Achieving Success with Business Integration
-How to achieve the full value of your integration solution?
For many integration is perceived as a technical discipline where data is exchanged between to systems.
By now, this need is supported by a large range of tools and standards.
There are however many other types of integration to consider - whether you are in need of integrating functionality of different systems in the user interface like with a portal solution, whether you are in need of integrating your suppliers or whether you are in need of integrating your users into an automatic workflow. Integration is also to be seen as one of the means of achieving consistency in your data and information across the many systems, applications and data sources. Only then you achieve the full value of your investment into an integration solution.
Integration solutions are not driven by technology but by business initiatives.
Some examples of business drivers for integration:
Implementation of a new ERP System
No ERP system is capable of functioning alone and is highly dependant on data from other IT systems.
Process improvement and management
Business Process Management (BPM) is about modeling your business processes to achieve a more efficient coupling between the underlying systems and resources.
Business Activity Monitoring
BAM makes it possible for you to measure business critical activities that are a part of your business processes. By enabling realtime measurement and corrective actions can resolve and prevent issues before they become critical problems for the business.
B2B - eBusiness
Integrating your suppliers and business partners into your value-net can provide you with the ability to optimize your trading patterns and offering a better service level to your customers, while achieving substantial administrative savings and reduce human intervention.
Regulatory/Compliance
IFRS, Basel II, Sarbanes Oxley are all regulatives that put pressure on companies to be able to control and documents its processes and transactions.
More about the challenges of integration your systems:
Building the integration roadmap
All companies have a different starting point and will take a different roadmap to move towards the finish line - an integration infrastructure that will support their business initiatives with a short lead time cost efficiently.
3 Key elements to achieve Business Integration success:
A well defined strategy. What issues are to be solved and how is it to be done.
Select the right tools that also match the overall infrastructure strategy for the company.
Establish a center of competence to ensure consistency, continuity and knowledge.
Using BaseLine to achieve Business Integration success:
Our integration offerings
Development of an integration strategy using BaseLine as an independant activity or as a component in a complete information management program
Assurance of integration and business process alignment
Design and implementation of a robust integration architecture
Evaluering and selection of integration platforms
Service Oriented Architecture based integration such as the implementation of a Web Services Framework (WSF)
Data consistancy assurance through the development of a common information model and business process object modelling closely linked to your master data strategy
B2B integration solutions
Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)
Business Integration Services