1597

Business Proc90. Business Process Automation

Edward F. Watson, Karyn Holmes

Integrated enterprise-wide information systems(EwIS) are a class of customizable packaged busi-ness software applications that have replacedarrays of disparate legacy systems in organizationsaround the world. EwIS have been the catalyst forthe reengineering and automation of core busi-ness processes that has led to organization-widetransformation across most industries in corporateAmerica. Chief among this category of packagedbusiness software is enterprise resource planning(ERP), the back-office suite that was embracedby many industries in the 1990s as a cure forlegacy system ailments and impending year-2000(Y2K) disasters. ERP is considered a product ofthe evolution of an earlier manufacturing plan-ning system referred to as manufacturing resourceplanning (MRPII). Whereas MRPII was focused onthe factory planning environment, ERP incorpo-rates enterprise-wide functionality and thereforeis used in virtually all industries. ERP has en-abled organizations to streamline, automate, andcommoditize their business processes, leverag-ing best-of-industry practices, quite significantlyover the last 15 years. Two other packages that areattributing to this phenomenon are customer

90.1 Definitions and Background .................. 159890.1.1 Anatomy of an ERP System ............ 160090.1.2 ERP Implications .......................... 160290.1.3 ERP Evolution .............................. 1604

90.2 Enterprise Systems ApplicationFrameworks ......................................... 160690.2.1 Customer Relationship

Management ............................... 160690.2.2Supply Chain Management ............ 160790.2.3e-Business .................................. 1608

90.3 Emerging Standards and Technology ...... 160990.3.1 Services Concept........................... 160990.3.2Competitive Landscape ................. 1609

90.4 Future Trends ....................................... 1610

90.5 Conclusion ........................................... 1611

References .................................................. 1611

relationship management (CRM) and supply chainmanagement (SCM). In this chapter we reviewEwIS in a historical context as it has developedover the years and discuss the most importantcharacteristics of EwIS today as well as how weexpect this field to evolve.

Enterprise-wide information systems (EwIS) are power-ful software packages that enable businesses to integratea variety of disparate functions [90.1]. As pointed outby Davenport [90.2], EwIS terminology evolved fromthe more widely used term enterprise resource planning(ERP). ERP systems, as originally defined, representthe back-office of the corporation. EwIS tend to refer toa more generic structure that represents any enterpriseapplication that integrates multiple business functions.The ERP market experienced explosive growth in theUSA during the 1990s, due in large part to a little knownGerman software company named SAP – headquartered

in Waldorf – that delivered to the US market ERP soft-ware of the same name.

In the early 1990s, SAP took the USA by storm, de-livering the first comprehensive, real-time ERP systemon a client–server platform. Having a well-engineeredproduct and selling the product to C-level executivesas a business transformation-enabled solution whileY2K issues were imminent were the necessary ingre-dients to catapult SAP into the market-leading position.Other vendors, through acquisition and organic growth,scrambled for market share. PeopleSoft, the leading hu-man resource management system, and Oracle, well

PartI

90

1598 Part I Home, Office, and Enterprise Automation

known for their leading database management systemand less known for their business accounting software,both slowly evolved to offer more comprehensive so-lutions. By the turn of the century, hundreds of ERPvendors surfaced to serve all types and sizes of privateand public organizations.

This chapter is broken down into four main parts.The second section, immediately following this firstsection, describes the business environment when ERPcame to the US market in the early 1990s. It thendefines the key characteristics of ERP that have es-sentially defined the new class of standard softwareapplications referred to as enterprise-wide informa-tion systems. ERP implications are then discussedsince ERP is not simply a software package. Finally,EwIS systems do not stand still, and it is impor-tant to understand how they will continue to evolve.

The third main section presents the enterprise sys-tems application framework and briefly describes twoof the other most significant EwIS applications onthe market today: customer relationship management(CRM) and supply chain management (SCM). Thefourth main section provides a brief overview of theemerging services industry from the enterprise sys-tems perspective. Finally, the fourth main section looksbriefly at future trends of which practitioners and re-searchers should be aware. This chapter ends witha brief conclusion and a reference list of the significantreadings that were used to write this chapter. Relatedinformation can also be found in Chap. 54 on Pro-duction, Supply, Logistics, and Distribution; Chap. 86on Enterprise Integration and Interoperability; andChap. 88 on Collaborative e-Work, e-Business, and e-Service.

90.1 Definitions and Background

Much has been written about the emerging informationeconomy and the challenges corporations around theworld face in their quest to shed their legacy systemsand processes and transform themselves into lean, ag-ile, and responsive organizations [90.3]. Since the 1970sand 1980s, global competition has threatened the ex-istence of many, if not most, companies in the USA,and management and business consulting organizationshave prospered during these times. The search for ex-cellent business practices that would pave the path tosuccess, a concept popularized by Peters and Watermanin [90.4], led many executives to look for a silver-bulletcure. A paradigm shift, driven by information technol-ogy (IT)-enabled radical change, took place in the waycompanies competed and were managed. Traditionalpush – or make-and-sell – strategies, tied to the annualbudget cycle were replaced by radically faster, real-time, sense-and-respond, pull strategies [90.5]. Firmslearned that they could no longer lead the competi-tion by forecasting customers’ needs and then planningthe year’s production using inventories to match sup-ply and demand. Instead, they had to rely on real-timeinformation to evaluate the needs of each customer con-tinuously. In fact, it was often necessary to anticipateunspecified needs, and then quickly fulfill these needswith customized products and services delivered withunprecedented speed. This shift from an industrial econ-omy to an information economy was accompanied bya simultaneous shift in power from the producer to the(information-empowered) consumer.

