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Lead Backend Developer

Richard Keen

Over the week, we’ve sat down with members of the dev team to pick their brains about what they love about being a dev, their favourite apps, and their best advice. Read on to find out more.

<h3>Visual Studio Code</h3>Visual Studio Code (VS Code) is an open-source code editor from Microsoft. It’s highly customisable and supports over 25,000 extensions. This means each dev here at Si digital can completely customise their individual working environment to suit their own ways of working.As well as being highly customisable, VS Code works cross-platform, meaning developers can work on macOS, Linux, or Windows to build their digital products. It’s also got a built-in Git repository feature, so devs can stage, commit, and push code directly inside the editor.<h3>Docker</h3>Docker is a platform for building, running, and managing applications in containers. It underpins most of our projects here at Si digital because it gives us consistency. Instead of spending hours setting up each environment, we can spin up a project and all its dependencies in around 20 seconds. Every developer works with the exact same setup, so there’s no “but it works on my machine,” and sharing containers makes collaboration quick and seamless. Essentially, Docker lets developers ship software faster, more reliably, and with fewer environment headaches.<h3>GitHub</h3>GitHub is central to our workflow at Si digital. It enables us to develop and deploy projects quickly and efficiently, removing unnecessary hurdles and streamlining our processes. It’s a key tool that keeps our work moving fast and smoothly.

Our top 3 dev apps and tools

Meet Rich, our Lead Backend Developer. We sat down with him to talk about what it’s really like getting into development and what he loves about being a developer. Here’s what he had to say.<h3>When did you first start getting interested in development and why?</h3>I first got into development in Year 9, and it quickly became something I was passionate about. I went on to take a GCSE in Computing, and I absolutely loved it. Problem-solving always felt natural to me, and I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of tackling a tricky problem. There’s something really satisfying about working through an issue and finally finding the solution, and that sense of reward has kept me motivated ever since.<h3>How much has your role changed since you started?</h3>There’s been quite a lot of change over the last decade or so in terms of both frontend and backend development.PHP has evolved, adding features that make writing better and code cleaner. On the front end, frameworks like React have completely changed how projects are built and structured. It’s been interesting to see the digital world develop and change.<h3>What’s the toughest bug you’ve had to fix?</h3>One of our clients’ apps had an issue with some mapping where the map would track the user’s location, then jump back. It took four devs a few days to work out what the issue was. Definitely a tricky bug to squash, but we worked it out!<h3>Favourite language to code in and why?</h3>I love building in PHP. It’s the language I’ve used the most and feels most comfortable to work with, probably due to years of building and maintaining projects in it. I know its quirks, strengths, and best practices inside out, so it’s definitely my go-to language to build in.<h3>What’s been your favourite project to build and why?</h3>It’s got to be Harwin. Not only is their website a huge technical challenge, but from a backend development point of view, I was excited to try out Elasticsearch for the product filtering. It was a good challenge and fun too.<h3>What do you think the future looks like for developers?</h3>Obviously, AI is a big thing right now, but I think the impact from that will be felt the most by junior developers since it excels at automating tasks and repetitive coding tasks. Experienced developers add architectural understanding and problem-solving that AI can’t replicate.

Meet the Makers

When it comes to learning new skills, it can be a bit of a minefield of information. So, finding good-quality dev learning resources can be a tricky task. We’ve pulled together a short list of our go-to learning resources. We’ve covered everything from resources for news and updates to keep your finger on the pulse, through to tutorials to get you started.<h3>Dev Community</h3>Dev Community is a forum for developers to keep up-to-date with the latest news and updates in the world of code. With 3m+ developers part of their community, it’s the perfect place to gain insight into new tech and updates, as well as a great place to get questions answered.<a href="https://dev.to/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Visit Dev Community</a><h3>MDN</h3>MDN is a vast, open-source project owned and run by Mozilla, in partnership with a global community of volunteers and partners. The platform boasts 45k+ pages of resources, with over 46m views a month. Resources range from comprehensive documentation for languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, to learning resources and interactive courses to kickstart your web career. There’s also a blog and a playground to try out your code.<a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Visit MDN</a><h3>Wes Bos</h3>Wes Bos is a developer and teacher from Ontario, Canada. He set up a website to help fresh developers learn new skills in languages like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and TypeScript. Each week, he creates free and premium courses and hosts a podcast called Syntax, which covers everything from the latest industry news to tackling the big issues.<a href="https://wesbos.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Visit Wes Bos</a>

