Does your organization stumble over the Excel sheets and other documents that are stored here and there and are exchanged with your customers and business partners? Have you completely lost your grip on them? And does your IT department also suffer from a lack of time and capacity to assist users with all their information needs? Self-service integration or ‘do it yourself’ could be the solution.

Imagine, after a week at a trade show, the marketing department returns to the office with dozens of new leads, which the staff – obviously with the best of intentions – have saved in Excel sheets. However, before anything can be done with that data, employees must first enter it into various applications. This is a time-consuming task, which also involves risks such as data inconsistency and duplication.

Making data available

The above scenario outlines how things have traditionally been in many enterprises. Completely out of sight and control of the IT organization, employees use Excel sheets to track, measure and edit data. But without IT knowledge, it is virtually impossible to make the data available for other business applications. And that’s while the IT department is often busy enough….

Do it yourself

Self-service cloud integration or ‘do it yourself’ can offer a solution. A platform that enables end users to manage their own information needs by linking various applications together on the basis of parameterization of already available components, without having to call on the IT organization.

From average user to power user

Talend Cloud Integration is one such self-service solution, allowing users to easily integrate on-premises and cloud applications in the same way they are used to creating Excel sheets. With the important difference that these ‘Excel sheets’ are now regulated and under the control of the IT department. ‘Do it yourself’ turns ordinary end users into power users, who can now easily and independently transform previously inaccessible data into information.

Want to learn more about the benefits of self-service integration? You’ll read more about it in our next blog. Don’t feel like waiting? Then contact cimt now!