Aspire Insights: The Hidden Burden of Integration for UKG Partners – And a New Path Forward

With special reporting by Larry Goldberg, VP of Partnerships & Alliances for Tavio

As the energy of UKG Aspire settles, I’m still reflecting on the incredible conversations I had with so many dedicated technology consulting firms – the very partners who are instrumental in bringing UKG’s powerful solutions to life for customers in HR, payroll, and recruiting.

There’s no doubt about the commitment and expertise of these partners. They are the backbone of successful UKG implementations. But a recurring theme emerged from my discussions, a quiet frustration that’s starting to become a loud bottleneck: the tools they’re using for integration.

Many partners confessed that their current integration platforms – often the established, enterprise-grade solutions – are actually holding them back. They’re grappling with a significant burden, one that’s impacting their ability to scale, serve more clients efficiently, and ultimately, grow their own businesses.

The Core Frustration: A Heavyweight Approach to Agile Needs

Here’s what I heard, time and again, from these UKG partners:

1. Resource Heavy, Margins Light: The integration platforms currently in use demand highly specialized and expensive developers. Finding, training, and retaining these experts is a constant struggle, driving up delivery costs and eating into project margins. It’s like using a sledgehammer for every task when sometimes you need a scalpel – and a team of specialists to wield that sledgehammer.
2. Inflexible, Not Reusable: For all their power, these platforms often result in bespoke, one-off integration solutions. Even for common UKG use cases (like integrating core HRIS with payroll, or recruiting data with onboarding), partners are forced to largely rebuild, re-configure, and re-test, client by client. This “reinvent the wheel” cycle is inefficient and unsustainable for growth.
3. Slow and Costly Delivery: The combination of specialized resource demands and the lack of true reusability means longer project timelines and higher costs for customers. In today’s fast-paced HR tech landscape, clients expect speed and agility, and these partners are struggling to deliver it due to their underlying tools.
4. Beyond “iPaaS”: The Need for a “Consulting Partner as a Service” Platform: What these partners truly need isn’t just an iPaaS; it’s a platform built for their business model – one that enables them to deliver “Integration as a Service” effectively.

A New Breed of Integration: Built for Consultants, Made for UKG

This is where Tavio is changing the game. We’re observing these challenges firsthand, and it’s precisely why we’ve engineered a new breed of integration platform designed to unlock the scalability and efficiency that UKG partners desperately need.

Imagine:

• “Build Once, Deploy Many”: With Tavio, partners can develop core integration Solutions for common UKG to ecosystem patterns – say, UKG Pro to a specific ATS, or UKG Ready to a benefits provider – and then rapidly configure and deploy them across dozens, even hundreds, of clients. This isn’t just theory; it’s how we’re enabling dramatic reductions in delivery time and cost.
• Empowering Your Broader Team: Tavio’s intuitive interface means that while technical specialists can leverage our powerful scripting language for deep customization, a much broader team of consultants can configure, deploy, and manage integrations. This frees up your most senior talent and broadens your resource pool.
• Proactive Data Health: Instead of reactive firefighting, Tavio provides proactive insights into data quality, allowing partners to deliver more robust, stable integrations from day one, leading to happier clients and fewer post-implementation headaches.
• Specialization Without the Burden: Our deep expertise and extensive library of connectors for the HR tech space (including UKG) means partners start with a significant head start, focusing on client-specific value-add rather than foundational connectivity.

The Path to Scaled Success

The conversations at UKG Aspire highlighted a clear truth: the future of delivering complex integrations for UKG customers isn’t about simply having a powerful tool; it’s about having the right tool, one that aligns with an agile, scalable consulting business model.

Tavio is that platform. We’re here to empower UKG partners to shed the hidden burden of traditional integration, accelerate their delivery, boost their margins, and truly scale their integration consulting practice.

I’m excited about the future of HR tech and the incredible work these partners do. Let’s make that work easier, faster, and more profitable.