How to Choose an Integration Partner

Nicole Laurier • August 29, 2023

Choosing a good integration partner is crucial when embarking on a digital transformation project.

Choosing a good integration partner is undeniably crucial for the success of automating your business processes when embarking on a digital transformation project. Here are some key factors to consider when selecting an integration partner:


Expertise and Experience: Look for a partner with a proven track record of successful integrations. They should have experience working with the software solutions that you use and possess the technical expertise required for seamless integration. You can also check if the Partner works with Value Added Resellers (VAR’s) who sell and maintain your software, collaboration with those Partners can save time and mitigate a steep learning curve and time lost on learning the intricacies of an unfamiliar system.


Industry Knowledge: For an integration project to be successful it is not essential to understand your industry and its specific challenges. A good integration Partner will have a wide range of customers from all types of industry that they work with. An Integration Partner who ensures that they do good discovery and proper scoping will be able to uncover any niche or compliance requirements, so they can deliver a robust solution, incorporating best practices that meet the business needs.


Customization and Flexibility: Integration solutions should be tailored to your unique business needs. A good partner will offer customizable solutions and the flexibility to adapt as your business evolves. When evaluating an integration Partner, check out whether the solution they will deliver is accessible to you. If it is a black box beware that any changes, even minor changes, will always need the integration partner’s assistance, which can be frustrating for you and expensive! Another important question to ask is if the solution is built using either open source or proprietary software, and whether your team can learn how to use the software, make easy changes or even complex additions to the integration. Not all companies have the resources internally to maintain an integration, if that’s the case for your business then those considerations will be different than the ones for an organization that does have those resources. 


Technology Stack: Ensure that the partner's technology stack aligns with your existing systems and future goals. Compatibility and scalability are key considerations here. If the integration Partner is doing custom development, find out what technology is being used, and make sure that there is more than one person who has knowledge of the way this integration will be built. 


Communication and Collaboration: Effective communication is vital for a successful integration project. The partner should be responsive, transparent, and capable of working closely with your team throughout the process. Communication and collaboration are particularly important during the design and scoping phase of the project. The integration Partner should listen to your needs as well as share their experience and guide you on best practices. You should not be forced to change your internal business process because an integration solution only works in one way! 

Project Management: A well-structured project management approach is important. Look for a partner with a clear plan, milestones, and a process for issue resolution. Many software development companies use collaborative Project management tools that give you the customer insight into the progress of the project, time being spent and a way to document the status, queries that may arise and any requests for changes. Larger companies often use Project Management software internally anyway, your integration Partner should be willing to use your project management tools, if that is your requirement.


Support and Maintenance: Integration is an ongoing process, and post-implementation support is crucial. Ensure that the partner offers reliable support and maintenance services to address any issues. Find out if the support team is onshore, near shore or offshore. Response times can be delayed if support is not handled within your time zone. When companies offer offshore support, make sure that there will be no language barriers.

Scalability and Future Proofing: As your business grows, your integration needs may change. Choose a partner that can accommodate future expansions and technological advancements.


Cost and ROI: While cost is a factor, focus on the overall return on investment (ROI) the integration partner can deliver. A partner that can streamline processes, increase efficiency, and drive revenue growth will provide your business with a strong ROI. By adopting integration and being able to eliminate the need for repetitive manual tasks and eradicate errors from manual data entry, your business will see the dollar savings and the value from your investment very quickly.

Security and Data Privacy: Integration involves sharing sensitive data between systems. Confirm that the partner follows robust security practices and complies with data privacy regulations. If the integration is fully hosted by the integration provider, ensure that you know who is managing the hosting and that they have a good reputation. If the integration can be self-hosted, check out the system requirements, and address any concerns you have about security before any software is implemented in your environment. 


Innovation and Problem-Solving: Look for a partner that can bring innovative ideas to the table and has a reputation for solving complex integration challenges. You might not want to be on the cutting edge of new innovations, so make sure that any innovative processes that are being suggested have been tried and tested.

Training and Knowledge Transfer: A good partner will empower your team with the knowledge and skills needed to manage the integrated systems effectively. During the sales process find out how easy it is to use the software, what skills are needed, and how knowledge transfer would take place. Be mindful of the challenges you may face if there is no way to be self-sufficient (as cited in the paragraph about Customization and Flexibility above).

