Why integration..this is an interesting question that can be answered in many ways but for the purposes of this post we are going to consider the following as the de-facto answer.
There are a number of compelling reasons for why companies or organizations need to integrate. these are:
- The need to offer new services to partners and customers
- The need to streamline and optimize business processes
The need to offer new services to partners and customers
This is a great driving force for integration. It doesn't matter whether the back end systems are new or legacy the need to integrate them to give these new services is paramount. With new services we may also want some other things as well:
- Flexibility & Choice
- Near Real time operation
- Security
- Support for industry standards
The need to streamline and optimize business processes
This can be as simple as automating manual processes and as complex as inventing a complete automated work flow. It allows an organization the chance to look at all it processes and come up with a new streamlined version. Some of the things that this may cover are:
- Work flow - the integration between people, applications and systems
- Process optimization
- Event driven process
During a recent Virgin project using BizTalk 2004 the management team came up with what they classed as the 'What's In' and 'What's Out' for IT at the moment...so here goes:
What's Out
- Mega projects
- Generic Killer Apps
- Long Term ROI
- Silos of technology
- Batch driven work
- Demand driven work
What's In
- Leveraging assets
- Personalized Business Process
- Choice and Flexibility
- Business relevance
- Event driven
- Information centric