Flexibility is a key requirement today for companies looking to implement business systems that deliver a significant return on investment (ROI).
Research authority, the International Data Corporation (IDC), believes integration holds the key to realising flexibility and ROI challenges, while softening the blow of an ever-changing business environment.
But integration is a delicate subject, according to Willie Bezuidenhout, business intelligence specialist at Computer Associates Africa.
He says a business systems integration project will only be successful if it entails integrating the software within the company from a business process perspective - and not simply integration at an application level.
"Looking at the current integration scenario, it would be correct to say that organisations initially started their integration efforts by implementing point solutions. The integration of these solutions then moved from the desktops to corporate enterprise requirements planning (ERP) suites," he says.
"However, many companies then found they still had problems reaping the benefits of the integration process and moved to projects such as customer relationship management (CRM) and supply chain management (SCM).
"On the road to agility, companies need to remove these inefficiencies in order to streamline the process from selling to shipping and provide easy access to all data that is relevant for professional workers."
According to Bezuidenhout, organisations need to take the idea of integration one step further.
"Today`s technology offers two basic approaches to complete the necessary integration - best-of-breed integration and pre-integrated total solutions," he notes.
"For those companies that have already invested heavily in point solutions or different suites for different processes, the solution will be to integrate the existing databases and applications - a potentially painful process.
"The alternative approach is replacing all separate systems with one pre-integrated total solution."
ERP providers are trying to play this role in one way or another. Gartner Dataquest notes that ERP vendors are increasingly acknowledging that their products no longer serve as "backbones" for enterprises` architectures.
"This is why they are now offering proprietary solutions topped off with enterprise portals that also integrate other applications, while others try to win the SME market with new total integrated solutions," confirms Bezuidenhout.
IDC comments that the benefits of total solutions are especially strong for SMEs. According to IDC, these companies often do not have the resources for complex integration projects, but still need agility to engage in competition.
They must, however, not forget that even this total solution will still need customisation and integration with other point solutions, says IDC.
Bezuidenhout stresses that companies facing the integration challenge need to decide early on in the process which strategy will satisfy their demands. He lists a number of issues keep in mind when making this decision.
Organisations that have invested heavily in customised solutions and depend on them to run the business will be better off with a best-of-breed integration strategy - with an enterprise portal that makes sure work can be done within this proven environment.
But, for companies that have limited resources and don`t want to outsource their critical application environment, an integrated total solution will probably be a better strategy.
Another point to keep in mind is that most ERP vendors build their applications optimised for the largest companies and only at a later stage develop solutions for midsize companies.
The same, unfortunately, is true for most application integration vendors. This leaves SMEs at a disadvantage and often forces them to either wait for the product to be ready or to integrate products from other vendors.
Again, for these companies a ready-made total solution is the most viable option.
One thing that companies that do opt for a total integrated solution must bear in mind, is that it can be like a blind date - you never quite now what you`re going to get.
Basically, it is unlikely that all modules offer the best possible solution for your company. The question is - can you live with that? If you can`t, because it clashes with your user requirements, don`t go there.
The bottom line is, integration should not be about integrating applications or deploying total solutions, but about integrating the whole business.
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