During this time, significant emphasis was placedon organizational improvement initiatives such as totalquality management, continuous improvement, bench-marking, and employee involvement [90.6]. A com-peting change paradigm suggested that continuousimprovement was not sufficient to make significant ad-vances towards performance excellence and that deeper,systemic change was required [90.7]. Business processreengineering (BPR), a term coined in the 1980s [90.8],provided the means by which an organization couldfundamentally change its core business processes andtransform itself into a lean, globally competitive, struc-ture. In order to do this, companies were forced toplace intense focus on their customer, and to define theircore processes based on those, and only those, activitiesthat collectively added value to their internal and ex-ternal customers. Business processes were streamlinedand built around core competencies and capabilities. Aswe discuss in this paper, an important catalyst for thereengineering and streamlining of back-office businessprocesses was ERP.

The emphasis on the core business processes [90.9,10] of the firm was not easy for most organizations.Redefining the work of an organization based on thecustomer, instead of on the organization, was a newway of thinking. However, this exercise was necessaryin order to clean up years of building systems on topof systems on top of (legacy) systems. An intense fo-cus on the customer became the essential ingredient tosuccess [90.11–13].

PartI

90.1

Business Process Automation 90.1 Definitions and Background 1599

With this quest towards efficient and effectivebusiness processes under way, organizations quicklyrealized the challenge of institutionalizing these im-portant process changes. Organizations quickly adopteda multidimensional perspective on these transforma-tion initiatives: people, process, and technology. Theforemost significant hurdle to change was the orga-nization’s ability and readiness to implement change,the people (also known as, organization) dimension.Implementation-related challenges are discussed laterin the chapter. The process dimension presented dif-ficult challenges as companies had to look inside andidentify their core processes. Prior to this time, most or-ganizations did not think in terms of business process,but instead focused on their performance as definedwithin their functional fiefdoms. Quite some time tran-spired before corporations fully appreciated the conceptof process, defined as a set of organized activities thatcollectively add value to a (internal or external) cus-tomer. In fact, companies learned that most businessprocesses crossed functional boundaries, were not eas-

Supplierrelationships

Purchaserequisitions

Raw materialsprocurement

Customercontract

Customerorder

Availabiltychecking

Deliverypicking list

Billing CreditA/R

Productionplan/schedule

Production Inventorymanagement

Warehousing

Credit checking

Customer serviceSales Accounting

Shipping

Purchaseorders

Receiving Invoiceverification

A/P

Checks

Checks

AcountingProcurement dept.

Suppliers Customers

Procurement cycle

Fulfill demand cycle

Order to cash cycle

Fig. 90.1 High-level integrated business processes

ily adopted by the hierarchical organization, and clashedwith function-oriented incentive systems.

Figure 90.1 illustrates three core business processesthat are well-known and understood today: order-to-cash cycle, fulfill-demand cycle, and procurementcycle. Throughout the 1980s, many companies soughtthis holy grail of business process definitions inde-pendently. There was little success at industry-widecollaboration to achieve best business practices. As ev-ery company designed new business processes, theywere ultimately challenged to determine how to bestimplement their new processes. The answer most oftenwas less than optimal as they tied together best-of-breedbusiness applications, spanning multiple computingplatforms, or built new applications specific to theirneeds. The ERP systems introduced to corporate Amer-ica in the 1990s, as discussed in this chapter, broughtto market best practice repositories, built on years andyears of experience. And the best way to institutionalizethese new processes was through the third dimension ofchange: technology.

PartI

90.1

1600 Part I Home, Office, and Enterprise Automation

As we look back to the pre-1990s, we see that ad-vances in technology and corporate computing werealso being made. A significant development that trig-gered the growth in the EwIS market was client–servertechnology [90.14]. Client–server systems were notbased on a single technological innovation, but rathervery different development currents in various areasof data processing were united. In particular, progressin the areas of hardware technology, networks, systemsoftware, user interface, multimedia applications, objectorientation, and software development tools have con-tributed to this breakthrough. While companies soughtto transform their organizations and shed themselvesof years of inefficient processes and procedures, theywere equally anxious to migrate away from their ex-pensive mainframe computing platforms in order to finda lower-cost, flexible computing environment.

While these advances in the business and technol-ogy worlds evolved, another very important conceptwas also picking up momentum: the use of standardapplication software [90.15]. Advocates of standardsoftware believed that business processes must be de-termined independent of the standard software productsin order to ensure that business applications are basedon business criteria and not on technology platformavailability. In this manner, an IT-enabled businesstransformation effort could be driven by corporate strat-egy instead of by technological constraints [90.16].

From the EwIS arena, we look first at the flagshipERP system that has been the catalyst for so manybusiness transformation initiatives. We look at whatit is and how it enabled business process automation,from the packaged software perspective. We then lookat two systems (i. e., CRM and SCM), similar in con-cept but focused more on a company’s outwards-facingprocesses.

90.1.1 Anatomy of an ERP System

An ERP system represents a grand concept and hasbeen perhaps most effectively defined by SAP AG inan early (1996) company presentation illustrated inFig. 90.2. In this illustration, the honeycomb structureemphasizes the modular layout of the functional ap-plications as well as the anticipation of always addingor enhancing functionality over time. At the heart ofERP is a common, relational database making all com-pany data available in real time to any authorizeduser and linking activities across these applications viaworkflow. An ERP system can be characterized bya number of attributes that are generally common across

all EwIS: comprehensive functional modules; business-process-oriented, common, and relational databases;open standards; best business practices; packaged soft-ware; business information systems standards; andconfigurable, common-development-platform, complexworkflow capabilities. These attributes are defined forERP below.

Comprehensive Functional ModulesERP systems consist of the core (back-office) businessapplications of four basic functional areas: financials,operations and logistics, sales and marketing, and hu-man resources.

