Large organisations have invested millions in systems which support their smooth and predictable operation. However, new business realities are compelling them to reconsider and enhance their business processes in order to open them to the external world.
Interaction with customers, suppliers, and their own employees, located elsewhere in the world, require them to implement new business processes.
The alternatives are the wholesale replacement of existing systems or building additional functionality and integrating it with the existing systems. Many companies are opting for the latter route, which is creating a new wave of business opportunity, especially in the realm of e-business, says Victoria Vaksman, director of software group Solit.
The take-up of e-business will be accelerated through the deployment by companies of three basic components that fulfil the base requirements of any organisation wishing to e-enable its existing processes and make them externally focused, says Vaksman. These are the corporate portal, integrated workflow, and document management.
"Together, these three components provide a solid foundation for e-business, allowing companies of any size to e-enable their processes and gain the clear benefits of the new paradigm."
The corporate portal is the initial building block for e-business. "It has been one of the most important technology/business developments over the last decade," observes Vaksman. "The corporate portal allows a single, universal, entry point from anywhere in the world, any time. Employees, customers and suppliers can be anywhere, any time, creating the ultimate in decentralisation. As more companies outsource their IT and other operations, giving rise to the application service provision model, so users will access their applications through the portal, leading to a dramatic drop in the total cost of computing."
The portal needs to be customisable so as to reflect the individual user's way of working, whatever mix of applications is pertinent.
Once the user has accessed corporate systems, he needs to be able to enter and fulfil all business processes, which implies supporting the portal with workflow.
"This ensures all business processes can be fulfilled through the portal," says Vaksman. The majority of business processes need supporting documentation. Document management supports and enriches workflow and brings structure and logical form to a vital business aspect. Every employee generates and deals with vast volumes of business-related and customer-related documents each day, but as they are unstructured, their management tends to fall outside the scope of typical data management systems. Integrating them into and making them accessible via the portal bestows significant corporate benefits."
These three components are the foundation for the future enhancement of business processes, opening previously internally focused business processes to the external world, along with a shared knowledge base, and all other applications built on top of them.
"But," she cautions, "their implementation must be accompanied by a holistic review of the business and change in core processes, or you're simply putting lipstick on the pig."
Vaksman says corporate customers have received this approach with open arms as it drives rapid return on investment because it does not require the replacement of existing core systems successfully supporting internal operations.
"You don't have to discard existing investment; rather you integrate other components into it."
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