Most businesses run on a patchwork. A CRM here, a project tool there, an invoicing system somewhere else. All connected (barely) by integrations that break whenever one vendor updates their API.
We take a different approach. When we build systems for clients, we manage the entire stack: the server, the database, the application, the interface. Not because we're control enthusiasts, but because it's the only way to deliver systems that actually work reliably.
This is vertical integration for software: owning the full stack so you can run your business without depending on a chain of third parties you don't control.
What Vertical Integration Actually Means
The Anchor: Vertical integration is the practice of controlling multiple stages of a production or delivery process, rather than relying on external suppliers for each stage. In software terms, it means owning the entire technology stack that powers your business operations.
The concept comes from manufacturing. Henry Ford famously owned rubber plantations, steel mills, and glass factories so that Ford Motor Company could control everything that went into building a car. The result was predictable quality, lower costs, and independence from suppliers who might raise prices or fail to deliver.
The same principle applies to business software. When your CRM, project management, invoicing, and reporting all live in separate systems from different vendors, you're dependent on each of them. And you're dependent on the integrations between them, which are the weakest links in the chain.
Vertical integration for software means one coherent system instead of a collection of connected tools:
One application
Your CRM, project management, invoicing, and reporting live in one place. Data doesn't need to "sync" because it was never separated.
One database
All your business data in one well-structured database. Reports run in milliseconds. Queries are straightforward. No reconciliation required.
One interface
Your team learns one system, not five. Workflows flow naturally instead of hopping between applications.
One point of responsibility
When something goes wrong, there's no finger-pointing between vendors. We can see the full stack and fix the problem.
This isn't about building everything from scratch for philosophical purity. It's about having control over the things that matter most to your operations. The question of when to build versus buy is central to this approach.
The SaaS Sprawl Problem
A typical growing business might have:
- Salesforce for CRM (£150/user/month)
- HubSpot for marketing (£800/month)
- Asana for projects (£25/user/month)
- Xero for accounting (£36/month)
- Zapier to connect them (£150/month)
- Slack for communication (£12/user/month)
- DocuSign for contracts (£45/month)
- Several more tools for specific functions
Each tool is individually reasonable. The vendors are reputable. The products work well for their intended purpose. But together, they create a fragmented system with serious structural problems.
You've essentially assembled a Frankenstein system from parts that were never designed to work together. And unlike Dr Frankenstein's creation, your system doesn't even move in the same direction. This fragmentation undermines your ability to maintain a single source of truth.
The True Cost of Fragmented Systems
The subscription costs are only the beginning. The real expense of SaaS sprawl hides in operational inefficiency and lost opportunity.
Direct costs
For a 25-person business using a typical SaaS stack:
| Category | Monthly Cost | Annual Cost |
|---|---|---|
| CRM (25 users × £150) | £3,750 | £45,000 |
| Marketing automation | £800 | £9,600 |
| Project management (25 users × £25) | £625 | £7,500 |
| Accounting | £65 | £780 |
| Integration platform | £250 | £3,000 |
| Document management | £200 | £2,400 |
| Communication tools (25 users × £12) | £300 | £3,600 |
| Total subscriptions | £5,990 | £71,880 |
Nearly £72,000 per year for a 25-person business. And these numbers grow with every hire.
Hidden costs
The subscription fees are only part of the picture. Consider what doesn't appear on any invoice:
Time spent on manual data entry
When systems don't talk to each other properly, humans fill the gap. A team member spends 30 minutes a day copying information between systems. That's 2.5 hours a week, over 100 hours a year. Multiply by the number of people doing this, and by their hourly cost.
Time spent on data reconciliation
The monthly exercise of making the CRM numbers match the invoicing numbers match the project tool numbers. For many businesses, this takes a full day each month. That's 12 working days per year devoted to checking that systems agree with each other.
Errors from data mismatches
A customer's address changes in the CRM but the invoicing system still has the old one. Orders go to the wrong location. Invoices bounce. Deliveries fail. Each error costs time to fix and may cost customer goodwill.
Delayed decisions from scattered data
The CEO wants to know which customers are most profitable. Answering this requires pulling data from the CRM, the project tool (for costs), and the invoicing system. By the time the report is assembled, the question has moved on.
Training overhead for new staff
Every new hire needs to learn five different systems. That's five sets of training, five login credentials, five different ways of doing things. Onboarding takes longer. Mistakes during the learning curve are more common.
One manufacturing client calculated that their staff spent a combined 40 hours per week on tasks that existed only because their systems didn't share data properly. At an average cost of £35/hour, that's £72,800 per year in pure waste. More than their entire SaaS budget was being spent on working around the limitations of their SaaS tools.
