What do you do when a long-standing client has one of those problems that just can’t wait? In this article, we talked to Luis María Constantini, CEO & Founder of ITLG, about the challenges of platform integration and the difficult task of developing an integration platform in record time in order to sustain a customer loyalty program between different companies. Read on and learn more about this story of success.
What is Platform Integration?
Platform Integration means making different systems talk to each other in a process that can involve two or more systems, in one or more directions and in a more or less complex way. Digital Transformation implies a constant multiplication of systems, tools and channels, and it is this integration that allows us to make them interact in the simplest way.
Synchronizing data between platforms to make information flow at the speed required by clients or accelerating dialog between different organizations or work areas —processes that used to take, and can still take, long periods of time— can only be accelerated through system integration. As a result, a customer’s account information can be updated in real time on different platforms, or the account can be synchronized with an e-wallet independently from the bank.
Why is it necessary to integrate platforms?
This question is much more complex and therefore, it can have many different answers. That’s why we decided to consult with Luis María Constantini, CEO & Founder of ITLG, to understand the why, how and when of these processes. “Companies need information to flow faster among platforms, as well as data to be synchronized in all systems with the least amount of human time invested in it,” says Constantini. The goal, he says, is to enable work teams to focus more on planning or optimizing strategies and less on executing them.
However, he adds, the importance of process automation does not stop there. In his own words, “integrating platforms ends up having a direct impact on how quickly we can make decisions based on the information we have, whether it be internal or external data. The faster we can make that information flow, the quicker we’ll be able to define goals, establish how to measure them and draw conclusions from the information collected.”
Platform Integration: Example of a first-hand experience of success
When we asked Constantini if he would give us an example or a specific experience that reflects the importance of platform integration, he presented us with a scenario that was as clear as it was difficult to solve: “Let’s imagine that we are driving a truck at full speed, during rush hour, along one of the busiest streets of a city. All of a sudden, we find out that in about a mile, all four tires of the truck will be blown out, but we cannot slow down or stop.”
The question, of course, is how to solve this, but the CEO suggests taking the situation a little bit further: “We also have to be able to change the tires on the move, without hitting the brakes and without anyone noticing.” An impossible task?
Constantini automatically takes this scenario to a recent and real experience: “Not so long ago, an ITLG client we’ve been working with for over a decade, a leading bank in the Caribbean, brought us a situation like this.” Providing more details about the challenge, he adds: “They had an operating outsourced integration platform, in the Platform as a Service format, to carry out a customer loyalty program between the bank, a points-based benefit card from one of the leading card issuers in the world, and an airline. All of a sudden, the company that provided this service decided to stop providing it.” Boom. Chaos. Or so it seemed.
What did this downfall imply? Constantini states that this outsourced platform was the one keeping the systems integrated, which allowed for this customer loyalty program to exist. “If you are a customer of a bank or an airline (or both), then you must know how important these programs are. In this specific case, we are talking about one of the most important banks in the continent, operating in over 15 countries and in alliance with the most prestigious card issuers in the world,” he explains.
According to the CEO, the situation involved two main issues: first, the deadline for solving this problem was very tight, far beyond the logical time frame for such a process. Second —and most importantly—, the previous supplier had not provided any information about its processes, so they had no information on the customers, on how that integration worked internally or on the mileage statements. “It was a real Black Box, so we had to work blindly and still find a way to achieve the same results,” he continues.
How was this situation approached? Constantini says that the first step was to accept the challenge, “Not only because this client trusts us, but also because these decisions have to be made at the very moment an emergency arises. Yes or no. We always say yes because that’s what ITLG teams are trained to do,” he affirms.
“From then on, it was all about working out the enigma left by the previous supplier, for which we had to apply reverse engineering to go backwards and decipher how the platform and its integrations worked,” says Constantini. This involved understanding how and in which directions the information flowed, as well as what calculations were made with that information, all of which implied a huge amount of work against the clock.
How did you rise to the challenge? Constantini recalls: “Once we decoded the dynamics of the different processes that had to be automated and identified which platforms were to be integrated, we had to get it up and running without the ‘truck’ ever stopping.” And he adds: “We had to make sure that the information of each transaction originated by a customer who was a member of that benefit card was sent to the bank’s payment processor, and from there to the airline’s database, previously checking that the customer was actually part of that loyalty program. If everything was OK, the information would go back to the bank.”
What was the result achieved? “Obviously, we were able to reach the goal that we had set, meeting the client’s expectations and not creating setbacks in the benefit program. But that’s not all: with the clock ticking, we ended up developing a platform 100 times faster than the one they had been using.”
If you have a challenge like this one, contact us here. ITLG is ready to rise to it.