Business Process OrientedAn important idea behind ERP is that the system mustsupport company-wide business process activities, asdefined by the company. These activities typically spanmany functional areas; for example, a typical customerorder management process would consist of presalesactivity, sales order processing, inventory sourcing, de-livery, invoicing, and payment [90.17, 18].

Common and RelationalThe problem that ERP systems are designed to solve isthe fragmentation of information in large business orga-nizations. A common database facilitates the integrationof this information into a single information silo. A rela-tional database organizes records into a series of tableslinked by common fields [90.19].

Open StandardsThe business applications are independent of the operat-ing system and the hardware platform. Thus, a businesshas the freedom to choose the business application, in-dependent of the operating system and the hardwareplatform.

Best Business PracticesBest business practices describe a documented collec-tion (i. e., repository) of business processes that havebeen accumulated over time from the experiences ofmany businesses within an industry and across manyindustries. Best practices are typically technology en-abled, but they may describe work activity that isindependent of technology as well [90.18].

Packaged SoftwareERP describes a class of software that is packaged, yetcustomizable, and is available from ERP vendors. Thisis one-stop shopping for the user, as a single vendor may

PartI

90.1

Business Process Automation 90.1 Definitions and Background 1601

offer the complete back-office packaged business suite.This is not to say that a company cannot develop theirown system that has ERP characteristics.

Business Information Systems StandardsPackaged software forces business information systemsstandardization. Examples of where standards exist in-clude data types, organizational types, user interfaces,software development, application interfaces, and re-porting.

ConfigurableERP software requires the expertise of business pro-cess experts in order to configure the system to supportcompany-specific processes and data. ERP vendorshave gone to great extremes to provide template solu-tions for smaller companies with, relatively speaking,standardized processes.

• MRP • Purchasing• Goods movement • Invoice verification• Inventory mgt. • Warehouse mgt.• Vendor evaluation• Purchasing information

• Payroll • Workforce planning• Time mgt. • Plaining admin.• Travel expense actg. • Organization mgt.• Benefits • Personnel planning• Recruitment• Personnel administration

• Sales support • Inquiries• Quotations • Orders• Shipping • Invoicing• Sales information

• General ledger • Accounts receivable• Accounts payable • Cash management• Financial controlling • Financial assets management• Intercompany accounting• Consolidation• Foreign currencies & taxation

• Cost element actg.• Cost center actg.• Activity based costing• Activities & services costing• Order and project actg.

• Technical asset. mgt.• Investment control• Traditional asset actg.• Investment mgt.

• Funds mgt.• Resource mgt.• Quality control• Time mgt.

• Automate business processes• Supports all modules

• Result of the ICOE's industry-specific functionality

• Sales planning• Production planning• MRP/MRP2• Forecasting• Capacity planning• Production activity• Costing• Project management

• Quality planning• Quality inspection• Quality control• Quality documentation• Quality information

• Maintenance & inspection planning• Processing of plant maint. orders• Mgt. of completion confirmations• History mgt.• Plant maintenance info.

SDSales &

distribution

FIFinancial

accounting

R/3Central repository

of information

COControlling

AMFixedassetsmgt.

PSProjectsystem

WFWorkflow

ISIndustrysolutions

MMMaterials

mgt.PPProductionplanning

HRHuman

resources

PMPlant main-

tenance

QMQuality

Manage-ment

Fig. 90.2 Enterprise resource planning per SAP (after company presentation 1996) (ICOE – Industry Center of Expertise)

Common Development PlatformERP systems are expandable by various means, besidesconfiguration. First, it is typically possible, though notrecommended, to modify the source code. It is alsopossible to extend the software functionality with third-party application modules and then to link the modulesto the ERP system. Finally, ERP users may link thesoftware to third-party software packages in order toincorporate more sophisticated or specialized function-ality.

ComplexThe downside of ERP systems is that, by their very na-ture, they are somewhat complex. One consequence isthat it is very difficult, especially during the softwareevaluation period, to determine the extent to which anERP system can represent your business process with-out actually implementing the process in the software.

PartI

90.1

1602 Part I Home, Office, and Enterprise Automation

Also, similar to the leading office productivity software,Microsoft Office, there is a lot of overhead such thatmost users use less than 5% of the available functional-ity.

Workflow CapabilitiesThis refers to the automation of business processeswithin the enterprise system. Workflow capabilitiespermit users to define event-driven routings, create auto-mated in-boxes and prioritized cues, allow backgroundqueries to take place with notification to the user, andmore generally, to streamline processes.

ERP vendors have accumulated perhaps the great-est collection of industry (best) business practices indigital repositories. In fact, these repositories have be-come a formidable competitive advantage for the majorvendors, specifically, SAP. ERP systems have evolvedquickly and as this market is saturated one can see theofferings of each major vendor start to converge suchthat they (i. e., SAP and Oracle) have more in commonin terms of functionality and features than they havethat’s different.

90.1.2 ERP Implications

The impact of ERP on business in the 1990s wasprofound. ERP was recognized as the most importantdevelopment in the corporate use of information tech-nology in the 1990s, even though the Internet receivedmost of the media attention [90.2]. Many believed that“most white collar jobs – as we know them – will dis-appear as we get the ERP/enterprise resource planning– etc. – ‘stuff’ right” [90.20, p. 3]. One popular man-agement guru, Michael Hammer, lectured around theglobe on the importance of treating an ERP implemen-tation as a major business transformation in demand ofstrong C-level leadership, instead of as an IT initiativedelegated to the IT department [90.21]. Hammer’s re-search identified factors critical to the success of ERPimplementation in an organization:

• View ERP as a business transformation initiative(i. e., not a technology initiative)• Lead the ERP initiative from the C-level (i. e., pas-sionate, focused leadership)• Give the ERP initiative a high priority relative to allcorporate initiatives• Ensure that the ERP initiative has solid project man-agement and change leadership.

