A look at middleware — the technology that bridges S2P systems as procurement organizations digitally transform

Regardless of whether organizations adopt a best-of-breed or best-of-suite technology strategy for their source-to-pay system architecture, they will always be in a transition phase.

Why?

It’s because migrating to new systems takes time. This is especially true in global organizations with dozens of business units. There will always be business imperatives that drive stragglers and leaders within organizations. Stragglers will remain on legacy software longer than they should. Leaders will press for the integration of new applications into your landscape before you have completed rollouts of previous applications.

In this context, having your systems “talk to each other” to exchange data and ensure flawless end-to-end processes across applications is essential.

However, systems integration is also very difficult. It requires great communicators and the melding of multiple skillsets to arrive at the desired outcome. Furthermore, from a technology perspective, it requires the development of an extensive integration toolbox that allows applications to connect to other applications via various methods (flat files, APIs, web services, etc.).

Unfortunately, no one source-to-pay system can do this for you. And in many cases, a totally separate type of technology may be needed to help you get maximum benefits from S2P tech investments: middleware.

In this Spend Matters PRO article, we explain the challenges behind S2P systems integration and why middleware is the best solution to help. As a bonus, we explore how it will help your procurement organization develop a more fruitful relationship with IT.