{"id":1893,"date":"2021-10-01T19:14:09","date_gmt":"2021-10-01T23:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog2wrkdev.wpenginepowered.com\/erp-integration-challenges\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T08:03:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T12:03:02","slug":"erp-integration-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\/erp-integration-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"The challenges of integrating your ERP system and how to solve them"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When studying how hundreds of clients use our platform, we looked at the finance apps they integrated.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Among the leaders were two prominent enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems: Oracle ERP and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.workato.com\/integrations\/netsuite?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=erpchallenges\">NetSuite<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The fact that ERP systems lead the way isn\u2019t surprising.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They host a wealth of data that teams outside of finance\u2014from sales to marketing to customer success\u2014can benefit from having; and the ERP systems themselves become all the more valuable to their users once they\u2019re able to receive customer data from key apps, such as a CRM and an ITSM tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The process of integrating your ERP system with the rest of your tech stack, however, can be riddled with challenges when tackled in-house.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These ERP integration challenges include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Significant resource investments<\/li><li>Lack of scalability<\/li><li>Functionality shortcomings<\/li><li>Absence of an application programming interface (API)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We\u2019ll cover each below; we\u2019ll then introduce an alternative approach to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.workato.com\/the-connector\/erp-system-integration\/\">integrating your ERP system<\/a> that allows you to avoid these issues altogether.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Key personnel are forced to build and maintain the integrations<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Building point-to-point connections between your ERP application and other apps requires custom code, inherently limiting the task to your developers. But even when developers are on the job, the task is far from easy.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s also risk to the business\u2014when all the developers who understand a given ERP integration leave your company, your team is left poorly staffed to fix or enhance the integration going forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The ability to scale your ERP integrations is difficult&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Various teams likely have a number of integration use cases in mind for your ERP software.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Your sales reps may want to connect it with your CRM so that they can keep tabs on clients\u2019 invoice payments; your support team may want to connect it with your ITSM tool so that when they submit a return request, it appears in the ERP solution; your finance team may want to connect it with a file storage app so that they can access important documents more easily\u2014and the list goes on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Keeping up with these wants is\u2014for the reasons mentioned in the previous section\u2014extremely difficult. And it\u2019s likely a big reason why business technology professionals cited \u201cThe speed with which they are able to deliver to lines of business\u201d as a top frustration in our study for the <a href=\"https:\/\/discover.workato.com\/state-of-business-technology-2021-lp\/p\/1?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=erpchallenges\">State of Business Technology<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/J2Oyq-NK6bjA2TxfOiuZNfO60Du01QluHqESjjlBq-h0UvgVePlH3dKHTDy-mlAUkSHDOh16y0GjlP6QD1Jfu9n_dx7p-z2AKL_TNGURQEAc9QHBGAJItOtgQjoeAULN6QEPQE7Ss0.png\" alt=\"A vertical bar chart that displays the top frustrations from business technology professionals\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The scope of your integrations is likely limited&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The capabilities you\u2019d like to have from a given integration also influences the time your developers spend building to an API and maintaining the connection.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nuanced integrations that address specific business needs require more time and expertise from your team, which, unfortunately, may be something your organization can ill afford due to competing priorities or the lack of internal know-how. Instead, and this isn\u2019t always bad, you\u2019re likely to have ERP integrations that offer basic capabilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.workato.com\/the-connector\/automated-order-processing-guide\/\">The benefits of automating order processing<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Using a legacy ERP system? You might be facing another set of challenges<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If your legacy ERP system doesn\u2019t offer an API, the process of connecting it with other apps and databases is all the more complicated.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You have two options that, while functional, present drawbacks.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fortunately, there\u2019s an integration solution that helps you avoid these issues while also allowing you to implement workflow automations across your business processes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Related: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.workato.com\/the-connector\/crm-erp-integration\/\"><em>How to integrate your CRM and ERP system<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>How an integration-led automation platform enables your team to integrate and automate at scale<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">First and foremost, an integration-led automation platform offers a low-code\/no-code UX. This allows business teams to also use it, but in an environment that\u2019s governed by IT.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The platform also offers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Pre-built connectors and automation templates (\u201crecipes\u201d) to help your team implement integrations and automations quickly and with minimal customizations needed<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The ability to ship out updates quickly, allowing your team to avoid updating any integration themselves<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Customizable bots that allow your employees to take actions in and access data from the apps they\u2019re provisioned with\u2014while staying in their business communications platform<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\r\n    <div class=\"article__cta\">\r\n\t\t            <div class=\"article__cta-no\">\r\n\t\t\t\t                    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.workato.com\/request_demo?utm_source=blogu0026utm_medium=erpchallenges\">You can learn more about this type of platform by scheduling a demo with an automation expert at Workato, the leader in integration-led automation.<\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t            <\/div>\r\n\t\t    <\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When studying how hundreds of clients use our platform, we looked at the finance apps they integrated.&nbsp; Among the leaders were two prominent enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems: Oracle ERP and NetSuite.&nbsp; The fact that ERP systems lead the way isn\u2019t surprising.&nbsp; They host a wealth of data that teams outside of finance\u2014from sales to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":12247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solutions"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - 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