Go-to learning resources

<h3>Focus on one thing at a time </h3>Try to focus on one thing at a time; don’t split your attention across multiple tasks at once. So, if you‘re starting out and trying to learn PHP, stick with it and focus on it until you’re comfortable. Don’t try to learn too many technologies in one go.Rich – Lead Backend Developer<h3>Don’t aim for perfect code right away</h3>Mistakes and messy first drafts are part of the learning process. Focus on getting things working first, then come back and improve it, one function at a time. If you chase perfection from the start, you’ll slow yourself down and miss out on valuable lessons. Mastery takes time, refine as you go, and keep learning.Alfie – Full Stack Developer<h3>Learn the core principles first, then the framework</h3>Don’t start by learning a framework right away (like React or Laminas). First, focus on the core language the framework is built on. JavaScript before React, PHP before Laminas. Once you understand the fundamentals, learning the framework will be much easier and make more sense.Mike – Backend Developer<h3>Build stuff you care about to practice your skills</h3>Instead of endlessly starting new things you’ll never finish, focus on actually building projects you genuinely care about. When you work on something that excites you, you’ll stay motivated long enough to push through the challenges, rather than leaving behind a trail of half-finished experiments that don’t teach you much.Cameron – Frontend Developer

Best advice for starting out

If you’re just starting out as a developer, or want to expand your knowledge, we regularly post about the latest technologies and resources we’re using, so give us a follow on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/si-digital/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">LinkedIn</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/sidgtl/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Instagram</a> to keep up.

Thinking about becoming a dev?

Have a read of some of our other articles

National Coding Week 2025

Lead Designer

Sam Leonard-Rendell

Since its announcement at WWDC in June, Apple’s new Liquid Glass UI design for its 2026 (and beyond) operating systems has proved polarising. With its transparent, content-manipulating effects and reactive components, it’s a bold step away from the flat, static look we’ve grown accustomed to since Apple launched iOS 7 back in 2013, and an even bolder progression from the skeuomorphic designs we were used to before that.But what if we’ve been looking at Apple’s Liquid Glass in the wrong way? This isn’t about surface-level design trends or flashy animations. It’s about the future of technology and how we interact with it.

Apple’s Liquid Glass design language was launched yesterday with iOS 26, and as the world installs this new design system onto their phones, watches, headsets, tablets, laptops, and TVs, it’ll take time for users to adjust to this new look and way of interacting with their devices.What many people haven’t yet realised is that the way we interact with our devices is changing. With virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) becoming more prevalent, the line between the real world and the digital world is beginning to blur more and more. The <a href="https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/infographics/virtual-reality-market-101378" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">VR industry is expected to be worth $123bn</a> by 2032. To put that into context, it was only worth $16.32bn in 2024. So, the transition in UI design as we focus more on VR & AR is inevitable, and likely for the good of the usability of those devices in the future.When Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, we were at a similar juncture for UI and UX, but we didn't realise it at the time. We’d been using clunky phones with physical keyboards and untouchable content for decades, and suddenly we had a device where we could touch the content we were interacting with. Note-taking, calendars, compasses, and more. Getting users to understand this resulted in skeuomorphic design – a style that brought relatable, understandable, real-world context to digital applications and interactions. It was about educating users in a manageable way that didn’t feel a million miles away from using a real notepad or a real calendar.

A new era for UI design begins today

After six years of training us, Apple made the move away from skeuomorphic design across to flat design with iOS 7. That style has developed, changed, and grown into what we’ve now become familiar with in iOS 18, macOS Sequoia, and visionOS 2. Liquid Glass might look like pure visual polish, but it’s doing something much more important: teaching us a new way to interact. Just as skeuomorphism helped us move away from physical buttons to touchscreens, Liquid Glass is quietly preparing us for a future that isn’t restricted to screens at all. We’re moving into a new era where digital worlds are layered over the real world, and how we interact with it depends on more than just our fingertips. This shift needs a different kind of interface. One that listens, watches, and responds. It feels alive. This is where multimodal UI design comes in.

Multimodal UI design language relies on more than just a single input, like touch. It’s built around voice, gaze, movement, and touch. It’s this that bridges the gap between what we know as an OS, and what an OS will become. Take visionOS, or Meta Horizon OS. Both are examples of multimodal interfaces. Not only is the content overlaid onto the real world, it’s controlled by the direction you’re looking, or by your voice as you ask it to perform an action or task. And, especially in vision OS, these overlaid interface elements are designed to interact and work with the world around them, rather than just sitting on top.

