Managing them is a real challenge, especially with the mix of legacy and modern solutions that most companies are juggling. IDC’s SAP Global State of Integration Survey (December 2024) shows half of companies use three or four tools, which erodes business value and causes compatibility issues. The complexity also leads to brittleness throughout process automation, necessitating manual fixes and hindering agility, innovation, and AI adoption. Modern tools offer extensibility to transform automation, yet many companies struggle to quantify and articulate the cause and challenges of continuing to support a disparate set of tools.

Why are we using so many tools?

No IT leader sets out to create a tangled web of integration solutions. The root cause is usually the relentless pace of business and technological change, coupled with a need to “move faster.” Legacy tools that once did the job simply cannot keep pace with today’s hybrid workloads and modern connectivity requirements. Nearly half of organisations have replaced their primary integration tools in the past three to five years, with compatibility as a top selection criterion. Yet even as new tools arrive, the old ones tend to remain, adding to the technical debt and the complexity of the integration architecture.

IDC has observed a common pattern: A new business initiative drives the adoption of a modern integration tool, with every intention to retire the old systems once the new approach is proven. But priorities change, and the migration of legacy integrations is postponed or abandoned altogether. This results in businesses maintaining an expanding inventory of tools, each with its own peculiarities, limitations, specialist skills, and internal advocates. Sprawl is just as much a change management issue as it is a business priority issue.

Supporting multiple integration tools is a business risk because it can lead to costly errors and missed opportunities. Legacy tools were not designed for distributed applications, agentic orchestration, or the data volumes that AI-driven processes require. They slow down innovation, increase security risks, and make it more difficult to govern data flows.

There is also the issue of day-to-day pain: Troubleshooting becomes more complicated, training and resource allocation become more difficult, and compliance risks multiply as integration architectures become more fragmented.

Why consolidation matters

Consolidating integration tools is the way forward. Modern platforms are built on open architectures with a more comprehensive set of features in one place, making it easier to connect diverse applications and data sources. They support a wider range of integration patterns holistically, from API management to event-driven architectures, utilising the same skills and integration components.

Businesses have a lot to gain from consolidation:

• Stronger interoperability: Modern tools reduce manual workarounds and enable seamless connectivity.
• Better AI outcomes: Unified integration platforms make it easier for AI systems to access the data they need safely and efficiently.
• Enhanced observability: With fewer tools, diagnosing and resolving issues is quicker and more accurate.
• Enhanced security and governance: Centralised management of dataflows supports compliance and reduces exposure to threats.
• Higher ROI: Consolidation can reduce licensing and infrastructure costs while unlocking new business value.

The momentum for change is real. IDC’s SAP Global State of Integration Survey found that 95% of companies are likely to add a new integration solution in the next year. But if they do not have a plan to phase out legacy tools, they will simply add to the complexity and risk. The main business case factors for adopting a new integration platform include the desire to use a single solution for data, process, and application integration; increase developer velocity; and reduce business process cycle times.

Of course, consolidation is not without its challenges. Technical obstacles, the need to upskill resources, and concerns about vendor lock-in are all genuine.

What IT leaders should do next

To break the cycle of tool sprawl, companies should make integration migration a core deliverable of any new initiative, such as replacing a legacy application that uses legacy tools to integrate data. For example, structure the project and its deliverables so that the steering committee understands that it cannot be considered live until the old tool has been deprecated, even if the project is completed in phases. Report delays in migrating connections made with legacy tools as risks to the project's business outcome and the ROI – because that is what they are.

IT leaders must quantify the total cost of maintaining multiple tools, including productivity losses and increased risk, and build a strong business case for consolidation. Moving away from legacy integration tools is not merely a technical upgrade — it is a strategic decision that can unlock agility, support AI adoption, and deliver improved business outcomes.

For more information, download the IDC paper, How Many Integration Tools Are Too Many? Doing the Hard Work to Consolidate (June 2025), sponsored by SAP.