Navigating Cloud-Based Integrations: Challenges and Decision Factors in Cloud-Based Integration Platform Selection

Companies are trying to keep up with the growing number and variation of digital systems. As the number of systems grows, so does the number of integrations, the connections and data flows between systems. This makes integration management more difficult. To improve integration management, companies are using cloud-based integration platforms, but with varying success. To understand the challenges and decision-making processes of integration platform projects, we interviewed 20 software vendors and 20 customers who have recently completed an integration platform project. In our grounded theory analysis, we discovered that software vendors and their customers had repeatedly faced similar cloud-based platform challenges in their integration platform projects. These included requirements, pricing, features, and data management challenges. In addition, we discovered that there is no common understanding of the meaning and features of a cloud-based integration platform, which can also mislead companies during their decision-making. We also form a categorization for the cloud-based integration platforms and discover their advantages and disadvantages. Our results highlight the crucial need for businesses to understand and carefully examine their cloud-based integration solutions. The summary of the results serves as the foundation for our cloud-based integration platform decision model, which helps navigate through common challenges, avoid extra costs and delays, and ensure projects align with their overall needs and strategies.