Fragmentation is a cost of doing business. But for IT leaders in growing organisations, it’s an issue that has them running fast to stand still – managing tickets, responding to outages and integrating data to keep the lights on. While it may look chaotic up close, a bird’s-eye view can reveal simple solutions.
Having worked on hundreds of projects across multiple sectors, you start to see common patterns, problems and solutions that can be invisible when you’re buried in the operational weeds.
Fragmentation isn't failure
Every system exists because someone spotted an opportunity or solved a problem. Spreadsheets, documents and folders expanded into accounting systems, customer relationship management tools and digital marketing integrations.
Capable people made necessary decisions that were a fit at the time. The issue is that they were making them in isolation. Over time, those decisions compound into serious complications. Cobbling together workarounds and manual integrations will only take you so far.
Quick fixes hiding in plain sight
When you do get a chance to take a step back, problems that were invisible from ground level become obvious from above. Often, so do the solutions.
Licensing bloat
The issue
Multiplying $50-80+ per user per month for software where big chunks of that entitlement sit unused or misconfigured. Major platforms often include staff engagement, process automation, document management, security and compliance tools in the licence – either unused or duplicated across other systems.
The fix
Audit existing licence features against actual business requirements. Often, the features are already in the box, part of another platform or even unnecessary.
Lingering legacy system overhead
The issue
Skilled staff spend hours managing ageing applications that could be retired, consolidated or upgraded. What used to be bespoke may now be possible off the shelf.
The fix
Consolidate into platforms you’re already paying for and free up resources for work that moves the business forward.
Shadow IT and governance gaps
The issue
Staff sign up for their own file-sharing, project management or AI chat tools without telling IT. Sensitive data leaves your security perimeter or ends up on public AI platforms. You can’t govern what you can’t see.
The fix
Map what’s actually being used, bring it under governance and offer better, approved alternatives.
Lack of trust in data
The issue
Data silos mean a customer in one system doesn’t match the same customer in another. Reporting requires manual workarounds and the team loses trust in the numbers.
The fix
Consolidate as much as possible onto the platforms where your core business data already lives, so it connects natively rather than through workarounds.
AI-unreadiness
The issue
When your data is scattered across dozens of disconnected tools, any AI initiative starts with months of integration work before you get to do anything useful.
The fix
Wherever you are on the AI journey, a central source of truth is the foundation everything else builds on. Ecosystem consolidation is how you get there.
Individually, these aren’t complex problems. They’re just hard to see when you’re busy putting out fires.
You don’t know what you don’t know
When you work across sectors from healthcare and financial services to professional services and not-for-profits, familiar patterns emerge. For example, in recent work with a charity, we identified the need for a volunteer management system before the client even raised it. We’d seen the movie before.
This cross-industry view is hard to replicate internally. At Nexon, we see what’s common to your sector, what transcends it and where things are heading.
Retain, replace or rehome
Gaining this clarity doesn’t have to be a massive consulting engagement. It can be as simple as dedicating one hour per functional area – finance, sales, HR, operations – and working through straightforward questions such as: What tools are you using? How? Where’s the duplication? What’s working? What’s not?
From there, you work out what to retain (and optimise), what to replace and what to rehome. Rough numbers go against each option, so you can build a business case and phase it into manageable projects.
The goal is to solve problems once, rather than five different ways across departments.
Your application landscape is a record of your success. Now it’s about getting those pieces working together.
Combining learnings from hundreds of projects, Nexon offers an accelerated advisory engagement designed to do precisely this. It’s a structured application assessment that delivers a practical digital roadmap with rough costings, typically in a matter of weeks.
As a strategic technology partner, we combine advisory capability with implementation expertise to help you turn recommendations into results. If you’d like an outside perspective on where to start, let’s have a conversation.
Peter Jamhour is General Manager – Innovation and Architecture at Nexon Asia Pacific. For more information about Nexon’s advisory services, Contact Nexon today.
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