Liquid Glass isn’t just multimodal, it’s reactive. Built around a system of free-floating elements and components, the interface dynamically adjusts to how you use it. These elements aren’t locked to a fixed screen either; they appear when you need them and fade away when you don’t.It’s this fluidity that makes Liquid Glass the ideal UI for overlaying on the real world. Elements can subtly sink into the surroundings when idle and reappear when they’re relevant. If your environment changes, the UI responds and reveals what’s behind it by taking a step back. It’s a design system that’s as understanding and perceptive as you are.Apple’s approach is also about unifying an experience across their device ecosystem. As all these devices begin to merge into a spatial realm, consistency will be key. Liquid Glass isn’t limited to iPhones; it’s become the universal design language used across all of Apple’s devices. This is an important shift. Historically, Apple has tended to update the iPhone and iPad visual designs ahead of the Mac. For example, when Apple launched its flat design system with iOS 7, macOS Mavericks still maintained its skeuomorphic design. The fact Apple is rolling Liquid Glass out across its entire suite of operating systems sends a clear message: this is the future, and it’s starting now.

In contrast, Google has taken a <a href="https://blog.google/products/android/material-3-expressive-android-wearos-launch/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">very different approach</a> with its latest design system, Material 3. Its punchy colours, expressive typographic treatments, and bold graphic devices feel optimised for rectangular screens. Perfect for phones and tablets. But as we move into a world where interfaces begin to extend beyond the screen, this look and feel will quickly fall behind and become limiting.Material 3 is firmly rooted as a visual language for traditional devices. It’s difficult to imagine these vibrant, highly-saturated colours and decorative sticker-like layers translating to spatial environments or multimodal interfaces where the UI has to adapt to different lighting, varying depths, and real-world context.Compared to Apple’s Liquid Glass design system, Material 3 feels like it was designed solely for mobile-era aesthetics. We imagine it’ll only be a matter of time before Android follows suit.

Material 3: Beautifully screen-bound

Despite its future-focussed foundations, Liquid Glass is a polarising design language, and this is primarily for two reasons: accessibility and its association with past design trends. Stylistically, it’s been compared to Windows Vista, which launched in 2007 with a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Aero" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">new design style called Aero</a>. Aero marked a dramatic move away from the blocky era of Windows XP, and just like Liquid Glass today, it divided opinion. But the intent behind Liquid Glass is very different to Windows Vista. Windows Vista was about reskinning a system users were already very familiar with to make it feel more modern. Liquid Glass is about the shift from screens to spatial, immersive experiences.Accessibility is a much bigger concern. With its glassy, translucent design, Liquid Glass definitely poses some issues with legibility and contrast, especially against high-contrast backgrounds. This is surprising coming from Apple. They’ve long been seen as leaders when it comes to inclusive design; <a href="https://www.apple.com/uk/accessibility/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">it’s one of their core values</a>.However, it’s important to remember that Apple gives users a deep level of accessibility customisation so they can hone their devices to work for them. And Apple has always made iterative improvements as time goes on. Remember when iOS 7’s animations were <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/apple-ios-literally-making-users-sick/story?id=20385379" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">making users motion sick</a>? Or when users said the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/fonts-dont-lie-thin-ios-7-os-x-flna6c10245346" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">system typefaces were too thin</a>? Apple responded by adjusting the design language.Liquid Glass is following a similar path. We’re entering uncharted territory with spatial, multimodal user interfaces. There will be missteps. But just as with past transitions, refinement will come with time, and with real-world feedback from users pushing the boundaries of how we interact beyond screens.

Growing pains

While <a href="https://www.techtimes.com/articles/309937/20250409/apple-vision-pros-sales-flop-theyre-rushing-out-new-one-m5-chip-before-2025-ends.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Apple Vision Pro has been a slow burner</a>, it’s still early days for spatial and multimodal UI design, but one thing is clear – the UI of tomorrow won’t live on screen. We’re moving into a new era where interfaces live around us, watching, listening, and responding as we interact with them and the world around us. And design systems won’t just be about aesthetics or branding; they’ll need to feel native and reactive to real-world environments, natural movement, and human behaviour.Liquid Glass is the start of a much bigger shift in design and how we interact with our devices. By introducing translucency, depth, and movement into today’s rectangular screen boundaries, it’s preparing us all for a world where interfaces are responsive and immersive, and not restricted to a glass rectangle.Brands that embrace multimodal, spatial design languages now will be the ones who lead in the years ahead as our digital and physical worlds blend together. And users will expect that to feel natural. As for designers and developers, those of us who understand this early and adopt this design ethos will define what’s coming next.

