each other can deploy scripts in all sorts of nooks and crannies. This means you have an atmosphere of suspense and mystery, never knowing how data is being updated across your system until something fails. This guarantees job security and ensures that system upgrades and migrations are extra spicy.

Final thoughts

Alternatively, if you are an organisations that exists in the world, if you have time and budget constraints, if you have a business strategy supported by enterprise technology and are careful to ensure you have the right staff and partners to get you there, then come talk to Seamless about enterprise integration solutions. Our ready-to-deploy integrations support electric utilities, local and central government alike powered by the world-leading, spatially-enabled, no-code, and Gartner-recognized FME Integration Platform.