Remember that selecting the right integration partner is a critical decision that can impact your business operations and success. Take the time to thoroughly evaluate potential partners and choose one that aligns with your goals and values. Integration is not easy! Embarking on Digital Transformation for your business needs to be thought through in depth and be carefully evaluated to ensure that it will meet the business needs now and in the future. 


Authors Note: These blogs ideas were originally generated by Chat GPT. I wanted to see how accurately it could respond to the question I posed about “How to choose an integration partner”. Although the answer was good it seemed a bit wooden, apparently Chat GPT cannot learn my voice or writing style (I asked it and its not something that is possible for it to ever learn). Chat GPT does not (yet!) have the knowledge that I have gained in my role as an integration Partner for more than 8 years, apart from what it can find a disseminate from the internet. It was easy to use Chat GPT to coalesce my thoughts on the subject and hopefully (we both) didn’t miss anything key. Hopefully, with my editing Chat GPT’s voice and my own have merged into one and you the reader have had a seamless reading experience! Do you agree? Feel free to comment.


By Nicole Laurier May 11, 2026
Growing a business is hard enough. The answer rarely means buying more software. It means making what you already have work together. Most businesses are running a mix of systems that each do their job reasonably well in isolation. Accounting in one platform, customer data in another, orders coming in through a separate channel entirely. The problem isn’t the individual tools. It’s the gaps between them. And those gaps, filled daily by manual workarounds, duplicated data entry, and out-of-date reports, are quietly costing more than most business owners realize. When those gaps close, something shifts. The business doesn’t just run more smoothly. It becomes capable of things it couldn’t do before. What disconnected systems actually cost you The cost of poorly connected systems rarely shows up as a single line item. It shows up as the hour your finance team spends every morning manually transferring data between platforms. It shows up as the sales rep who quoted a price based on inventory that had already sold. It shows up as the leadership team making decisions from a report that was already out of date by the time it landed in their inbox. Individually, each of these problems feels manageable. Collectively, they represent a significant drag on the business. Time that should be going into growth goes into workarounds. Decisions that should be made confidently get delayed because nobody quite trusts the data. And as the business grows, the problem compounds rather than resolves itself. Integration as a growth strategy, not an IT project There’s a tendency to think of system integration as something the IT department handles quietly in the background. That framing is part of the reason so many businesses stay stuck with systems that don’t work together. Integration is a business decision. When your systems share data seamlessly, your team spends less time moving information around and more time acting on it. When a new order placed online automatically updates your inventory, triggers a fulfillment workflow, and posts to your accounts without anyone touching it, that’s not just efficiency. That’s a business that can scale without adding headcount to manage the seams between systems. BPA Platform makes this kind of integration possible without requiring a team of developers or a lengthy implementation project. Using a simple drag-and-drop interface, it connects the systems your business already relies on and automates the workflows between them. The result is a business that runs more smoothly, responds more quickly, and is better positioned to grow. Connecting the systems you already have One of the most common concerns I hear from business owners is that integration sounds like it means replacing everything they’ve already invested in. It doesn’t. BPA Platform connects to the systems you already use, whether that’s Sage, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, Shopify, or virtually any other platform your business runs on. That matters because most growing businesses have a mix of older, established systems and newer cloud-based applications. The platform that’s been running the business for a decade isn’t going anywhere, and it shouldn’t have to. BPA Platform works across cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments, so you can build the connections your business needs without disrupting what’s already working. Security is built into the integration layer rather than bolted on afterward. Data moving between your systems is protected end to end, which matters particularly for businesses handling sensitive financial, customer, or operational information. What this looks like in practice Consider a business that sells through multiple channels. Orders come in online, through a sales team, and via wholesale partners. Each channel feeds into a different system. Without integration, someone is manually reconciling those orders, updating stock levels, and ensuring the accounts reflect what’s actually been sold. With BPA Platform in place, that entire process runs automatically. An order placed anywhere updates inventory everywhere, triggers the right fulfillment process, and posts to the accounts without a person in the middle. Or consider a leadership team that currently waits until month end to see how the business is performing. With automated reporting built on integrated data, that same team can have accurate, real-time visibility into the numbers that matter most, every day, without anyone spending time pulling the report together. These aren’t complex transformations. They’re the kind of straightforward improvements that free up your best people to focus on growth rather than administration. Growing without growing the complexity The businesses that scale most effectively are the ones that build operational foundations capable of supporting growth before they need them. Integration is one of those foundations. A business that has its systems working together is a business that can take on more customers, enter new markets, and move faster without the wheels coming off. BPA Platform is designed to scale with the business. Whether you’re connecting two systems today or building out a broader automation framework over time, the platform grows with your requirements rather than forcing you to start over when your needs change. If your systems are creating friction rather than enabling growth, it’s worth having an honest conversation about what that’s costing you and what a more connected business could look like. That’s exactly the kind of conversation we enjoy having at Fisher Technology. