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You are here: The Open Group > CIOPrefaceBusiness Scenario - Integrating SystemsBusiness Scenario – Integrating the BusinessThe ChallengeWith Your Cooperation - The Open Group PlanAppendix: Key Requirements Already
Discovered
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Source: The Open Group |
A recent meeting of CIOs revealed an overarching business problem that is supported at the next level down by multiple business scenarios. That problem:
Integrated access to integrated information to support business process improvements is the root problem. INTEROPERABILITY of the infrastructure to gain that access is the main technical challenge.
This brief describes the business scenarios surrounding these problems as a stimulus in determining the magnitude of these problems. Armed with this it is hoped that the community of CIOs will band together in cooperation with The Open Group to address the technical challenge.
Large enterprises have many procurement systems, even within a single division. It would not be unusual for a large enterprise to have 50 or more stand-alone systems (point-to-point connections) with a single supplier.
This gives rise to two main business problems:
It is the second of these two business problems - inefficient business processes - that describes the root problem. It also demonstrates that simple access to information is not enough – there has to be push as well as pull.
Overcoming these business problems would be worth many millions of dollars to large enterprises, especially those in the manufacturing and transportation sectors.
It would not be practical to replace all of these stand-alone systems with a single procurement system due to:
What is needed is an underlying information layer that enables information to be integrated from the various systems and sources.
Figure 1 below depicts the need to provide integration of the various like systems. Here you can see the need for multiple like systems to share information, lest all the problems above are manifested in a failing business.
Figure 1: The Technical Environment – Integrated Information
A solution might be information integration technologies that enable procurement applications to access a common set of data as they do today. This would be inexpensive, as procurement applications would not have to change, and it would allow for graceful migration of the data from the current source to this more common source. Additionally this common source of information would provide a new standard and open interface to the information, to facilitate access for business partners, more about this in the next business scenario.
Unless we are able to find a way to integrate information easily as our companies change the costs will increase geometrically.
Large enterprises also need multiple stand-alone systems connecting them with the outside world. Each of these has a specific purpose – sometimes to satisfy regulatory requirements – other times to improve customer service – etc.
The inability to address this generates the following business problems:
So, for example, for manufacturers a very specific business requirement is to provide highly reliable data from multiple systems to customers and operators, business partners and internal staff in business process specific views. Their lawyers have a different business requirement and therefore a different system. Their employees want to connect to the HR database. All of these systems were created with different requirements and different business value. Yet now there is a business need to integrate the access to these systems from inside and outside the traditional company boundaries.
The challenge is to put in place set of services that provide this access, most probably using Internet and web technologies. Needed here is an underlying set of services that provides both the push and pull of access to information for those who need it, and to present that information in the context of the user, e.g. the lawyer, the customer/operator, the maintenance engineer, etc.
Figure 2 below depicts this desire to provide “portals” that provide a single operational view to enhance the efficiency of business processes. Behind these portals are the various systems and databases depicted above in figure 1. These various systems and databases are made transparent to the users of these business processes.
Figure 2: User Views – Integrated Access to Integrated Information
A solution might be a portal that could be accessed by the various constituencies using the information. However, this needs to be open to business partners at other points in the end-to-end process and these organizations may make different technology decisions. EDI failed originally because it required everyone to use the same proprietary technology. Today we need to base our decisions on open interfaces.
But there are many different portal approaches and the technologies are not standard yet. The different decisions made today in the different departments are causing tomorrow’s integration problems.
Unless we are able to find a way to make the different portal technologies work together the portal solution is itself likely to cause a significant increase (perhaps as much as 4x) in our infrastructure costs.
The challenge that faces The Open Group and the industries we serve is to create a win for customers of IT products and services and a win for suppliers of IT products and services.
Suppliers are generally not achieving growth out of products – instead growth is coming from the supply of services. These services are designed to benefit from the lack of interoperability between stand-alone systems. So it would seem that the motivation for suppliers to solve the interoperability problem highlighted by CIOs will be hard to find.
That is what makes it worthwhile. The good news is that people based businesses are inherently lower margin than product based businesses. If we can show the suppliers a route to higher margin business – we can win……… and so can they and their customers.
The Open Group is acting on a vision to “create a market for an interoperable world that serves all the stakeholders.” To achieve this vision The Open Group and the constituencies in the marketplace (the buy, use and sell spaces) must work together to ensure that the right standards are delivered in the right products to meet real needs of the business.
We all know that open standards can help, but they must be the right standards addressing the right areas. The Open Group is offering a unique opportunity to come together to provide leadership for global information technology standards and certification practices.
Actively participating in setting the directions for open standards will help ensure that the standards that move forward are those best positioned to support your business.
The Open Group aims to help IT customers and suppliers alike to realise the vision of the Interoperable Enterprise, by:
As a technology neutral forum for both customers and vendors, The Open Group is ideally positioned to facilitate effective dialog between the buy side and supply side of the IT industry. With its world-class product certification process it is unique in being positioned to underpin the results of IT standards efforts - both its own and those of other standards bodies.
The following organization description sets the context for some of the requirements already discovered that are presented below.
The following are high-level requirements stemming from these business scenarios.