The UI of tomorrow won’t live on screen

Why you’re looking at Apple’s Liquid Glass UI the wrong way

Technical Account Manager

Andy Mardell

It’s time to rethink what SaaS integration really means. In our experience, <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate">bespoke integrations</a> offer significantly more value, not just technically, but strategically. Done right, they foster growth, reduce risk, and unlock innovation. For businesses using SaaS tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Monday.com, connecting these systems to your digital products isn’t optional; it’s business-critical. Without it, you’re left with work duplication, spiralling operational costs, and growing data silos. <a href="https://www.xplm.com/news/press/industry-study-2023-companies-cannot-control-their-data-silos/?utm_source=chatgpt.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">XPLM found that</a> 76% of businesses say data silos negatively impact collaboration, with a further 74% viewing them as a competitive disadvantage.

There are essentially three ways to approach integrating your SaaS systems with your website, portal, or app: out-of-the-box, which uses a system’s pre-built features; standard API integration, which takes the SaaS system’s own API and allows you to connect it to your digital products; or the advanced bespoke integration route, which is completely custom and unique to your business and its needs.

What is an advanced bespoke integration?

We’re advocates of going down the advanced bespoke integration route for a few reasons. Let’s break down how going bespoke could benefit your business and its workflows.

If updating data in multiple places is something you’re familiar with, then an advanced integration could cut down on your admin tasks. Using our own middleware, we can get your SaaS systems to speak to one another for super smooth data flows. This means you’ll only need to update your data in one place, rather than four or five places. This not only cuts back on tedious admin time, but it also means you’ll be able to rely on your data more because there’s less chance of human error when inputting the data.By cutting back on this sort of admin, you could free up members of your team to focus on more important tasks, like following up on valuable leads.

Reduce manual work and reclaim time

Advanced integrations can help your business to cut back on costs, too. The key contributor to this comes from the reduction of manual work, which in turn results in lower labour costs. Thanks to automations, tasks like data entry, reporting, and invoicing can be heavily reduced. But the cost savings don’t stop there. You could end up needing fewer software licences if you can consolidate some of your SaaS systems when integrating. Or you can potentially cut back on costly errors caused by manual data entry, which cost both time and money. And you can boost customer retention thanks to an improved customer experience via streamlined support and invoicing, reducing your customer churn rate.So integrating can cut costs in various ways across the board for your company, giving you more money to use elsewhere to promote business growth and development.

Cut hidden costs across teams and tools

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Plug-and-play integrations seem convenient and quick to implement at first glance because they’re designed and built for the masses, not your business needs. They usually come with pre-defined functionality and (more often than not) poor design and UX, so you’ll find it difficult to tailor them to your workflows, customer journeys, or user experience. This will result in a disconnect between your digital products. Your CRM, website, and internal systems may speak to one another, but they won’t truly ‘talk’ to one another because they’re not aligned or efficient.Let’s look at an example. You may want to trigger a personalised onboarding sequence when a user signs up to your website, which pulls in data from various SaaS platforms. But, your out-of-the-box integration doesn’t have the functionality for custom data fields, so you get stuck with a watered-down version of what you really need.Even if you decide to use a SaaS platform’s native API, you’ll have your wings clipped by the API’s scope. Some data endpoints might be read-only, batch processes can be delayed, or some features just aren’t available via the API. So you’ll technically have a connected system, but the flexibility and customisation of what you can achieve is limited.Bespoke integrations are designed and built entirely around your business and its workflows. From the way your business operates, to what your customers and users expect, to the efficiencies you want to gain by integrating. You get complete control over how the integration functions, the design, and the logic behind it to bring together your systems to work in harmony.Want to sync your customer data in real-time between your website, CRM, and ERP with custom field mapping? Or pull data from a third-party system to dynamically display pricing in your customer portal? It’s all possible with an advanced integration.Beyond the functionality benefits, a bespoke integration is built to be robust and scalable, so it grows with your business. You won’t need to rely on temporary workarounds or third-party plugins that might break; you’re investing in a long term digital solution.

Aligned with your business goals

Automation is probably one of the key features of an SaaS integration. It underpins the whole idea of integrating your systems. Being able to automate some of your business’s processes can save your team valuable time. Automations allow your data to move instantly between your SaaS systems and your digital products. So you’ll not need to wait for overnight exports or manual updates. You’re always working with live information. Forget having to sync that data; your integration does that now. <a href="https://www.kerrconsulting.com/unlocking-the-benefits-average-roi-on-moving-to-cloud-based-software-solutions" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kerr Consulting found</a> that many businesses say they save around 40% of their time by automating routine tasks through SaaS integrations with their digital products.

Turn disconnected data into automated workflows

Because bespoke integrations are built around you and your customers, we can create a seamless and personalised user experience on your website. Whether that’s real-time account information, customised dashboards that dynamically pull in live data, or live product availability, the possibilities are endless, and all a great way to give your users the best possible experience.This also helps cement a strong relationship with customers because you set yourselves apart from competitors who lag behind in these user experience areas.

