Over the last decade, companies have adopted dozens of cloud and SaaS applications. Each one addresses a specific, local problem. Very few, however, improve the performance of the enterprise as a whole. Harrison Allen Lewis, founding partner at Jacob Meadow Associates, has spent his career helping organizations recognize the predictable outcome of this pattern: fragmented data, inconsistent processes, manual workarounds, higher operating costs, and slower decision-making.
Most organizations underestimate how much value is lost when systems fail to operate together. They focus on selecting the right tools without understanding how those tools must connect to deliver real business outcomes. Integration is not simply about linking systems, it is about enabling the enterprise to function as a single organization. That requires starting with business processes rather than systems, establishing a single source of truth for critical data, and using modern integration patterns that scale.
Start With the Business Process, Not the System
Most integration efforts begin by asking which systems need to be connected. A more effective question is what outcome the organization is trying to achieve. Is the goal to reduce out-of-stocks, improve cash flow, accelerate product launches, or enhance the customer experience? “Begin with the outcome you’re trying to achieve,” Lewis explains. “When you map the process end to end, the breaks in data, decision-making, and accountability become crystal clear.” Process mapping exposes where handoffs fail, where data stops flowing, and where decisions slow down because information sits in different systems. These issues are often invisible when organizations focus on individual applications but become obvious when they examine how work actually moves across the enterprise.
Establish a Single Source of Truth for Critical Data
Product data, customer data, pricing, and inventory cannot exist in multiple authoritative locations. According to Lewis, organizations must “define the system of record for each domain and ensure all other systems consume from that source. Without data clarity, integration doesn’t succeed.” In many enterprises, the same product or customer information lives in multiple systems, each maintaining its own version. When data conflicts, teams don’t know which version is correct. Decisions are either made using flawed information or delayed while teams manually reconcile discrepancies.
Establishing a single source of truth means designating one authoritative system for each data domain and integrating other systems to consume from it. This requires discipline, as it prevents every application from maintaining its own version of shared data. The payoff is substantial: data conflicts disappear, manual reconciliation is eliminated, and decisions are made using information everyone trusts.
Use Modern Integration Patterns That Scale
Point-to-point integrations create technical debt that compounds as systems multiply. Connecting ten systems individually requires numerous custom connections, and each additional system adds complexity and fragility. “API-first design, event-driven updates, and an integration platform that orchestrates workflows create scale and resilience, not technical debt,” Lewis notes. Modern integration approaches rely on APIs that systems expose for others to consume. Event-driven architectures allow systems to publish changes that others subscribe to, enabling updates to flow automatically. Integration platforms manage these connections centrally rather than relying on brittle, custom-built code between every system pair.
This approach scales because new systems can be added without rebuilding existing integrations. It also improves resilience, as changes to one system do not cascade and break others. Many organizations assume modernization requires replacing core systems like ERP. “In most cases, that’s not true,” Lewis explains. “The majority of business outcomes can be achieved by integrating and extending the systems already in place.”
From Systems to Enterprise Performance
At Jacob Meadow Associates, Lewis helps companies modernize by aligning business outcomes, processes, data, and technology, raising enterprise performance without unnecessary disruption. “Integration is not about connecting systems,” Lewis concludes. “It’s about enabling the enterprise to operate as one organization.”
Organizations that extract real value from cloud and SaaS investments no longer treat integration as a purely technical exercise. They view it as a core business capability. They map processes to identify where work breaks down. They establish data clarity so decisions are grounded in trusted information. Systems will continue to multiply. The value comes from making them work together.
Connect with Harrison Allen Lewis on LinkedIn for insights on enterprise integration and modernization.
