1. Unclear Data Ownership Creates Incomplete Integrations

Challenge: Even after a successful technical implementation, some integrations fail to deliver their full potential. This often happens when data ownership and governance are not clearly defined, resulting in incomplete data flows that create the very "data silos" the project was meant to eliminate. While this is a general pitfall of a weak data and architecture strategy, its consequences directly impact the performance of your chosen iPaaS.

Expert Tip: Before you build, solidify your data governance model. Define who owns which data sets and establish clear policies on how that data is created, maintained, and shared across applications. Once integrations are live, regularly validate your flows and mappings to ensure they still align with these rules and the evolving needs of the business. This proactive governance is essential for maintaining data integrity.
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2. Manual Processes Persist After Automation Efforts

Challenge: Many organizations find that manual and repetitive tasks linger after an integration project. For example, teams might still need to manually extract a CSV file from one system, reformat it in Excel, and upload it to another because the integration only handled part of the process. This reliance on manual workarounds limits the expected gains in operational efficiency.

Expert Tip: Look beyond simple automation and adopt DevOps practices to streamline how integration content is developed, tested, and deployed.  For SAP Integration Suite, this means leveraging tools such as the SAP Cloud Transport Management service or integrating with your preferred CI/CD pipeline solution. Clearly define how transports will move across development, quality assurance, and production environments. This reduces manual intervention, minimizes human error, and speeds up your delivery cycles.

3. Complex Error Handling After Migrating from SAP PO

Challenge: A migration from a mature, on-premise system like SAP PO to a cloud-native platform like SAP Integration Suite often introduces new types of errors. Teams may encounter issues like authentication failures due to expiring certificates, unexpected payload transformations causing downstream process failures, or intermittent connectivity problems with cloud endpoints that were not present in the old landscape.

Expert Tip: Effective error handling requires more than just reacting to problems.  Implement a robust monitoring and alerting framework to gain full visibility into your integration landscape. Rojo Integrations offers Observability as a Service, a fully managed, plug-and-play solution that delivers end-to-end monitoring and automated alerting across your SAP integrations. Designed to be operational in days rather than months, it helps your team detect and resolve issues proactively, before they impact the business. You can read more about this solution here.

4. Performance Bottlenecks and Slow Response Times

Challenge: Users sometimes report that new integrations feel slower than anticipated. This can manifest in various ways, such as a sales representative waiting too long for customer data to sync between CRM and S/4HANA, or a logistics process being delayed because of slow message processing for inventory updates.

Expert Tip: Performance issues often stem from inefficiently designed integration flows, such as those that process large datasets in a single step instead of batching them.  One powerful approach is to redesign slow-performing use cases into event-driven architectures, where processes are triggered by specific events rather than periodic polling or bulk transfers. This can significantly reduce latency, improve responsiveness, and better handle variable workloads. Our Rojo experts help organizations implement event-driven integration strategies that optimize performance, enhance scalability, and future-proof operations. Learn more about our Event-Driven Architecture solutions to see how we can integrate them in your integration landscape.

5. Scalability Issues with Growing Business Demands

Challenge: An integration flow that worked perfectly at launch may struggle as business needs evolve. A legacy flow designed to handle a few hundred orders a day might fail when transaction volumes increased tenfold after a new product launch. This lack of scalability can hinder growth. This is another area where the absence of a forward-looking integration strategy can create significant technical debt.

Expert Tip: Do not treat your integration flows as static assets. Proactively review and redesign older flows to ensure they can scale with the business. This includes using modern, event-driven architectures where appropriate and designing for elasticity. This approach not only maintains system performance but also ensures your integration landscape can support future business initiatives without a complete overhaul.

6. API Compatibility Problems Disrupting Data Flows

Challenge: In a hybrid landscape, data exchange can be disrupted by outdated APIs or incompatible third-party interfaces. A critical SaaS application might update its API, causing your existing integration to fail without warning. Seamless communication between cloud services, legacy systems, and external platforms depends on robust and compatible APIs.