One of the major challenges presented by anERP system is the need to standardize on technol-

ogy and on business practices [90.2, 22]. In the purestsense, ERP enables complete standardization of (best)business processes and technologies, as illustrated inFig. 90.1. However, many companies could not initiallyreach this hurdle, as reported by Fortune magazinein 1998 [90.23]. Besides implementing ERP to han-dle order management, production planning, materialsmanagement and finance, VF Corp custom developedor used separate software suppliers to augment ERPsuch as warehouse control (custom), product develop-ment (Gerber), micromarketing (Marketmax, Spectra,JDA software, and custom), forecasting (Logility), andcapacity planning (i2). As companies decide to add ad-ditional software to manage their special circumstances,they inherently choose to take on more costs associatedwith interconnectivity, data integrity, and maintenance,for example.

Perhaps the most interesting observations the au-thors have made from talking to many consultants andpractitioners over the past decade is that a companymust first acknowledge that their limited IT resourcesshould not be spread across the costs associated withdeveloping and customizing the entire enterprise appli-cation suite. Instead, it is prudent to look at (roughly)80% of a company’s core business processes as be-ing amenable to standardized business processes usingpackaged software (e.g., ERP) and industry best prac-tices. The remaining 20% of processes provide thecompany with a more manageably sized opportunityto create or strengthen a competitive advantage by per-haps customizing a software solution around it. Industrybest practices, available as business process templatesby ERP vendors, have been provided by software ven-dors but are actually built upon the cumulative learningof these vendors who have worked with their industryclients. Ultimately, ERP implementation enables a com-pany to build seamless business processes, integratedwithin the enterprise and across enterprises.

Since ERP first gained popularity in the USA, ad-vocates lauded the integration features whereas othersargued for the best-of-breed approach of knitting to-gether the best application packages from the bestvendors. This latter group criticized ERP, claimingthat one single vendor could not deliver the best ofeverything. Advocates of ERP would argue that in-tegration of good applications is preferred, and thatstandardization of the 80% of processes (while de-veloping customized approaches for the other 20%)will strengthen the value proposition of the initiative.This concern over integration and best-of-breed hassparked the debate over the emerging service-oriented

PartI

90.1

Business Process Automation 90.1 Definitions and Background 1603

architecture approach discussed later where vendorspromise to deliver comprehensive best-of-breed func-tionality (services) in a completely integrated and openmanner.

ERP initiatives are typically rationalized as themost prudent approach to automate and streamline theback-office business processes by leveraging best busi-ness practices and packaged EwIS software. Whereasthe earliest companies saw ERP as a way to quicklymove from a dysfunctional legacy system, or to avoidY2K disaster, more recent implementations have beenable to learn from the experiences of others and takea more carefully calculated approach to achieve spe-cific business benefits. A study led by Davenport andsponsored by Accenture [90.24] found specific benefitsresulting from ERP initiatives across diverse industriessuch as: improved decision making, improved financialmanagement, improved customer service and reten-tion, ease of expansion/growth and increased flexibility,faster, more accurate transactions, head-count reduc-tion, cycle time reduction, improved inventory/assetmanagement, fewer physical resources/better logistics,and increased revenue. Shang and Seddon devel-

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 18

People 62 %

Process 16 %

Technology 9 %

Knowledge assets 3 %

18

Issues/obstacles until now

(%)

Change management

Internal staff adequacy

Project team

Training

Prioritization/resource allocation

Top management support

Consultants

Ownership (of benefits and other)

Discipline

Program management

Process reengineering

Stage/transition

Benefit realization

Software functionality

Application portfolio management

Enhancement/upgrades

Data

Reporting

Fig. 90.3 ERP issues prior to going live

oped a more comprehensive framework for assessingand managing the benefits associated with enterprisesystems (ES) [90.25]. This research identified five di-mensions of ES benefits:

• Operational benefits• Managerial benefits• Strategic benefits• IT infrastructure benefits• Organizational benefits.

Studies such as these have helped many executivesrationalize the ERP initiatives for their organizations. Infact, the same rationalization has been adopted by not-for-profit organizations in government and educationindustries.

ERP implementation involves the automation ofbusiness transactions and this typically requires signif-icant change to how work is done and how decisionsare made. It has been shown that the key challengeswhen implementing ERP and forcing business processchange lie in the organization, not the technology. Theresults from a study conducted by Deloitte Consultingin 2003 reflect this idea. The study also concluded that

PartI

90.1

1604 Part I Home, Office, and Enterprise Automation

people-related issues continue to dominate after the im-plementation is completed as well.

Similar to best business practices, ERP softwarevendors today have very well-established implemen-tation methodologies, tools, and templates availablefor ensuring successful implementations. The imple-mentation process itself is very well understood andstandardized, and leverages best implementation prac-tices based on years of implementation experiencein hundreds of companies across virtually all indus-tries. Implementation methodologies have key projectphases associated with them. SAP’s implementationmethodology, for example, has five phases: projectpreparation, business blueprint, realization, final prepa-ration, and go-live and support. Each phase has verydetailed work packages and clear deliverables. Thesemethodologies alleviated many project-management-related challenges. Expectations are clear and easier tomanage. Communications is specific and timely. Workactivity is easier to manage and control as project man-agers utilize computer-aided tools to better coordinateand control the vast resources and activities associatedwith the project. Finally, the costs associated with anERP implementation depend greatly on how much isinvested in organizational change and subsequent busi-ness process reengineering, change management, andtraining. However, for perhaps a typical implementationone can view the breakdown of costs to roughly be asfollows: 15% software costs, 30% hardware costs, 40%consulting fees (i. e., business process reengineering,software configuration, change management), 15% per-sonnel (i. e., nonproductive time spent working on theproject, or in training, or learning curve related), and un-fortunately, the remainder which is typically somethingless than 2%, would go towards training (i. e., end-usertraining as well as training to develop a core expertisearound software development, systems administration,and software configuration).

