What are the most common challenges when integrating third-party software?

1. Compatibility Issues - Platform Compatibility - Integration with Existing Systems 2. Data Integration and Migration - Data Format Differences - Data Migration 3. Customization and Configuration - Customization Needs - Configuration Complexity 4. Security Concerns - Data Security - Access Control 5. Performance Issues - Performance Bottlenecks - Scalability 6. Dependency on Third-Party Vendor - Vendor Reliability - Limited Control 7. Documentation and Support - Inadequate Documentation - Limited Support 8. Regulatory and Compliance Challenges - Compliance Requirements 9. Cost Overruns and Budget Constraints - Unforeseen Costs 10. User Adoption and Training - User Training

The variance in technology stacks can pose a challenge when integrating third-party solutions. This challenge is closely tied to the long-term support and updates of the third-party software. If the framework used in the third-party software becomes obsolete or reaches the end of its life cycle, it can become a significant issue.

Security ... you are now opening to an unknown level of vulnerability that you have no control over. Ensuring that your APIs are resilient enough to overcome the shortsightedness.

In my humble opinion as someone doing some sort of systems integration since over 20 years, I have seen many obstacles overcome: technical risks, feasibility risks, time-constraints, budget-constraints, shifting goal-posts, changes in management roles and responsibilities (remember the old adage: An SAP project takes 1.5 CIOs?). The ultimately best strategy to handle risks was a simple, albeit often ignored one: It needs three distinct parties to be able to overcome the above risks - and if this is ignored, the probability of failure increases exponentially. Three parties need to cooperate (and potentially struggle): 1. The customer 2. The 3rd party Software vendor 3. The systems-integrator. It never works out with only 2/3.

My company works with global leaders in the commodities industry. We handle business critical data. Part of our sales process incorporated security as a core value proposition. It's why we're ISO27001 certified. When looking for vendors, interrogate how important security is to them. Do they have a credible thesis and gameplan? Do their answers make sense and give you a sense of confidence?

This is another major risk while using the third party s/w. any minor vulnerability will expose to security challenge that will bring down the entire operations which is very difficult to fix

This is a good way to vet a third-party vendor. From the sales side of this discussion, we take great pains to make sure Licensing and compliance terms are crystal clear. And I wouldn't rush into a deal with a company who doesn't approach these details systematically.

Absolutely, again an architect (or architecture board) task in design phase, in-line and approved by with license management functions (if there're any) for the whole planned lifecycle.

Agreed but know the landscape. Understand where you can win small, land how and build trust. Find similar customers to show previous success. Invite for ‘discovery’ session building on that relationship/trust. Most importantly know your customers challenge and priorities, give a trusted view based on experience.

Extending the functionality to third party software to match specific business requirements is one of the common challenges. This may require a configuration which will either will not cause the outcome expected or take longer time than expected to deliver what is needed.

3rd party tools' support needs to be well aligned with existing support practices, existing service levels and most importantly, with the SLA-s (towards customers) and with the OLA-s (between supporting units). Since the support of a 3rd party software cannot always be done in-house properly (and needs time to learn anyway), the 3rd party itself or another external supplier needs to be involved and contracted for support. This represents some extra costs which need to be calculated into the business case / ROI estimations, hence design ( IT architecture) and presales (responding to RFP-s) shall walk hand-in-hand during contract negotiation process to avoid excessive cost impact.

This is part of software development, maintenance and operation life cycle of IT. Though there are many industry reference architecture which if adopted can enforce the standardisation which can save efforts , time and money. However adoption of industry reference architecture by all parties some time challenging due to organisational level business processes , structure and roadmap differences.

You can see things from the sales side that really highlight the importance of communication and collaboration. Whatever business benefit I claim for the software I sell, I absolutely must have a clear understanding of the IT implications. I need IT to want it as much as the CFO does. And if you demonstrate clear communication from the beginning of the sales process, you are establishing this norm all the way though implementation.

In my experience You need to establish clear and frequent communication channels with the software vendor and your IT outsourcing partner. You also need to define the roles, responsibilities, and expectations of each party involved in the integration process. You do not want this at closing contract time.

Talking and working with the software vendor and your IT partner is important. It can affect how well the project goes. To make it work, communicate often and clearly. Also, decide who does what and what to expect from each other.

Normally the third party s.w do not come with great documentation and training plan. OfCourse there are exceptions. this need to be very cleverly mitigated. operations is repetitive task. in efficient operations will drain your profits off. one operation taking 5 mins more due to lack of training, or effectiveness imagine it gets repeated 50 time in a day, the total drain is 50x5 = 250mins of productive time is lost. be cautious of this.

As a systems integrator, the use of videographed tutorials seems to be a great idea. But keep in mind that you have to redo everything every time versions change the use of the system.

1. Begin with paying for support of 3rd party software, your team might have less or no clue dealing with that at the beginning. 2. Prepare, teach the team for the needed technologies while service level (and support teams') maturity also allows for increasing first-hit-rate and decreasing involvement need towards 3rd party external support. Balance cost between ratio of in-house and external support, with some other aspects taken into consideration (e.g. availability, mttr, quality etc). 3. Solve most issues in-house and rely with the toughest ones on the supplier (absolute experts of that technology, not a general service desk).

Having a chance to lead Integration Centre of Excellence in the past, my humble opinion is availability of documentation on the integration, that suites the customer environment is mostly a challenge. Outdated documentation creates a major obstacle in supporting necessary integrations and troubleshooting which needs focus, while we integrate multiple systems. Reliability and availability of the third party software could also be a challenge considering the downtimes, service interruptions, unplanned outages resulting in non-availability of the overall solution. Scalability is also an issue when third party software providers don’t plan to adopt latest scalable architectures restricting overall scalability, especially as businesses grow.

Another major area are 1. NFR (Nonfunctional requirements) 2. Recommended platform or hard ware configuration 3. Network configuration 4. Storage and retrievals, Backup and Archiving of historical data, data retention 5. Growth considerations ( data volume / User volume) 6.Hardware resource utilisation patterns The list goes on ... as they say The strength of a chain is determined by its weakest link.

As a customer, it might make sense to insist on a model that avoids T&M payments. Otherwise you might create a self-perpetuating project. As a systems integrator, it might make sense to make sure you have a good grip on the SW vendor (e.g.. by routing revenues through your books and paying on success of implementation or milestones). As a SW vendor, you might opt for insistance on keeping near standard and making confectioning issues the problem of the systems integrator.