Provide a seamless, personalised customer experience

We build our advanced bespoke integrations using our Si Middleware—our flexible connection hub that sits between your SaaS systems and your website, portal, or app. Thanks to its flexibility, we can scale up your integrations as your business grows. So, if your business decides to start using a <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate/asset-management-software">Digital Asset Management</a> system like Bynder, or you introduce a new CRM system like Monday.com, we can link those up to your digital products with ease, so your data keeps flowing without interruption, and you can streamline your workflows.Or, if you need to scale down because you’ve moved data across to one of your other SaaS systems, our Si Middleware allows for that too. So your SaaS systems are always flexing with your business.

Scale with confidence, not complexity

Our advanced SaaS integrations are proven to save businesses time and money. Just take a look at our case studies, like <a href="https://sidigital.co/work/harwin">Harwin</a>. They’ve seen incredible results for both them and their customers.If you’re ready to move beyond disjointed SaaS tools and start scaling your business, <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact">get in touch for a free integration consultation</a>.

See what an advanced integration looks like in action

Why out-of-the-box SaaS integrations are holding your business back

Founder & Managing Director

Steve Piper

For the last few years, we’ve been using a relatively new headless Content Management System (CMS) called Payload. <a href="https://sidigital.co/lab-notes/why-weve-swapped-wordpress-for-payload">We made the shift from traditional CMS</a> options, like WordPress, so we can provide our clients with a modern, more secure way to manage their website content. Our move across to Payload is about more than just keeping up-to-date; it’s about ensuring our client projects are built using the most robust CMS available.But, for a lot of our clients, it can be a difficult decision to move away from a familiar CMS like WordPress, so to help make the decision easier, we’ve built our own Payload demo. We call it our Payload Playground. <a href="https://sidigital.co/payload-playground">Book your 1-2-1 tour here</a>.

Payload is a modern CMS option, first launched in 2022, and is a modern-day answer to the historic problems of older CMS platforms like WordPress and Drupal. Payload is streamlined, secure, and scalable, giving you the peace of mind that it’ll last for years to come.It’s also very user-friendly. The admin area is clear, concise and well structured, allowing for quick and easy page building, image uploads, and content changes. It’s a big step forward from traditional CMS user interfaces, with near-instant load times, live previewing, and so much more. There’s a familiar look to Payload, too. The admin area follows a similar structure to the likes of WordPress, so it’s quick and easy to pick up and learn.

What is Payload?

We’ve covered a <a href="https://sidigital.co/lab-notes/the-benefits-of-choosing-payload-cms-for-your-next-website">whole host of benefits in a separate Lab Note</a>, but here’s a quick look at our top three reasons to move to Payload.

Why Payload?

With cyber attacks and hacks becoming an <a href="https://aag-it.com/the-latest-cyber-crime-statistics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">increasingly serious problem in recent years</a>, the importance of keeping your website and its data secure couldn’t be more essential. Unlike a lot of alternative CMS options, Payload is designed to be a self-hosted CMS, so you have complete oversight and control of the data the website contains and accesses.Self-hosting a website means you have control over where the site is installed, so you can choose your own servers, databases, and infrastructures. This means you control the data, not a third-party company. This is especially important for companies and businesses that handle sensitive user data like payment details or personal information.Self-hosting can be a huge benefit when it comes to data security, but we also offer hosting and data security here at Si digital too, using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Cloudflare. <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/support/hosting-and-data-security">Find out more here</a>.

1. Data Security

Older CMS options like WordPress can often hold back the growth of your website. As the site expands and you add in new pages and introduce more content, it can become slow and clunky. Eventually, this will reach a point where it becomes too much of a chore to maintain the website.Thankfully, Payload uses the latest TypeScript and Node technology, which helps keep everything ticking over smoothly in the background. It’s also regularly updated with bug fixes and new features that ensure your site will stay running for years to come.Payload also features flexible content modelling, which makes it easy for our developers to add new features, so your website is always scaling and flexing as your business grows.

2. Scalability

If, <a href="https://www.saasacademy.com/blog/saas-statistics" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">like most businesses</a>, you use SaaS systems like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Monday.com, we can work with you to integrate these systems with your website, portal, or app for seamless data exchange between your various systems and your digital endpoint. We do this using our Si Middleware, which lets us connect multiple systems together for a completely bespoke solution for you and your business.

3. Integration

<a href="https://sidigital.co/work/harwin">We’ve done exactly this for Harwin</a>, a world-leading electrical connector manufacturer. Not only did we move them over from WordPress to Payload, we integrated their Salesforce system, Bynder asset management system, and various other systems with their website. Not only does this mean their data is up-to-date across the board, it’s also streamlined many of their internal processes, saving them countless hours of valuable time.Find out more about our <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate">integration services here</a>.

