Business process fusion - a set of trends affecting
business applications, software infrastructure and their role in
supporting business processes - will create demand for
cross-functional, end-to-end process applications. However,
suppliers are trying to figure out how to compete in this new
technology platform.
The objective is to integrate business processes to create value,
regardless of how, or even whether, the underlying technology is
integrated.
"The movement toward business process fusion is not just a
matter of vendors extending their application products," says Simon
Hayward, vice-president and research fellow at Gartner.
"Business process fusion takes business applications vendors
into a new field of competition, the application platform. This
field brings new challenges, such as competitors that traditionally
have delivered components of this technology platform, for example,
Tibco Software and Vitria Technology, as well as competitors with
comprehensive platform offerings, such as BEA Systems and IBM."
The technology platform for fusion applications will combine the
infrastructure of application servers and integration brokers with
portal, content management and collaboration support technology.
Gartner analysts identified three key capabilities required from
ICT systems to achieve business process fusion:
- Systems integration achieves the requisite scope for end-to-end
processes
- Application mutability provides flexibility to accommodate
process changes
- Information unification supports all types of decision making
within a single framework.
Although some companies, such as SAP, PeopleSoft and Oracle, now
provide the basic technology components required, most components
are relatively immature, and are primarily optimised for that
supplier's application environment.
"Enterprises must make strategic decisions regarding how far to
consolidate ICT purchases with a single vendor, as opposed to
maintaining vendor independence between application categories, and
between applications and infrastructure," Hayward says.
"They also need to view the extended enterprise as a network of
interdependent business processes, rather than a collection of
independent functions. This is a major cultural challenge, more
than a technology problem."
Computing South Africa staff wrote this
article