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Fisher Technology helps businesses across North America connect their systems and automate their workflows using BPA Platform. If you’d like to explore what better integration could mean for your business, we’d love to talk. Get in touch: www.fisher-technology.com/contact
Finance, credit control, automation
By Nicole Laurier April 21, 2026
Finance teams are often described as the engine room of a business. They keep the numbers accurate, the cash flowing, and the reporting on time. But in many organizations, a significant portion of that team’s energy goes into tasks that are repetitive, manual, and frankly not a great use of skilled people. That’s where business process automation comes in. And when it’s applied thoughtfully to finance, the results go well beyond efficiency gains. Done right, automation repositions a finance team from a cost center into something that actively contributes to business growth. The Problem With Manual Finance Processes Most finance teams are sitting on processes that haven’t changed much in years. Reports get generated by hand. Invoices are chased through spreadsheets and email threads. Credit control relies on someone remembering to follow up. Reconciliation happens in a mad scramble at month end. These tasks are necessary, but they don’t need to be manual. And when they are, the cost isn’t just time. Errors creep in. Deadlines get missed. Cash flow suffers. And the finance professionals who should be providing strategic insight spend their days on administration instead. “When skilled finance people spend their days on administration, the business loses the strategic thinking it’s paying for.” What Automation Actually Looks Like In Practice BPA Platform addresses this by automating the repetitive, rule-based work that clogs up finance workflows. That includes the automatic generation and distribution of invoices and statements, automated credit control procedures that send the right communication to the right customer at the right time, purchase order approval workflows that route requests based on value thresholds, and scheduled financial reporting that lands in the right inbox without anyone having to build it. The platform integrates with the accounting and ERP systems finance teams already use, including Sage, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, and many others, so there’s no need to rip out existing infrastructure. Automation gets layered on top of what’s already working. A Real Example: What This Looks Like For A Finance Team One pattern that comes up consistently across BPA Platform customers is the reporting burden. Finance and operations teams often spend several hours every week manually building, formatting, and distributing reports that nobody has time to question or redesign because they’ve always been done that way. With BPA Platform’s reporting automation in place, those reports are generated and distributed automatically in real time. The staff time that was going into assembly gets freed up for analysis. Errors that crept in through manual data handling disappear. And the people responsible for financial reporting can focus on what the numbers mean rather than how to produce them. Codeless Platforms’ customers across industries have seen this play out in reporting, reconciliation, and financial administration. The time savings are consistent, and so is the observation that the real benefit isn’t just the hours recovered. It’s what the team does with them. Credit Control: Where Automation Directly Protects Cash Flow One of the highest-impact areas for finance automation is credit control. Late payments are one of the most common causes of cash flow pressure for businesses of all sizes, and most of the time, the problem isn’t that customers won’t pay. It’s that nobody followed up in a consistent, timely way. BPA Platform can monitor outstanding invoices daily, automatically generating and sending the right communication based on how overdue an account is. An approaching due date triggers a polite reminder. A missed payment triggers a follow-up. An aged debt triggers an alert to the collections team and the relevant account manager simultaneously. The whole process runs without anyone having to track it manually, and nothing falls through the cracks. For businesses that have implemented this kind of automated credit control, the results tend to show up quickly. Aged debtor times come down. Cash flow becomes more predictable. And the finance team spends less time chasing and more time managing. For businesses that have implemented this kind of automated credit control, the results tend to show up quickly. Aged debtor times come down. Cash flow becomes more predictable. And the finance team spends less time chasing and more time managing. The B roader Shift: From Reactive To Strategic The real value of finance automation isn’t just the hours saved, though those matter. It’s what becomes possible when the team has capacity to think rather than just process. Real-time visibility into cash flow. Faster month-end close. Earlier identification of risk. More informed conversations with leadership about where the business stands and where it’s heading. Finance teams that automate the routine work don’t just get more efficient. They get more valuable to the business. And that’s the transformation worth aiming for. “Finance teams that automate the routine work don’t just get more efficient. They get more valuable to the business.” --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fisher Technology helps organizations across North America implement BPA Platform to streamline finance operations and unlock the full potential of their teams. If you’d like to explore what automation could look like for your finance function, we’d love to talk. Get in touch: www.fisher-technology.com/contact