90.1.3 ERP Evolution

The ERP concept evolved from manufacturing resourceplanning (MRPII), but the concept was so compellingthat it quickly expanded beyond its manufacturing rootsinto industries such as financial services, government,education, utilities, and retail [90.2]. Until January 1,2000, there was so much hype around Y2K compli-ance that not too many organizations looked at ERPissues beyond Y2K. One 1998 study sponsored by De-loitte Consulting [90.26] suggested that there would bea second wave of activity surrounding ERP. The study

confirmed that going live with ERP is not the end.Rather, going live was viewed as the beginning of a jour-ney toward continuous improvement, innovation, andagility. The first Wave referred to the business processchanges associated with implementing ERP. The sec-ond wave, on the other hand, referred to the actions thatare taken after going live that help organizations achievethe full potential of ERP-enabled processes (i. e., pro-cess optimization). A separate study conducted in 2002and sponsored by Accenture again emphasized the im-portance of viewing ERP as continuously evolving. Thestudy suggested that organizations seeking to capturethe original promise of enterprise solutions must fol-low a logical path to integrate, optimize, and informateas:

• Integrate – unify and harmonize enterprise solu-tions, data, and processes with an organization’sunique existing environment, and use the systemsto better connect organizational units and processes,as well as customers and suppliers.• Optimize – standardize most processes using bestpractices embodied in enterprise solutions software,mold and shape processes to fit the unique strate-gic needs of the business, and ensure that processesflow and fit with the systems themselves.• Informate – organizations informate by transform-ing enterprise solutions data into context-rich in-formation and knowledge that supports the uniquebusiness analysis and decision-making needs ofmultiple work forces.

Davenport, in an earlier study [90.27], pointed outthat, following their ERP implementation, many com-panies had trouble realizing the promised benefits.Complete benefit realization could take one, two, threeor more years. But also, Davenport pointed out that, inorder to fully realize the benefits of ERP, companiesmust figure out how to use the data to support businessdecisions.

Implementation of ERP does not ensure that theERP system will be used properly or that the ERP sys-tem will lead to value. At the turn of the millennium,studies found that, although many organizations justi-fied their implementation of an ERP on the basis ofbetter decision-making and management processes, fewhad taken full advantage of the information provided bythe system [90.27]. ERP systems were clearly a catalystfor operational process improvements through the sim-ple alignment of business processes and streamliningof information throughout the organization. However,the business world was slow to recognize the potential

PartI

90.1

Business Process Automation 90.1 Definitions and Background 1605

embedded in ERP for changing management pro-cesses such as performance reporting and monitoring,stakeholder communications, and managing customerrelations, for instance.

ERP systems left management with a transactionrepository filled with terabytes of important businessinformation and data, but there were two problems.First, executives needed something to filter the data andweed out all that was not relevant to their problem athand. Second, they needed a way to organize, analyze,and interpret the data and then to focus the resultinginformation on specific actions [90.29]. This realiza-tion led enterprise software developers to implementa packaged software strategy and attack higher-levelthought processes such as decision making and knowl-edge management. Indeed, much effort has gone intounderstanding how the human knowledge creating pro-cess works [90.30]. That is, ERP by itself does notprovide a competitive advantage but instead it has be-come a competitive imperative. It provides an effectivemeans to bring order to the back office. Post-ERP com-panies strive to most effectively leverage their analytic

Suppliers and partners

Decision

makers

Customers and partners

Port

als

Bus

ines

s in

telli

genc

e &

stra

tegi

c m

anag

emen

tSupply chain management

Customer relationship management

Back office (ERP)

Log

istic

s

Dis

trib

utio

n

Man

ufac

turi

ng

Mar

ketin

g

Sale

s

Serv

ice

Front office (CRM)

Middleware & EA

Stakeholders

Fig. 90.4 Enterprise application framework (after [90.28])

prowess not just to enhance operations but often astheir lead competitive differentiator. The extensive useof data, statistical and quantitative analysis, explanatoryand predictive modeling, and fact-based managementare reportedly being used to drive company decisionsand actions [90.31].

ERP software vendors, of course, anticipating thistrend, leveraged this packaged software hype and theirpackaged software competencies, and delivered to themarket the concept of the e-Business suite, illustrated inFig. 90.4 [90.28]. The basic concepts used to developERP (e.g., packaged software, based on best busi-ness practices) were used to develop decision-orientedand knowledge-management-type applications such ascustomer relationship management (CRM), supplierrelationship management (SRM), supply chain manage-ment (SCM), strategic enterprise management (SEM),business intelligence (BI), and portals. The productsinitially delivered to the market had relatively lim-ited functionality and robustness, but over time theseproducts have evolved into quite comprehensive andsophisticated tools for the organization.

PartI

90.1

1606 Part I Home, Office, and Enterprise Automation

Ongoing evolution of ERP requires a mechanismto enable, and perhaps promote, continuous improve-ments as well as disruptive innovations [90.32]. ERPvendors have, to some degree, become the mecha-nism for improvement and innovation through theirversion upgrade process. Organizations now struggleto keep current with the latest and greatest develop-ments from ERP vendors. In fact, ERP vendors havedeveloped a sophisticated innovation engine to enablethem to lead in the development and delivery of newbusiness models and practices. Being able to leveragethe economies of serving multiple businesses withina single industry and across virtually all industriesgives vendors this unique perspective and position-ing. ERP vendors boast of their very sophisticatedinnovation processes as they leverage their resourcesand relationships to deliver to the market product andprocess innovations frequently. Product and process in-novations can originate through various channels asfollows:

1. The internal research and development organiza-tions typically include business architects, productdevelopers, software developers, IT professionals,and consultants. These groups assess market and

technology trends and determine how best to lever-age or evolve the organization’s resources.

