HR and IT Alignment: The Secret to Seamless Data Integration
Generative and agentic artificial intelligence (AI) both require integrated data to deliver high-quality results; however, organizations may want to reconsider their data integration strategy if they haven't aligned on the following question: "What business goals will data integration help us achieve?"
Without alignment on business goals, multiple teams may pursue data integration but optimize for different outcomes. HR may prioritize people analytics, workforce planning and performance management while IT focuses on building scalable, governed data foundations. These outcomes have value, but without clarity on the goals each effort is meant to achieve, specific initiatives may not support business activity, profitable growth, customer and employee satisfaction, competitive positioning, enterprise value or risk reduction. As a result, sound initiatives can stall, not for lack of value, but because teams are not aligned on the meaning of success.
The solution? Coordinate on business goals before integrating data for AI.
How to align on business goals before data integration
Aligning on business goals before data integration can help HR and IT:
- Build a business case that reflects shared cross-functional priorities
- Influence integration plans so decisions support agreed-upon business outcomes
- Inform generative and agentic workflows and management
Prior to integration, HR and IT should jointly assess the data assets they have available, and document them.
"Data governance starts with clarity," says Shivang Patel, chief product officer, ADP Marketplace. "Who owns the data, where does it live, who can access it and is it accurate and consistent?"
Other teams may need to be consulted to create a comprehensive picture of internal data sources.
HR and IT alignment check: 6 items to validate before data integration
Once internal data assets have been audited, HR and IT should perform a quick alignment check. Ask team members who are familiar with the company's technology infrastructure to answer "yes" or "no" to the following statements:
- We manually re-enter data across platforms.
- Our HR and IT teams lack a shared roadmap.
- Our systems don't support real-time data exchange.
- Employees struggle with too many disconnected tools.
- We lack a clear plan for scaling integrations.
- Security and compliance are hard to maintain across platforms.
If any of the statements above received a "yes," alignment between HR and IT is needed. Focus on drafting a solution for each "yes" before moving on to the next step: the internal Q&A.
Internal Q&A: Positioning data integration for business success
After the alignment check, HR and IT should answer the questions below, gathering cross-functional input from colleagues and partners as needed. The goal is to create a business case that sends the following message to leadership: "We understand the business goals data integration can help us achieve, and here's how we'll make it happen." Incorporate the results of the alignment check into your answers and subsequent presentation or proposal.
- How will integrating specific data sources support business activity? Could it positively impact profitable growth, customer and employee satisfaction, competitive positioning or enterprise value? Could it meaningfully reduce business risk?
- Are enterprise decision makers likely to support this initiative? Why or why not? Can we reframe our language or incorporate benefits for each department to make it more attractive, or should we consider an alternative approach?
- How much will the initiative cost, how long will it take and how will it scale? Do we have the necessary human skills and technical resources? How will we acquire them if not? Are there any business, security, compliance or technical limitations that could hinder progress, and, if so, how would those be addressed?
- What quantitative or qualitative data can validate the changes we're recommending?
Planning concise, data-driven answers to these questions can help position HR and IT to meet the needs of the business as data integration initiatives are vetted and ultimately executed.
Platform clusters: A data integration model for aligned teams
When building a business case for data integration, it's essential to document how systems are organized and connected. Research from Sapient Insights Group's 26th Annual HR Systems Survey reveals that midsized organizations now maintain between three and 15 separate HR solutions, while larger enterprises often manage as many as 55. This proliferation can create data integrity and accuracy issues between systems, as well as data input and management challenges for HR and IT.
According to Sapient Insights Group, some organizations are moving to "platform clusters" (small ecosystems of strong platforms that work together), departing from all-in-one paradigms and disconnected best-of-breed systems that create a lot of extra administrative work.
"HR buyers are very much, in our data, tired of the all-in-one and best-of-breed conversations," says Stacey Harris, chief research officer, managing partner, Sapient Insights Group. "What we're noticing is platform clusters, where you have critical anchor systems that integrate tightly with marketplaces and surrounding ecosystems. Organizations then tend to buy and build within those ecosystems" instead of stitching together dozens of disconnected tools.
The role of integration marketplaces
Integration marketplaces can help enable platform clusters by providing:
- Application programming interfaces (APIs) to standardize data access for AI models
- Connectors that reliably move and synchronize data across systems
- Prebuilt integrations that make governed data available for generative and agentic workflows at scale
As HR and IT implement platform clusters, it's important to remember that integrations are crucial to making them work in practice.
Align first, then integrate
Data integration isn't just a technical challenge; it's a business one.
Without precise alignment on business goals, even well-intentioned integration efforts can stall, fragment or struggle to deliver value. HR and IT must start by grounding integration initiatives in outcomes that create a meaningful benefit for the business.
When HR and IT execute on business goals and treat data integration as a shared, strategic capability, they're better positioned to support generative and agentic workflows that move the business forward.
Go deeper: Join HR and IT leaders for an engaging discussion on how data integration and AI can enhance collaboration, streamline operations and improve business outcomes.
Brett Daniel contributed to this article.