By Nicole Laurier April 9, 2026
Sit through enough software demos and a pattern starts to emerge. Somewhere between the slide on streamlined workflows and the one about real-time visibility, the presenter leans forward and drops the phrase: AI-powered. The room nods. Someone scribbles it down. And the question nobody says out loud is "what does that actually mean?" To be fair, AI is genuinely changing enterprise software. Real progress is happening in how systems learn from data, flag problems early, and cut down on manual grunt work. This isn’t an argument that AI is all smoke and no fire. It’s an argument that not all AI is the same thing, and that mid-market buyers are getting a raw deal when it comes to telling the difference. The Pressure to Lead with AI Mid-market ERP and CRM vendors are caught in a tough spot. Enterprise players have poured billions into AI, and their customers are asking the same questions regardless of company size. So “AI-powered” has quietly shifted from being a technical description to a marketing checkbox, something that needs to show up on the website, in the pitch deck, and in the renewal conversation, whether the product genuinely justifies it or not. This isn’t a dig at any one vendor. It’s the water the whole industry is swimming in right now. When buyers expect AI and competitors are claiming it, stretching the definition becomes hard to resist. The result is a market where “AI-powered” can mean anything from a genuinely sophisticated machine learning model to a rebranded reporting dashboard. Both might be useful. But they’re not the same thing, and they shouldn’t carry the same price tag. What “AI-Powered” Often Looks Like in Practice A few patterns come up again and again: Predictions that are really just history repeating. If a system flags a customer as “at risk” because their order frequency dropped, that’s not a prediction, that’s a report. Useful, sure, but it’s been available for years. Platforms like BPA Platform have delivered exactly this kind of data-driven alerting and exception reporting through straightforward business rules and workflow logic, long before anyone was calling it AI. The capability was always real. The rebrand is what’s new. Automation dressed up as intelligence . Routing an invoice to the right approver based on a spend threshold. Triggering a follow-up when an order status changes. Escalating a support case that’s been sitting too long. These are rules-based processes and BPA Platform handles them through its low code automation engine without needing a machine learning model anywhere near them. They’re reliable, auditable, and they work. When vendors slap an AI label on this kind of automation, it doesn’t make the feature more powerful. It just makes the buying conversation murkier. Generative AI bolted on rather than built in . The scramble to add large language model features to existing products has produced some genuinely useful results and some that are basically a chat window glued onto software that hasn’t fundamentally changed underneath. The question worth asking isn’t whether there’s a generative component. It’s whether it’s working from relevant data, wired into actual workflows, and backed by someone who’ll own the problem when it gets something wrong. A Simple Framework for Evaluating AI Claims A Simple Framework for Evaluating AI Claims You don’t need a data science background to push back on what vendors are telling you. A handful of direct questions will do most of the work: Whose data is it learning from? Ours, or a generic model? A system trained on your business behaves very differently from one drawing on industry-wide averages. What happens when it gets it wrong? Every AI system makes mistakes. How a vendor answers this question says a lot about how seriously they’ve thought it through. Who owns it when something breaks or changes? Features tied to third-party models can shift behavior when those models are updated. That’s a support question, not a technical footnote. Can we see it running in a live environment? Demo environments are controlled by design. Asking to speak with a reference customer who uses the feature in production is a completely fair request, and the answer tells you a lot! So So What Should You Actually Do? None of this is a case for tuning out AI conversations entirely. Informed skepticism is different from blanket cynicism. AI is developing fast, and what isn’t quite there yet could look very different in two or three years. The vendors worth watching are the ones building seriously on solid data foundations — and being straight with customers about what’s ready and what isn’t. The ones worth being cautious about are using AI language mainly to justify price rises, paper over product gaps, or match a competitor’s latest press release. Your business deserves sharper questions than that. Ask them. The vendors with real answers won’t mind. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Full disclosure: this blog was written with the help of Claude, Anthropic’s AI assistant. Yes, we’re aware of the irony — a post about not blindly trusting AI was drafted with the help of AI. But that’s rather the point. Used thoughtfully, with a human steering the ideas, challenging the output, and rewriting the bits that sounded like a robot trying to sound like a person, AI can be a genuinely useful tool. It didn’t write this. It helped write this. There’s a difference — and that difference is exactly what this blog is about. What “AI-Powered” Often Looks Like in Practice