2. The consulting organization brings years of experi-ence working with their customers to configure theERP software.

3. The sales organization is closest to the customer onthe front end of a sale. They have the best idea ofwhat the customer really wants.

4. Competitor information also provides an importantinput into the innovation process.

5. Third-party software companies are often acquiredto secure recent innovations or in anticipation thatthe smaller, entrepreneurial firm will help energizethe larger, older software vendor.

The Fortune 500 market for ERP has been virtu-ally saturated, so ERP majors are focusing on small-to mid-sized enterprises (SMEs). ERP vendors typ-ically segment their customers based on size (e.g.,large accounts greater than US$ 2 billion, local ac-counts greater than US$ 1 billion, mid-market accountsless than US$ 1 billion and small accounts less thenUS$ 50 million in annual revenue) and based on chan-nel (i. e., direct and indirect). Different offerings maybe available for these different segments.

90.2 Enterprise Systems Application Frameworks

This Section introduces two popular enterprise applica-tions referred to as customer relationship management(CRM) and supply chain management (SCM). Al-though the actual application may be defined differentlyby different vendors, relatively generic applicationframeworks are presented below to facilitate this intro-duction.

90.2.1 Customer Relationship Management

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a broadterm that refers to the way an organization manages allaspects of its interactions with customers. The term iswidely used to describe software packages that enableand support the management of customer interactions,including such areas as sales, marketing, and service.Such packages are often integrated with ERP systemsor other enterprise-wide applications. The popularityof CRM applications reflects a shift in focus to thecustomer and the importance placed on creating, main-taining, and enhancing customer relationships.

CRM functionality is often divided into threecategories: operational, analytical, and collaborative(Fig. 90.5). The operational aspects of CRM includethose that support front-office processes involving thecustomer. This can include order processing systems,marketing initiatives, customer service departments,and call centers. Analytical CRM refers to the func-tionality involved with analyzing and predicting cus-tomer behavior. This can involve sales forecastingas well as the use of data warehouses, where largeamounts of customer data are mined to discover trendsand other important interactions. Finally, collaborativeCRM functions are those that actively involve the cus-tomer to increase their satisfaction and better meet theirneeds. This category usually refers to various typesof interactions with customers that are not driven bycustomer service representatives, such as interactivewebsites.

Current CRM software is much more comprehen-sive than a simple sales system. The application mustsupport the entire customer process, which spans vari-

PartI

90.2

Business Process Automation 90.2 Enterprise Systems Application Frameworks 1607

ous departments and functional areas: marketing basescampaigns on customer input and generates customerleads; sales uses these leads to generate customers;manufacturing, distribution, and accounting are in-volved in processing customer orders; customer servicehandles complaints and questions; and research andproduct development are influenced by customer pref-erences [90.28]. A CRM application strives to integratethe flow of information across these various areas in or-der to improve decision making. For example, whena customer places an order, the CRM system is up-dated with this information. When the same customercalls with a problem about the order, the CRM systemcan recognize the customer and route the problem toan appropriate sales representative (operational CRM).The system generates sales suggestions based on pastpurchases that can be pitched to the customer throughe-Mails or websites (collaborative CRM). Customerservice calls can also be analyzed to correct com-mon problems and anticipate new issues (analyticalCRM) [90.33].

The evolution of the CRM market from simple salesforce software to large, integrated applications has ledto the prediction of several trends that should begin toinfluence the growth of this market, according to studiesby Forrester [90.34, 35]:

• Significant growth will come from mid-market com-panies and from hosted applications (Sect. 90.2.3).• CRM vendors will broaden solutions, with ordermanagement as one of the top areas.• Increased focus will be placed on making systemsproactive (i. e., predicting customer needs, prefer-ences, and problems before they arise).

While the growth of the CRM application market mayonly prove modest, there is substantial expected growthin the adoption of CRM practices as part of businessstrategy.

90.2.2 Supply Chain Management

A supply chain refers to an organization’s networkof suppliers, manufacturers, wholesalers, distributers,retailers, customers, and partners. Supply chain man-agement (SCM) can be described as the managementand coordination of processes – particularly informa-tion, material, and financial flows – across a supplychain (Fig. 90.5). Thus, there is both an internal andexternal focus inherent to SCM. The term also refersto the category of software applications that aim tocontrol and optimize these processes for organiza-

Collaborative CRM

Operational CRM

Backoffice

ERP

Order Mgmt.

SCM

Availability

Legacysystems

Datawarehouse

Service Marketing Sales LeadMgmt.

Phone E-mail Letter Directinteraction

CampaignMgmt.

Frontoffice

Customerinteraction

Analytical CRM

Fig. 90.5 CRM capabilities (after Microsoft Corporation 2000)

tions. While ERP products focus on the coordinationand integration of activities within a particular orga-nization, SCM products extend this scope to includeinterorganizational activities [90.36]. Ideally, these ap-plications will allow communication and integrationacross the multiple organizations involved in a sup-ply chain to produce responsive, synchronized, andefficient processes. Some of the activities typically in-cluded in SCM software include procurement, orderfulfillment, demand management, inventory manage-ment, warehousing, transportation, manufacturing, andrequirements planning. The arrows in Fig. 90.6 repre-sent the mainstream flow for materials, information andmoney, but it is important to note that, in practice, thesearrows are bidirectional as there is significant interac-tion between each stage when dealing with material,information or money.

