Companies must learn to let business drive their technology decisions, and not the other way around, says Sun Microsystems principal consultant Lisa Elser.
Elser, speaking at a presentation hosted by local Sun partner PQ Africa this morning, said that companies often picked a large number of applications because they were touted as "best of breed" and then tried, often unsuccessfully, to integrate them.
The reason they were unsuccessful is they created these independent e-business units led by underage and overpaid hotshots who then built what was cool, and not what users wanted.
Lisa Elser, principal consultant, Sun Microsystems
"But they first need to look at what it is they want to do and what the environment must look like, and then look at what is the minimum number of applications that can do what they want. Then they can integrate that," she added.
"Don't let proprietary vendors make your business decisions."
Elser, Sun's principal consultant for southern Europe, Africa and the Middle East, said businesses implementing e-business strategies could learn a lot from the mistakes of the early e-business adapters.
"The reason they were unsuccessful is they created these independent e-business units led by underage and overpaid hotshots who then built what was cool, and not what users wanted," she said.
They focused on selling, rather than adding business value. Businesses began seeing value from the Internet only in 1999, she added.
Elser said the integrated economy referred to taking such concepts as business data, the Web environment, and customer and partner information, and linking them together seamlessly for maximum business advantage.
"The idea is not to do cool things with technology, but to do business with it."
The next wave in this area, according to Elser, is the service-driven network, where services are linked into a service grid. General Motors, for example, can track and unlock a car remotely (when keys have been locked inside). This service does not need a satellite to operate.
Personalisation systems can also be bought as a service, and are made available through partnerships. A partnership between Nokia, Swatch and ski operators in Europe now allows skiers to have ski passes downloaded into their Swatch watches so they do not have to swipe tickets.
"If you can build partnerships to give services people want, they are willing to pay extra for it," Elser said.
"A Web service is something you can build into an application. It is not an end-to-end application in itself."
Smart Web services form part of this wave: dynamic services based on "who, what, where, when, why and how". Examples cited by Elser include a restaurant finder based on location, weather, last night's choice, preferences and role; or a shipment policy based on inventory availability and customer profile.
She said the benefits of abstracting more and more of these services include the facts that business-to-business integration can be simplified, costs can be reduced, operations streamlined, revenues increased and customer satisfaction improved.
"Think business before technology and build on what you have," Elser added.
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