If your current website CMS is slow, insecure, and always needing plugin updates, now is the right time to move to Payload. But before you make the jump, book a 1-2-1 tour with us to see what Payload could mean for your website.When you book your tour, we’ll take you on a guided tour of the CMS to show you the key benefits, answer any of your questions, and much more. You’ll also get the opportunity to try Payload out for yourself. We’ll give you exclusive access to our demo so you can see the benefits for yourself.<a href="https://sidigital.co/payload-playground">Book your 1-2-1 tour here.</a>

Book your 1-2-1 tour of our Payload Playground

Is your website CMS holding you back? Try our Payload Playground

For over <a href="https://www.saasacademy.com/blog/saas-statistics" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">80% of businesses</a>, a SaaS system has become a core part of their day-to-day operations, with larger organisations of <a href="https://financesonline.com/saas-software-statistics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">10,000+ employees using an average of 447</a> SaaS systems within their businesses. This can quickly become an admin nightmare, a data disaster, and a costly expense. Check out the top time and money savings perks below.

Nobody likes tedious data admin, and managing data stored across multiple SaaS systems can be a chore to keep on top of and maintain. This could be product data stored in various systems, images and videos stored in a digital asset management system like <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate/asset-management-software">Bynder</a>, and customer data stored somewhere else like <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate/salesforce">Salesforce</a> or HubSpot. It can quickly become messy, clunky, and confusing.By automating tasks like data entry, invoicing, and reporting with an advanced SaaS integration, you can reduce the need for manual work, freeing up team members across different areas of the business so they can focus on more important things, like business growth and development. In turn, this also cuts back on labour costs, freeing up budget to be spent elsewhere.

Less manual labour = lower labour costs

It might not seem like a direct benefit for you, but integrating can improve your customers’ user experience when they’re browsing your website, portal, or app. We can dovetail various smaller integrations into your wider infrastructure, like ElasticSearch, which can help to bring users the data they’re searching for quicker. In doing so, your users are able to access information and products quicker, meaning there’s less time spent supporting customers behind the scenes.<a href="https://sidigital.co/work/harwin">We’ve done it for clients like </a><a href="https://sidigital.co/work/harwin">Harwin</a>, and they’ve seen some outstanding results. For example, thanks to the ElasticSearch database with Salesforce, we’re able to return filtered results of their 7,000+ products almost instantly.

Speedier user experiences

With so many SaaS systems available, it’s highly likely your business has the same data in multiple places. When this data needs updating, it has to be done manually, which often leads to mistakes that cost time and money.Integrating your SaaS systems helps to centralise all your data into one place, like Salesforce. So if there are updates, you only need to make the change once. This then synchronises across all the various different places the data is used, like your website. By only updating the data once, you massively reduce the risk of human error. It also means you know the data is always consistent and up-to-date across the board, so there shouldn’t be any discrepancies in data across different platforms.

Reduce costly errors

Did you know that <a href="https://zylo.com/blog/reducing-saas-license-waste/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">over 50% of SaaS licences go unused</a> because of duplicated functionality? This costs businesses on average about £15m+ each year. A lot of SaaS systems provide similar tools and services, and with disjointed SaaS systems, you’re more than likely duplicating functionality, so you’ll essentially be paying twice (or more) for services that do the same thing. For example, both Salesforce and Sage CRM offer marketing automations and sales forecasting. But because they’re not talking to one another, you could be stuck using both systems.Integrating your SaaS systems means you’ll no longer need to juggle multiple platforms because you can consolidate some of them into one, which then reduces your software costs.There are more benefits here too. Beyond cost savings, you’ll also be cutting back on the risk of data entry errors and streamlining the tools your team needs to use to do their jobs.

Fewer software licences

When it comes to business decision making, time can be a key factor in ensuring the decision is relevant and effective. Sometimes, these decisions are based on data, so accessing up-to-date data quickly and efficiently can be make or break when it comes to decision making.With a fully integrated SaaS system, you’ll be able to access real-time data as it’s shared between each system, giving you the data insights you need—fast. This results in quicker, smarter decision-making, and fewer costly misjudgements.

Faster decision making

Many CRM SaaS systems like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Monday.com can play a key role in your customers’ experience when dealing with your business, even if you think they don’t realise it.Disjointed SaaS systems often lead to an equally disjointed customer experience. Integrating your SaaS enterprise systems can help to improve this by streamlining support and communications, and simplifying and speeding up invoicing. Your customers will undoubtedly see the benefits, helping to retain your customers and reduce churn.

