ANTWERP, BELGIUM / ACCESS Newswire / October 30, 2025 / Enterprises are investing millions in digital transformation - yet still losing significant productivity to a challenge few quantify: the integration gap.
New field research from Exalate, a global integration solution provider, shows that teams lose up to 15 hours a week - more than 780 hours a year - manually updating records between systems such as Jira, ServiceNow, Salesforce, and Azure DevOps. For organizations navigating mergers and acquisitions, the cost multiplies: overlapping systems, lost visibility, and delayed deliverables across critical projects.
"Integration has evolved from a helpful connector to an operational lifeline," said Francis Martens, CEO of Exalate. "When a sync fails, it's not just an IT glitch - it's a business outage."
Integration Has Become Infrastructure
Based on 173 enterprise conversations conducted between January 2024 and July 2025, the Exalate 2024-2025 Field Report on Enterprise Integration reveals that over 70% of organizations now classify their integrations as mission-critical.
Respondents estimate three to four hours of rework per agent after just one day of integration downtime.
M&A Activity Exposes Integration Gaps
The cost of poor integration peaks during mergers and acquisitions, when overlapping systems multiply and accountability fades.
"After our acquisition, we had three different tracking systems and no way to see the complete picture," said a DevOps lead from a manufacturing company. "Projects were falling through the cracks because information lived in silos."
Post-merger, many organizations face multiple Jira instances or complex Jira-ServiceNow setups with no single source of truth - leading to visibility gaps, delayed resolutions, and compliance risks.
The Cross-Company Collaboration Challenge
About 70% of companies now maintain at least one cross-company integration - up from two-thirds a year earlier.
At the same time, two-thirds require real-time visibility for partners and vendors but refuse to relax security boundaries or add license overhead.
This tension is accelerating the move toward distributed, peer-to-peer synchronization - direct, secure data exchange that enables collaboration without exposing internal networks.
Compliance and Audit: The Next Integration Frontier
Audit and governance standards are increasingly shaping integration strategies.
"Auditors want to see the complete trail of every change - not just what's in the system today," the report notes.
Enterprises must now prove the integrity of synchronized data across multiple platforms - a requirement that basic sync tools can't always fulfill.
AI Brings Speed - With Oversight
AI is taking on the grunt work of integration setup, helping administrators configure synchronization rules faster and with fewer errors.
Most users describe AI features as "a strong head start" that accelerates setup while maintaining human oversight for accuracy and compliance.
Enterprises view AI as an accelerator, not a replacement - combining machine efficiency with expert control.
The Bottom Line
Integrations have quietly become the backbone of enterprise operations. But as systems multiply and security demands tighten, every failed sync becomes a business risk - not just an IT issue.
"If the integration stalls for a day, we're talking several hours per user of manual work," one operations director said.
Organizations that master secure, flexible, and autonomous synchronization will move faster. Those that don't will continue to pay an invisible tax their competitors have already automated away.
About the Research
The Exalate 2024-2025 Field Report on Enterprise Integration is based on 173 anonymized enterprise conversations across industries, including manufacturing, technology, SaaS, telecommunications, energy, public sector, and consumer goods.
Conversations were conducted between January 2024 and July 2025. All identifying details were removed to protect confidentiality.
About Exalate
Exalate is a flexible integration solution for connecting tools, teams, and companies - securely and autonomously.
Its distributed architecture and AI-assisted engine power mission-critical workflows at scale.
Trusted by Fortune 500s and fast-growing innovators alike.
Learn more at www.exalate.com.
Media Contact:
Exalate
pr@exalate.com
SOURCE: Exalate
View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:
https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/computers-technology-and-internet/the-integration-tax-manual-data-transfers-cost-enterprises-780-ho-1093915