SCM functionality can be described as involv-ing planning, execution, coordination, and networking(also referred to as collaboration) [90.37]. Planningincludes the design of the supply chain as well as plan-ning supply and demand across the entire chain. Thisinvolves forecasting and planning for production, or-dering, and distribution. Execution is the automation ofthe ordering, production, replenishment, and distribu-tion processes and generally focuses on the distributionand manufacturing facilities [90.28, 38]. Coordinationinvolves managing the interaction of processes to in-crease customer satisfaction. Examples of coordinationfunctions are monitoring and assessing performance.Finally, networking in SCM refers to communicationacross the supply chain through information sharing.

One of the goals of SCM is to match supply anddemand across the supply chain. Demand generatedby the end customer travels upstream throughout the

PartI

90.2

1608 Part I Home, Office, and Enterprise Automation

Supplier

Financial flows

Materialflows

Informationflow

Manufacturer Distribution Retailer Consumer

Fig. 90.6 Supply chain flows (after [90.28, 37])

supply chain (i. e., customer demand drives retailer de-mand, which drives wholesaler demand, etc.). Manysupply chains experience what is known as the bullwhipeffect, where small fluctuations in customer demandare magnified along the supply chain, causing largerdemand fluctuations as one moves backward alongthe chain [90.36]. SCM aims to reduce this effect.By providing interenterprise integration that coordi-nates processes and shares information, organizationsshould see reduced demand fluctuations and increasedservice.

The evolution of the supply chain itself (i. e., inthe form of just-in-time and continuous replenishmentmethods) have changed requirements for supply chains,and therefore SCM solutions [90.28]. The uses ofnew technologies, such as radiofrequency identification(RFID) tags, are continually integrated into SCM appli-cations to provide greater and greater functionality. TheSCM solutions market is expected to experience an in-creased focus by major vendors to provide supply chainsolutions to service organizations and also to experiencegrowth in the customization of solutions by independentsoftware vendors [90.39].

From a software solution perspective, there are threemajor categories of supply chain solution providers:major ERP vendors, specialty supply chain vendors,and systems integrators. As can be expected, majorERP vendors (such as SAP, Oracle, and to some degreeMicrosoft for the small- and medium-sized enterprise– SME – market) have acquired or built, and deliverto market, competitive supply chain management soft-ware packages. Their competitive advantage includes:

size (deep pockets), customer install base (via ERPsolutions), best practices (developed over the years,a significant amount of supply chain activity involvesERP functionality and transactions), research and de-velopment resources, partners ecosystem, and packagedsoftware experience. The specialty supply chain ven-dors, i2 and JDA, for instance, will typically have deepknowledge in one or more industries and also sharesome of the advantages of the major ERP vendors(listed above) perhaps to a lesser degree, and varying be-tween vendors. The systems integrators, IBM and BEA,are effective at customizing and piecing together supplychain solutions to address specific customer concerns.

90.2.3 e-Business

It is important to point out that EwIS applications havebeen designed to operate within a greater e-Businessframework. That is, these applications may be deliv-ered across the Internet in formats such as applicationservice provision (ASP). In fact, the leading CRMvendor today offers their solution only in this for-mat. A study conducted by Forrester in 2005 [90.40]identified three types of CRM vendors: hosted CRMspecialists (i. e., vendors focused on providing on-demand CRM), hosted all-in-one vendors (i. e., vendorsdedicated to the on-demand delivery model but whohave chosen to expand beyond CRM to provide built-in support for back-office systems such as ERP andorder management), and licensed CRM vendors. Onecan expect these sorts of offerings for other enterpriseapplications such as SCM and SEM.

PartI

90.2

Business Process Automation 90.3 Emerging Standards and Technology 1609

90.3 Emerging Standards and Technology

One of the most significant movements that haveemerged since 2000 in the enterprise systems marketis one towards building business processes from ser-vices. Based on service-oriented architecture (SOA)and its associated standards (e.g., web service defini-tion language (WSDL), simple object access protocol(SOAP), and universal description discovery and inte-gration (UDDI)), this represents a step in the evolutiontowards developing and implementing flexible enter-prise software. It is important to point out that SOA is anarchitectural approach and not a competitor to packagedsoftware. That is, packaged software is a codification ofa company’s business processes. Packaged software isdelivered to the market with varying degrees of config-urability, so it will have varying degrees of flexibilitysince it uses, in its traditional form, proprietary fileformats and interfaces. The SOA movement providesa more open platform that allows a company to rede-fine packaged applications as loosely coupled businessservices combined with processes. Packaged softwareapplications can adopt SOA for interoperability and ex-tensibility. In fact, the major packaged software vendorssuch as SAP and Oracle have made bet-the-companydecisions based on delivering solutions on an SOAfoundation. On the other hand, platform vendors suchas Microsoft and IBM have reconfigured their productline around SOA-based solutions. The concept of pack-aging business processes as services and the competitivelandscape that is emerging to support this movement arediscussed below.

90.3.1 Services Concept

SOA is based on the concept of stringing togethermany loosely coupled, message-based building blocksof processes, called services, to create a customized ap-plication [90.41]. With regard to enterprise systems, thismarks a move from having one integrated applicationthat runs all or most of an organization’s processes toa method of combining multiple services from manysources to form customized business processes; forexample, an organization can combine a service thatchecks inventory availability with one that processescustomer payment into part of a customer order process.SOA promotes code reuse, as services can be reused toform many applications, and flexibility, as services canbe combined and recombined in infinite ways to matchthe changing business logic of an organization. Webservices connect via the Internet and are published in

a standard format with standard interfaces, so that eachservice can communicate with other services withoutregard to the underlying technical details (i. e., whichprogramming language was used) [90.41]. Two of thegoals of enterprise systems based on SOA are to reducecustomization costs and to allow a focus on modelingand remodeling business processes instead of focusingon technical details.