Better customer retention

While the upfront cost of integrating your SaaS enterprise systems might seem daunting, it pays for itself in benefits by boosting efficiency, reducing human error, and optimising resources. And all of this gives you and your team back the time to focus on growing the business and building on relationships with your existing customers and clients.At Si digital, when we integrate your SaaS systems, we use our <a href="https://sidigital.co/faraday">Faraday™ framework</a> to define tangible goals and KPIs that align with your business to help you maximise efficiency and effectiveness across the board.If you want to up your integration game, <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate">check out our services</a> to see how we can help. Or <a href="https://sidigital.co/contact">get in touch</a> if you’re ready to start a conversation.

The bottom line

How integrating your SaaS systems can save you time and money

Compatibility is probably one of the most common issues when it comes to integrating your SaaS system, especially if you’re trying to integrate with other third-party software. So, compatibility problems like mismatched naming conventions, syncing issues, or poor lead segmentation can create endless headaches or require lots of fiddly admin to resolve. Some SaaS systems, like Salesforce, can also have problems connecting with some older versions of Microsoft Outlook.An advanced bespoke integration can help mitigate compatibility issues because you have complete control of where the data points to and from. And there’s also functionality to manually—as well as automatically—synchronise data, so data transfer is seamless.

1. Compatibility

Depending on the SaaS enterprise software you’re using, accessing API documentation can be tricky, and then trying to find the details you need within that can be time-consuming. This can cause lengthy delays, bugs, and other technical issues. This can be even more complex if you’re trying to share data between different SaaS systems, for example, HubSpot and Salesforce.When we build our advanced bespoke integrations, we use our custom Si Middleware to facilitate the connections, so we don’t need to track down API documentation, and more importantly, our clients don’t need to worry about finding it either. Our Si Middleware is built and maintained by us, so we know it like the back of our hand, so if there are any issues, we can quickly identify and fix them without having to refer to complex documentation.

2. API Documentation

As your business grows and expands, you’ll more than likely come to rely on your SaaS software more and more. So, your integration needs to scale and adapt to suit. This can bring with it some very technical challenges, and often out-of-the-box API integrations limit what you can do, or your agency will struggle to push beyond the boundaries of what they’re already using. This leaves you with one option: advanced bespoke integration.With an advanced bespoke integration, you can introduce or remove SaaS system connections, so as your business grows, you can keep your data flowing smoothly between your various SaaS solutions. And, if you find the business needs to move to a different SaaS system, that can easily be connected too. So you won’t need to go through the pain of a full rebuild, or spend more of your marketing budget on rebuilding parts of your existing system.

3. Scalability

When it comes to data capture via forms, out-of-the-box integration solutions seem like a great option, but what about security? Data that’s collected from forms using out-of-the-box integrations can easily be manipulated and modified, which creates all sorts of data security issues for businesses, especially when it comes to GDPR. These standardised forms are also susceptible to spam bots, meaning your database will quickly fill up with useless data.An advanced integration improves security by allowing for secure authentication and spam protection, so you won’t have to spend hours sifting through data to ensure it’s valid. You’ll also know the data is secure and safe. One less thing to worry about.

4. Security

In terms of performance, fetching and serving data is a key area where your integration needs to be quick and seamless. Relying on an out-of-the-box integration means you’re also relying on a third-party API, which can be slow at getting the data you and your users need to the right places.We’ve built our Si Middleware to handle all of this for us with our advanced bespoke integrations. We’ve streamlined the API so it’ll only be using what it needs, so data transfer is rapid with little to no delay. This has a huge benefit for both your business and your users. For you, it means the data you update elsewhere is virtually instantly updated everywhere else, and for your users it means they’re always seeing the latest, most up-to-date information available.

5. Performance

Maintaining your SaaS integrations is vital to ensuring it works at peak performance, is keeping data secure, and is aligning with any changes the SaaS system implements. But maintaining your integration can be complicated and time-consuming, especially when you’re dealing with a standard API provided by the SaaS developer.Here at Si digital, we provide ongoing maintenance and support to ensure your business’s SaaS integration with your website, portal, or app is always up-to-date and running efficiently. Thanks to our bespoke Si Middleware, this is mostly under our control, so we keep on top of maintenance for you regularly. Find out more about our <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/support/retained">ongoing support services here</a>.