Integration Points: Where Fragmentation Hurts Most
Not all connections between systems are equally important. Some integration points are high-value targets where fragmentation creates the most pain.
Customer record to everything
The customer is the centre of most business operations. Their information needs to flow to:
- Sales and opportunity tracking
- Project and order management
- Invoicing and payment collection
- Support and communication history
- Marketing and outreach
When customer data lives in multiple systems, you get conflicting information. Sales has one phone number, invoicing has another, and the project manager has a third. Worse, you lose the complete picture of the relationship. The project manager doesn't know about the support ticket. Sales doesn't know about the late payment.
Quote to order to invoice
The commercial lifecycle from opportunity to revenue should be one continuous flow. When it spans three different systems:
In an integrated system, the quote becomes the order becomes the invoice. No re-entry. No translation errors. Complete audit trail.
Time and resource to project to invoice
For service businesses, the path from work performed to revenue collected should be automatic. When it isn't:
One professional services firm discovered they were failing to bill an average of 4 hours per consultant per month because time entries weren't flowing properly to invoicing. With 20 consultants at £150/hour, that's £144,000 in annual revenue leakage.
Inventory to order to delivery
For product businesses, stock levels need to inform what can be sold and when it can be delivered. Fragmented systems create:
Vertical Integration Across Industries
The principles of vertical integration apply differently depending on what a business does. Here's how it looks in practice.
Professional services (consultancies, agencies, law firms)
The core challenge is connecting opportunity, project delivery, and billing into one flow.
| Process | Fragmented approach | Integrated approach |
|---|---|---|
| Quoting | Word documents, manual pricing | Rate cards and scope templates in the system; quote becomes project on approval |
| Time tracking | Separate app, exported to invoicing | Time logged against project tasks; flows directly to billing |
| Resource planning | Spreadsheets, verbal agreements | Availability and allocation visible; conflicts flagged automatically |
| Profitability | Quarterly analysis, always out of date | Real-time margin visibility per project, client, and service line |
A consulting firm we work with reduced their monthly billing cycle from 5 days to 4 hours by eliminating the manual assembly of time records, expenses, and deliverables. The same system now alerts project managers when budgets are 80% consumed, preventing the "we're over budget" conversations that used to happen after the work was done.
Manufacturing and distribution
The core challenge is connecting sales, production, inventory, and delivery.
| Process | Fragmented approach | Integrated approach |
|---|---|---|
| Order entry | Sales enters in CRM; operations re-enters in production system | One entry flows to production, inventory, and shipping |
| Inventory | Multiple counts in different systems; reconciled weekly | Single source of truth updated in real time |
| Delivery promises | Sales guesses based on recent experience | System calculates based on current stock and production schedule |
| Cost tracking | Finance calculates months later | Material and labour costs attached to orders in real time |
A distributor we work with reduced order-to-delivery errors by 90% after moving from a three-system setup to an integrated platform. The old system required manual handoffs between sales, warehouse, and shipping. Each handoff was an opportunity for miscommunication. Now, an order placed in the morning triggers picking, packing, and shipping without any human translation.
Property and asset management
The core challenge is connecting property records, tenancies, maintenance, and financials.
| Process | Fragmented approach | Integrated approach |
|---|---|---|
| Tenant records | Spreadsheet of leases; separate contact database | Complete tenant history including payments, communications, and maintenance requests |
| Maintenance | Email requests; manual scheduling with contractors | Logged requests linked to property; contractor dispatch and completion tracking |
| Rent collection | Invoiced manually; arrears tracked in spreadsheet | Automatic invoicing; arrears flagged immediately; complete payment history per property |
| Reporting | Monthly scramble to assemble data from multiple sources | Real-time dashboards showing occupancy, yield, and maintenance costs per property |
Membership and subscription businesses
The core challenge is connecting member records, billing cycles, usage tracking, and engagement.
| Process | Fragmented approach | Integrated approach |
|---|---|---|
| Member profiles | Basic details in billing system; preferences scattered elsewhere | Complete profile including subscription history, usage patterns, and preferences |
| Billing | Separate subscription management tool | Integrated billing with proration, upgrades, and payment retries built in |
| Engagement | Email platform with no connection to member behaviour | Communications triggered by actual usage and subscription status |
| Churn prediction | Not possible without data science project | Usage patterns, payment issues, and engagement all visible; at-risk members flagged |
The Stack We Manage
When we build a system for you, we're responsible for every layer:
| Layer | What This Means | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure | Servers configured for performance, security patches applied, uptime monitored | No waiting for your SaaS vendor to fix an outage. We control the hardware and can respond immediately. |
| Database | Data structured for speed and integrity, backups automated, queries optimised | Complex reports that would timeout in connected SaaS tools run in milliseconds. |
| Application | Business logic implemented cleanly, code maintained and documented | Your specific business rules are encoded in the system, not worked around with integrations. |
| Interface | Interfaces designed for your actual workflows, not generic use cases | Your team works faster because the system matches how they actually work. |
This isn't about being technical for the sake of it. It's about being able to promise that the system works, and actually deliver on that promise.
