Product integrations are critical to helping B2B companies acquire clients, retain them and expand to new markets, whether that’s a specific region, industry or company size.
However, when we surveyed 260 product managers and engineers as part of our State of Product Integrations report, we learned that B2B organizations are, by and large, failing to take the appropriate measures to reap these benefits.
Offering a Small Set of Integrations
While most B2B organizations understand the value of having product integrations, at least conceptually, our findings reveal that few organizations take the step of building many of them. Most B2B companies (68%) offer less than 10 integrations.
Offering seven, eight or nine integrations might seem OK, but it isn’t when you consider the sheer scope of vendors that exist across SaaS categories and the applications your clients and prospects might use.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of vendors in a given software category, whether that’s CRM, HRIS, ticketing, etc. Offering integrations in the single digits, therefore, neglects the vast majority of clients’ software applications. This leads some clients to benefit but most to become frustrated and, eventually, seek out alternative solutions that meet their integration requirements.
Stretching Themselves Thin Across Several Software Categories
Many companies are looking to build integrations across several software categories in an attempt to cater to diverse client needs.
By taking a multi-category approach to integrations, our previous point only gets amplified. More specifically, organizations will fail to accommodate nearly all of the integrations their clients need per category.
For example, let’s say that an organization offers CRM, HRIS, project management and ticketing integrations. Let’s also assume that the organization only has the capability to build and maintain eight integrations. They’re, as a result, only able to offer two integrations, on average, per category.
Taking Several Weeks, If Not Months, To Build a Single Integration
A concerning 71% of organizations take a minimum of three weeks to build a single integration. This pace might work for budding startups or even mid-size companies, but as your organization scales and you receive an increasing number of integration requests over time, this pace of development will eventually lead to serious integration backlogs that frustrate your engineers, customer-facing employees, and clients.
Struggling to Build High-Performing Integrations
Even once an integration is built, there’s no guaranteeing that it performs according to clients’ wants and needs. In fact, integration performance is an issue that many organizations contend with; more than half (55%) of organizations cite it as a challenge when scoping and building integrations, making it the most frequent challenge they face.
While performance in the context of product integrations can come in many flavors, it’s fair to assume that many organizations struggle to build product integrations that sync data reliably, quickly, frequently or securely.
It’s also worth noting that several other challenges are likely to crop up during the integration development phase. For instance, 38% of organizations struggle to access API documentation as the vendor might not have up-to-date docs or only provide it under specific circumstances; and even more organizations (43%) struggle to secure partnerships with third parties, as these partnerships are often cost-prohibitive (many come with fees that cost thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars per year).
Having to Focus on a Broad Set of Maintenance Tasks
Instead of dedicating time to enhancing existing integrations and building new ones, many B2B companies are having to perform time and resource-intensive tasks to prevent and minimize integration issues.
Many organizations have to continually monitor applications just to identify version changes on time; half deal with an integrated application or feature getting discontinued; 48% need to identify and diagnose integration issues and provide the steps for resolving them to customer success quickly (who’d then share this with clients); and 46% perform the excruciating work of fixing integrations that break due to factors outside their control (i.e. unexpected changes to a 3rd-party API).
Aggressive Goals in 2024 Necessitate Change
B2B companies are looking to scale their product integrations dramatically in 2024. Half want to build 15 or more integrations, while nearly a fifth (19%) want to build 30 or more integrations.
Given the current challenges they’re facing in developing and maintaining integrations, it’s clear that something dramatic needs to change. This might include allocating more engineering resources toward integration projects; investing in 3rd-party tooling; or a combination of these two approaches.
Only time will tell what B2B organizations decide to do, but one thing is clear: Organizations will double down on building product integrations in 2024.