6. Maintenance

When it comes to advanced bespoke SaaS integrations, we know it can be complex, and it has to be beneficial to your business’s growth plans. So we take a consultative approach to bringing your integration to life. Using our <a href="http://sidigital.co/faraday">Faraday™ framework</a>, we use our two decades of expertise to bring you a solution that aligns with your business goals and KPIs.We’ve worked with <a href="http://sidigital.co/work/harwin">clients like Harwin</a> and Norbain so they can maximise their SaaS software throughout their business to improve internal processes, reduce admin, and cut costs, leaving them with more time to focus on business development, new products, and lead generation.If you want to capitalise on your SaaS enterprise software integration, you can <a href="https://sidigital.co/services/integrate">find out more about how we can help here</a>, or <a href="http://sidigital.co/contact">get in touch to book a consultation</a>.

How we can help your business solve these challenges

The top 6 SaaS integration challenges and how to solve them

A SaaS integration is the process of taking a business’s SaaS enterprise systems and connecting them together to allow for seamless data exchange between each service and various different endpoints, like your website.

What is a SaaS integration?

With nearly <a href="https://ascendixtech.com/number-saas-companies-statistics/#:~:text=In%202024%2C%20there%20are%20currently,Number%20of%20SaaS%20unicorns" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">31,000 SaaS companies</a> offering their products to businesses, it can be difficult to know what services can be connected together or with your website, portal, or app. Here are a few examples of the different types of systems that can be integrated:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Customer Relationship Management systems (CRM) – Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and HubSpot</li><li value=2>Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERP) – e.g. Oracle, Infor and Workday</li><li value=3>Digital Asset Management systems (DAM) – e.g. Bynder and Canto</li><li value=4>Accounting systems – e.g. Xero, QuickBooks, Zoho and Sage</li><li value=5>Content Management systems (CMS) – e.g. Payload, Magento and Shopify</li><li value=6>Project Management systems – e.g. Asana, Jira and Trello</li><li value=7>Human Resource (HR) systems – e.g. Workday, Zoho People, SAP and BambooHR</li><li value=8>Payment Gateways – e.g. PayPal, Stripe and Adyen</li></ul>

What types of SaaS systems can I integrate? 

Your SaaS systems can integrate with one another to allow for smooth data transfer, but they can also integrate with digital products like your website, a customer portal, or an app. For example, you could integrate your DAM system to populate your website with product images, or you could integrate your CRM to capture lead data from your app.

What can I integrate my SaaS systems with? 

With a comprehensive SaaS integration, you can:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Automate workflows to save on admin time</li><li value=2>Sync data in real-time so you know data is up-to-date across the board</li><li value=3>Unify disparate SaaS tools for cross-platform communication</li><li value=4>Customise the integration to work with your business processes</li><li value=5>Create a scalable solution that grows as your business does</li></ul>All of these can be huge time and cost savers for your business.

What are the capabilities of SaaS integration?

Yes, you can integrate multiple SaaS systems with one another, as well as your app, portal, or website. We did exactly this for Harwin, where we connected their Salesforce system with their website, as well as their DAM and various other SaaS systems for seamless data exchange. By connecting multiple services, they felt the benefits even more, improving their workflows internally.

Can I integrate multiple SaaS systems?

Advanced integrations are generally very secure. We use our own Si Middleware, which features a private API, so it’s safe from prying eyes. Using secure authentication and data encryption also keeps data safe and secure.

Is integrating my SaaS systems secure?

To ensure a smooth integration, it’s worth defining clear goals and KPIs before you begin. When you integrate with us, we’ll run a workshop during the <a href="http://sidigital.co/services/discover">discovery phase</a> with you to determine what these are so everyone knows what we’re working towards. It’s also important to fully test an integration before it gets deployed. This ensures the data flows are working properly, reducing the risk of mismatching data entries or out-of-date data.

How do I ensure a smooth integration? 

The benefits of integrating your SaaS systems can be huge and have lasting effects on the way a business works and how efficient it is. Some of the top benefits our clients find are:<ul class="list-bullet"><li value=1>Less admin – there’s less time spent updating multiple data points. Simply update in one place, and the changes are reflected everywhere</li><li value=2>Reduce errors – with fewer places to update data, you minimise the chances of human error when entering data significantly</li><li value=3>Improved security – encryption and authentication reduce the risk of spam and data leaks, keeping your business’s data safe and secure</li><li value=4>Scalability – no need for a rebuild in three years’ time, our advanced integrations are fully scalable, so more SaaS systems can be added as your business expands</li><li value=5>Automation – data can be synced automatically, so you won’t have to worry about data updates being missed</li><li value=6>Always up-to-date – ongoing maintenance means your integration is always running smoothly, so less time spent fixing issues</li></ul>

What are the benefits of integrating?

If you’ve got any questions we’ve not answered, let us know in the comments. And if your business uses disjointed SaaS systems, <a href="http://sidigital.co/services/integrate">check out our integrations services</a> or <a href="http://sidigital.co/contact">get in touch</a> to book a consultation.

Lab Notes