Connecting and Extending Applications: Partnerships Perspective

Providing integrations

Over time, there has been an increasing need for organizations to provide integrations to various types of systems. We see this often at the user level, where companies want to integrate best-of-breed applications, like ECM, CRM, or Collaboration solutions. In this case, the organizations are empowering their employees by allowing users to interact with the systems that are specific to their business process or workflow needs. In a sense, integrating systems helps organizations leverage their best-of-breed solutions while still managing content.

A different kind of integration

There are many common integration use cases, but we’ve seen an increased need for software organizations wanting to connect to other applications in order to add value to their existing offerings. Recently, these organizations have come to us for that very reason and this is typically coupled with the need of a client. However, they usually either lack the resources to build the integration themselves, or they just have no idea where to begin. In some cases, organizations have built a few of their client’s desired integrations, but then quickly realize how much work and effort it takes to maintain each of these integrations. As these organizations move up the chain and grow, their need for different integrations also grows.

Possible downsides of in-house integrations

In addition to the lack of resources to build and maintain in-house integrations, we find that some of these integrations also lack in functionality. That is not to say that these software organizations don’t know what they are doing, rather they may have a limited skill set to integrate disparate systems. Building integrations from the ground up is complicated and takes time to do so successfully. Another downside can be the lack of expertise. Knowing the ins and outs of various types of systems takes a lot of work. And while software organizations are experts in their software, they are not experts in all kinds of software.

Where partnerships come into play

In the next couple of weeks, we are going to be formally announcing our new partner program. In the past, our partnerships were split into two categories. The first being technology partners. These partnerships allow us to plug into the various types of systems and connectors that we offer solutions for. The other type of partnership is resellers. These are mainly consultant like firms that help us sell our integrations and solutions. Both are strategic and practical for us to have. Our new partnership category will be Integrated Resellers. This partnership is going to open the door for partners to extend the use and value of their software with ours. No longer will they need to become integration experts on their own. Instead, we will provide the integrations they need to extend the value of their software.

I had previously posted a blog about OEM Partnerships, and how we planned to use those to extend the value of our technology, however, we ultimately decided that what we wanted to do was not an exact OEM situation. Our Integrated Resellers are going to benefit from SeeUnity’s expertise in providing system integrations, and it will foster the adoption and strength of their applications to the end users.