We build on proven, open-source foundations:
We manage the "boring" parts: security updates, backups, monitoring, performance tuning. You don't have to think about them. And we build for handoff. Clear documentation, readable code, standard practices. If you ever want to bring development in-house or switch providers, you can.
Technical Approaches to Integration
Building an integrated system doesn't mean rejecting all external tools. It means being deliberate about what gets integrated and how.
Core vs peripheral
Some functions belong in the core system. Others are better handled by specialist tools that integrate cleanly.
Core (own it)
- Customer and contact records
- Opportunity and order management
- Project and job tracking
- Invoicing and payment tracking
- Reporting and analytics
- Business rules and workflow
Peripheral (integrate)
- Email delivery (SendGrid, Postmark)
- Payment processing (Stripe, GoCardless)
- Accounting ledger (Xero, QuickBooks)
- Document signing (DocuSign, Adobe Sign)
- SMS notifications (Twilio)
- Calendar sync (Google, Microsoft)
The core system should own your data and business logic. Peripheral tools handle specialised functions where dedicated providers offer better capability than building it yourself. The key is that the integration is controlled from your system, not dependent on a third-party middleware.
API-first architecture
Modern integrated systems are built with APIs at their foundation. This means:
You get the benefits of integration without the fragility of middleware chains. Your system is the master; external tools are servants.
Event-driven synchronisation
Rather than scheduled batch syncs that can fail silently, well-designed integrations use events. When something happens in your system (an invoice is raised, a payment is received, an order ships), the relevant external systems are notified immediately.
This approach means:
- Data propagates in real time, not on a schedule
- Failures are detected immediately, not discovered later
- Each integration has clear boundaries and responsibilities
- The audit trail shows exactly what happened and when
Measuring Integration Effectiveness
How do you know if your systems are properly integrated? These metrics reveal the truth:
Data entry frequency
Count how often the same information is entered into different systems. Customer address, order details, contact information. Each re-entry is a sign of fragmentation. In a well-integrated system, data is entered once and flows everywhere it's needed.
Reconciliation time
How long does it take to verify that systems agree with each other? If you spend a day each month making sure the CRM matches invoicing matches the project tool, that's a sign of poor integration. Properly integrated systems don't need reconciliation because the data was never separated.
Report assembly time
How long does it take to answer "how is this client doing?" or "what's our revenue by service line?" If the answer requires exporting from multiple systems and combining in Excel, integration is failing. This should be seconds, not hours.
Error rate on handoffs
When work moves from one stage to another (quote to order, order to delivery, delivery to invoice), how often do errors appear? Each error usually indicates a manual translation between systems where information was lost or changed.
System logins per task
For a complete workflow (say, handling a customer enquiry through to delivery), how many different systems does someone need to access? More systems means more friction, more training, and more opportunities for things to slip through.
Track these metrics before and after integration work. The improvements are usually dramatic and easy to quantify.
Why This Creates Better Outcomes
Performance
When your system doesn't need to make API calls to five different services, it's fast. Pages load instantly. Reports run in seconds. Actions complete without waiting spinners.
We've seen clients replace systems where "generating the monthly report" meant a 10-minute coffee break. In an integrated system, the same report loads in under a second.
Reliability
Every external dependency is a point of failure. When you're chaining five SaaS tools together, any one of them can break your workflow. Integration errors are maddening because you often can't even identify where the problem is.
A vertically integrated system has fewer failure points. When something does go wrong, we can trace it end-to-end and fix it.
Cost predictability
SaaS pricing scales with your team and usage. Add five people? Your software costs jump. Process more transactions? Higher tier required.
Infrastructure costs scale too, but more predictably. Hosting for 50 users doesn't cost 5x what it costs for 10 users. Adding employees doesn't trigger a pricing tier change.
True ownership
When you rent SaaS, you're subject to their decisions. Vendors change pricing. Features disappear. APIs break. Companies get acquired and products get sunset. Understanding the trade-offs of owning versus renting is fundamental to making this choice wisely.
When you own your stack, you control what happens. New feature needed? Build it. Process change? Implement it. Want to switch hosting providers? You can.
The Accountability Difference
Perhaps the most significant benefit of vertical integration is the clarity of responsibility when something goes wrong.