Expert Tip: Minimize custom development risk by using certified connectors and adapters. Did you know that SAP Integration Suite offers over 80 different standard adapters and is continuously working on expanding its library of prepackaged integration content. These pre-built solutions are designed to bridge the gap between SAP Integration Suite and external applications, ensuring that API changes and version updates are managed effectively.  
In addition, leveraging prepackaged integration content can significantly reduce implementation time, enabling faster go-live and quicker realization of business value. Whether you are integrating with Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, Snowflake, or Jira, using certified accelerators reduces friction and improves the reliability of your data flows.

7. Limited Data Visibility Across Hybrid Systems

Challenge: As you transition from a centralized system like SAP PO to a more distributed cloud integration model, you can lose visibility. Troubleshooting becomes more difficult when you cannot easily trace a single transaction as it moves between on-premise and cloud applications, making it hard to identify the root cause of an issue.

Expert Tip: Implement comprehensive monitoring tools that provide a unified view of your entire integration landscape. Centralized logging and tracing are critical during the transition to Cloud Integration (CI) and beyond. This end-to-end visibility makes your landscape more transparent and manageable, allowing you to troubleshoot issues faster and maintain operational control.

8. New Security Risks in a Cloud Environment

Challenge: Moving integration processes to the cloud introduces different security considerations than traditional on-premise setups. You must now manage secure connectivity to public endpoints, protect data in transit over the internet, and manage access for a wider range of services and users, all of which can introduce new vulnerabilities if not properly addressed.

Expert Tip: Adopt a security-first mindset. Regularly review and update your security posture, including access controls, encryption protocols, and data governance policies. Use tools like SAP’s security recommendations and conduct periodic audits to ensure your configuration adheres to best practices. This vigilance is crucial for safeguarding your data and systems from emerging threats.

9. Lack of Ongoing Team Enablement and Training

Challenge: A common oversight is assuming the project ends at go-live. Without adequate and continuous training, internal teams can struggle to manage, maintain, and enhance the new SAP Integration Suite environment. This knowledge gap can lead to an over-reliance on external consultants for minor issues and a failure to leverage the full capabilities of the platform.

Expert Tip: Invest in your people. Create a continuous learning program for your integration team,  that includes formal training, internal workshops, and mentoring to develop in-house experts. SAP offers a variety of free online trainings for SAP Integration Suite, helping teams stay up to date on platform features and best practices.  

In addition, Rojo Integrations provides in-company trainings to help your team upgrade skills, gain hands-on experience, and become self-sufficient in managing and optimizing your integration landscape. A well-equipped team is your best asset for managing and optimizing your integration landscape long-term.

10. Difficulty Measuring the Return on Investment (ROI)

Challenge: After the project is complete, it can be difficult to quantify the success and business impact of your SAP Integration Suite implementation. Without clear metrics, stakeholders may question the value of the investment, making it harder to secure funding for future improvements or expansions.

Expert Tip: Define success before you start. Establish clear Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and build tracking mechanisms from day one. These metrics could include reduced processing times,  a decrease in P1 incidents (critical incidents with major business impact), faster onboarding of new partners, or lower total cost of ownership compared to the previous solution. Monitoring these KPIs helps demonstrate the tangible business value delivered by your integration initiatives.

Streamline Integration with Rojo’s Prepackaged Content

Many of the challenges outlined here, such as inconsistent data flows and API mismatches, can be addressed more efficiently using pre-built integration solutions. Rojo’s Prepackaged Integration Content includes ready-to-deploy integration flows and adapters designed for SAP S/4HANA, Salesforce, Snowflake, NetSuite, and other enterprise platforms.

Benefits include:

• Faster deployment using proven, reusable components
• Reduced custom development effort and associated risks, ~ 60% less development-effort when compared to classic ways of implementing SAP integrations
• Scalable and maintainable patterns aligned with SAP best practices ‍

Find out more about our prepackaged integration content.

Ready to Optimize Your SAP Integration Journey?

Whether you are in the middle of a migration from SAP PO or are looking to optimize a live SAP Integration Suite deployment, Rojo can support your team. We offer architecture guidance, adapter implementation, and pre-built integration assets to help you succeed.

Get in touch to schedule a free discovery call.