How diverse initiatives will come together

Divided they fall
Most companies have approached the adoption of each of these technologies as separate, stand-alone projects. Their EAI initiatives have been driven by the need to connect heterogeneous systems at the data or, more recently, process level in an effort to produce the same effect as a homogenous system without requiring a costly and time consuming system upgrade. In most cases, systems that perform all of a company’s necessary functions simply don’t exist, so there’s a real need to provide a platform upon which both legacy systems with well-established business rules and new systems with powerful new features can co-exist and cooperate. That’s the promise of EAI. Nonetheless, businesses have struggled with the cost, complexity, and time required to make true application integration a reality.

Most BI initiatives have been driven by the need to combine data from the same systems as those that the EAI efforts attempt to connect. The promise of BI is that the combination and analysis of data generated by these diverse systems will give management new information that will allow them to make more informed decisions. As a consultant on several BI engagements, I can attest to the power of delivering this analysis to senior management. But I can also see the folly in approaching BI as a management-only initiative. The information has to move from the data store to the screens of the actual workers who can use the information to affect the way the company operates, before the company can truly see the business value.

Most companies would have more success nailing Jell-O to a wall than describing the business benefits of their portal strategy. There’s a fundamental understanding that employees, vendors and customers all have a need to interact with the "corporate systems" without having the rights to be a direct user of that system. For example, a company’s Accounts Receivable clerk has an ID and password to enable him or her to enter, view, and modify receivables information. But the salesperson for a particular account needs information about that account’s payment history. And you may even want the customers themselves to be able to view their outstanding invoices. In neither case, however, would you want to give these users of data direct access to the system in the form of a user account. In order for portals to succeed, companies have to find efficient and secure ways to access existing systems to both participate in the business process and report on its results.