SaaS Patchwork
You: "The sales data isn't matching the invoice totals."
CRM vendor: "Our data is correct. Check with your integration provider."
Integration provider: "The sync ran fine. Check with your invoicing system."
Invoice vendor: "We only process what we receive."
You: "..."
Vertically Integrated
You: "The sales data isn't matching the invoice totals."
Us: "Let me check... Found it. There was an edge case in the discount calculation. Fixed and deployed. Should be accurate now."
The difference is accountability. When we own the whole stack, we can't blame someone else. We find the problem and fix it.
This single point of accountability changes everything about the support experience. Issues get resolved faster because there's no finger-pointing between vendors. Root causes get found because someone can see the entire system. And problems get fixed properly because the same team that found the issue can deploy the solution.
A Phased Approach to Integration
Moving from fragmented systems to an integrated platform doesn't have to happen all at once. A phased approach reduces risk and demonstrates value at each stage.
Audit and prioritise
Map your current systems and the data flows between them. Identify where the most pain occurs: which handoffs fail most often, which reports take longest to assemble, which processes require the most manual intervention. This audit reveals where integration will deliver the most value.
Establish the core
Build or configure the central system that will become the source of truth. This typically starts with customer records and one key workflow (often quote-to-order or project management). The goal is to have one place where the most important data lives.
Migrate high-value processes
Move processes into the core system based on the priority established in the audit. Each migration should deliver measurable improvement: less time on data entry, faster reporting, fewer errors. Quick wins build momentum and justify continued investment.
Integrate peripheral tools
Connect the specialist tools that remain (accounting, payment processing, email delivery) with proper API integrations. These connections are controlled from your system, not dependent on middleware. Data flows in real time with proper error handling.
Retire legacy systems
As functionality moves to the integrated platform, decommission the old tools. Each retirement reduces complexity, eliminates subscription costs, and simplifies training. The end state is fewer, better-connected systems.
Most integration projects show positive ROI within 6-12 months. The combination of reduced subscription costs, eliminated manual work, and prevented errors typically exceeds the investment in building the integrated system.
When NOT to Integrate
Vertical integration isn't always the right answer. Some situations call for keeping systems separate.
Regulatory requirements
Some industries require specific data to live in certified, audited systems. Healthcare records, financial transactions, and certain compliance data may need to remain in specialised platforms that meet regulatory standards. The integrated system can connect to these, but shouldn't replace them.
Rapidly evolving functions
If a business function is still being figured out, locking it into custom software may be premature. Early-stage marketing experiments, new product lines, or pilot programmes might be better served by flexible SaaS tools until the process stabilises.
Specialist capabilities
Some functions require deep specialist capability that doesn't make sense to build. Video conferencing, advanced analytics, machine learning, and similar technologies are better consumed as services than built from scratch.
Insufficient scale
Custom integration has a cost. For very small teams or simple operations, the investment may not justify the return. If your current tools genuinely meet your needs and the team isn't growing, integration might be a solution looking for a problem.
The goal isn't integration for its own sake. It's having the right level of integration for your specific situation. Sometimes that means a fully integrated platform. Sometimes it means a lean core with well-connected peripherals. And sometimes it means acknowledging that SaaS tools serve your current needs just fine.
When This Approach Makes Sense
Vertical integration isn't right for every business. Here's an honest assessment.
It makes sense when:
It's probably not right if:
What You Get
Vertically integrated systems deliver tangible, measurable benefits:
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Speed No API calls to external services; everything is instant. Pages load in milliseconds. Reports that took minutes now take seconds.
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Reliability Fewer failure points, full-stack visibility when issues arise. No more silent integration failures discovered days later.
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Predictable costs No per-seat pricing surprises as your team grows. Infrastructure scales more gracefully than SaaS subscriptions.
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True ownership Your systems, your data, your choices. No vendor can deprecate a feature you depend on or force you to upgrade.
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Single accountability One point of contact when something goes wrong. No more vendor finger-pointing while your problem goes unsolved.
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Complete visibility All your data in one place. Answer any question about your business without assembling reports from multiple systems.
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Reduced training burden One system to learn, not five. New team members become productive faster. Experienced staff work more efficiently.
One coherent system instead of a fragile patchwork. Operations that run smoothly. A business that grows without the stress growing with it.
Evaluate Your Stack
Count your SaaS subscriptions. Add up the monthly cost. Then consider: how many of those tools actually share data properly, and how much time does your team spend working around the gaps?
If the numbers don't look good, a more integrated approach might be worth exploring. We can help you assess where integration would deliver the most value for your specific situation.
Book a discovery call →