systems integration
"Systems Integration" is a broad concept term, that has been around for a long time and means many things to many people; but, most simply, systems integration means utilizing multiple (otherwise separate/discrete) systems for some purpose, that none of the individual systems currently provide. Getting business systems to "talk to" one another (e.g. when a report, you need, requires information from more than one system) requires "systems integration". Doing systems integration requires working with multiple database systems, programming languages, inter-process communication protocols etc.; thus, systems integration requires higher-level skill sets than normal programming in some single environment.
As an example of systems integration, say you need your cost per order; but, your orders are in your order-entry system and your labor costs are in your separate payroll system. Reporting cost per order would involve extracting orders from your order-entry system and the labor cost component from your payroll system. A separate system would be created (to avoid modifying your existing systems) for this missing management reporting functionality where input from multiple separate systems was required.
The following diagrams illustrate some other examples of systems integration.
Since one can't always abandon more expensive prior-system commitments (for a better system from Data-based Systems Corporation), especially when those old systems constitute the core/backbone of your business, Data-based Systems Corporation developed approaches to provide additional capability - without modifying the pre-existing systems. For example, order-entry systems commonly lack sufficient operations and other MIS reporting functionality. Data-based Systems Corporation has years of experience and great success, adding independent functionality - without modifying pre-built systems - so that existing system upgrades or patches will not overwrite your newly-developed, proprietary capabilities.