The factors that lead to stronger competitiveness and higher profitability

It is no secret that Swedish companies need to adopt new technology and take digitization seriously in order to stay competitive internationally. When the report from Radar was released, it became clear which factors lead to stronger competitiveness and increased profitability.

Henrik Molin, CFO at iCore, explains how the insights from the report can contribute to driving digitization development forward and help Swedish companies to be ready for the future.

A correlation value of 0.77 speaks for itself

Henrik Molin, together with his colleagues at iCore and Radar, wanted to investigate the relationship between the amount of investment in integration, especially the integration platform, and profit growth. And the results of the study confirmed their hypothesis - with a bang! The result showed a strong correlation, as much as 0.77, between the integration platform and profit growth (a perfect correlation is 1.0, which is therefore the highest value you can get).

– This means that the companies that have invested in an integration platform get a better lifecycle management of their integrations through overview, control and tools to build new ones significantly more efficiently, which allows them to perform better and deliver stronger results. This means that the more a company invests in integration, the better growth they get, says Henrik.

Henrik explains that integrations are a strategically neglected area in many businesses. Since integrations are a complex subject, it is difficult to see what positive effects an integration platform has on the business. And it has also been difficult for iCore to actually demonstrate the positive effects without concrete data.

– The companies that chose to invest in their integrations had enormous profitability growth, well above average. And the results are the same when we compare across the market, regardless of industry, says Henrik.

The report highlights the role of the integration platform  

This report conveys relevant insights and helps companies prioritize integration and data strategy to thereby increase their growth and bottom line.

– The report has succeeded in raising this topic to the surface and shows clear evidence of both the cost savings and increased competitiveness that an integration platform can contribute. We then get the opportunity to create enormous business value with the help of the data in the back. We have not been able to demonstrate this before in such a clear way as we can now. I think that's fantastic, says Henrik.

The report shows above all that an integration platform lowers the company's relative costs, which means that the cost of each individual integration is lowered. Instead of maintaining several integrations on different platforms, you can gather them all in one place, and get a clear overview and easier maintenance.

An integration platform does not necessarily mean that companies invest less in integration over time, but that it is the increased scale effect and the relative cost that drops significantly and contributes to building stronger profitability in the long term.

"All management teams and business developers should read this report"  

Henrik hopes that, as CFO, he can convey the enormous benefits that come from understanding the value of investing in his integrations.

– As a CFO, it's about building share value over time. In the report, we get evidence for value creation. The businesses that have come the farthest, grow and surpass their competitors by far, says Henrik.

He hopes that more CFOs can see the benefits of investing in an integration platform and understand that there are extreme long-term savings. He says that historically, Swedish companies have worked less strategically and more short-term with their integrations, where they often depended on consultants. Having an integration platform means that you get control over all your integrations, regain flexibility and are ready for the future.

– The most important thing is to have an open mind and interest in exploring new technology and the benefits of smart integration, and understand that you don't need to know exactly how it works. Because if you have that, there are great opportunities to implement changes and positively influence the business for a long time to come, says Henrik.

Henrik hopes that CFOs take insights from the report with them, where they understand how to think long-term and not incur unnecessary costs that lock the organization into future decisions.

Others who would benefit from drawing insights from the report are those who work closely with IT, as well as all management teams, business developers and people who work more strategically around business development. This is to be able to build healthy and profitable companies that will grow over time.