90.3.2 Competitive Landscape

The SOA approach to automating business processesrequires ERP vendors to shift focus from providingintegrated solutions to providing a platform for combin-ing and running services. Vendors are now developinga more open interoperable platform where SOA appli-cations can be developed and accessed and where thesoftware can be easily integrated or interfaced with ser-vices and products of other vendors [90.42]. One of thekey components in each of these platforms is the enter-prise service bus (ESB) that handles the communicationbetween services. Many of the current offerings ofSOA-enabled infrastructures, in various states of theirroll-out, have come from well-established names in theenterprise systems and middleware domains: SAP, IBM,Oracle, and Microsoft. Some of these platforms includepreconfigured services based on functionality containedin the vendor’s previous products, while others simplyprovide the platform for developing custom services andfor deploying third-party vendor services. These offer-ings are briefly discussed below and are summarized inTable 90.1.

SAP markets enterprise SOA through its NetWeaverplatform. Functionality from SAP’s other applica-tions are being divided into thousands of prepackagedbut changeable sets, described by SAP as bundles.NetWeaver’s key component is the enterprise servicesrepository (ESR) that serves as a metadata directory forthe available services and provides a UDDI-compliantregistry for publishing, classifying, and discoveringservices. SAP also intends to leverage their industryexperience by providing industry-specific business pro-cesses for over 25 industries [90.43].

Oracle’s SOA Suite is a package of several Ora-cle Fusion Middleware products designed to providea comprehensive SOA infrastructure in one installa-tion [90.44]. The suite is intended to serve as a way tointegrate the various technologies acquired by Oracle.Functionality configured as services will be delivered

PartI

90.3

1610 Part I Home, Office, and Enterprise Automation

Table 90.1 Comparison of selected SOA bendors (1Provided through Fusion Applications; 2UDDI compliant)

Vendor SOA initiative Platform Example modeling Prepackaged Service registryand development tools services

SAP ESOA NetWeaver WebDynpro, NetWeaver Yes Enterprise services

Visual composer repository2

Oracle SOA suite Fusion JDeveloper, BPEL Yes1 Oracle service

Middleware Process manager registry2

IBM SOA Websphere Websphere business No Websphere service

foundation Modeler, Websphere registry and

integration developer repository

Microsoft Microsoft .Net, BizTalk .NET framework No Enterprise UDDI

application services2

plattform

through Fusion Applications (due for full release in2008) and will run on the Fusion Middleware infra-structure [90.45].

IBM markets IBM SOA Foundation as a set of mod-ular software that can be adopted one component ata time [90.46]. Most of these components, including theWebsphere Business Modeler and the Websphere ESB,are identified with the Websphere name. The WebsphereService Registry & Repository is based on emerging

standards rather than UDDI but will be able to integratewith UDDI-based registries.

Microsoft’s more limited SOA offering, based onthe Microsoft application platform, is directed towardsthe mid-market. The foundation of the Microsoft appli-cation platform is the .NET framework, which allowsthe development of services and connection of sys-tems [90.47]. Most ESB capabilities reside in theirBizTalk Server.

90.4 Future Trends

Enterprise systems vendors continue to strengthen theirproducts. One recent study [90.48] points to a num-ber of ERP trends that mark the maturity of thismarket: companies are standardizing on a single ERPvendor, companies are moving toward fewer softwareinstances, comprehensive ERP offerings reduce theneed for best-of-breed bolt-ons, industry-specific func-tionality is getting deeper, and integration capabilitiesare improving.

Recognizing the trend that enterprise systems pow-erful applications are being made available to virtuallyall types of employees and consumers, instead ofjust sophisticated users, enterprise systems vendorsare very keen to better understand the needs of theemerging enterprise knowledge workers [90.49]. Work-ers who come from all industries and all levels of

the organization are expected to leverage the powerof enterprise systems to be more effective in theirjobs. Vendors will be challenged to further help de-velop simplified work processes for companies toimplement, simplified IT infrastructures that users donot even know exist, and simplified user interfacesthat allow end-users to leverage the power of thesystems without knowing that they are using a sys-tem.

As the global market place does indeed becomeflatter and as these sophisticated software systems do in-deed become more simplified and commoditized, moreemphasis will be placed on service-oriented architec-tures and business process modeling to create nimble,agile, dynamic structures that evolve as quickly as thebusiness models that employ them.

PartI

90.4

Business Process Automation References 1611

90.5 Conclusion

The enterprise systems market was rooted in the devel-opment of ERP and has since leveraged ERP conceptsto effectively deliver sophisticated business applica-tions such as CRM and SCM. Enterprise systems havebecome the enabler of continuous improvement and dis-ruptive innovation for organizations around the world.

ES vendors play a significant role as thought lead-ers and change agents. In a short period of time,the corporate computing landscape has been radicallytransformed as companies have endless opportuni-ties to leverage information and networks like neverbefore.

References

90.1 D.E. O’Leary: Enterprise Resource Planning Systems:Systems, Life Cycle, Electronic Commerce, and Risk(Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge 2000)

90.2 T.H. Davenport: Putting the Enterprise into theEnterprise System, Harv. Bus. Rev. (Harvard Busi-ness School Press, Boston 1998), product num-ber 3574

90.3 M.S.S. Morton (Ed.): The Corporation of the 1990s(Oxford Univ. Press, New York 1991)

90.4 T. Peters, R.H. Waterman Jr.: In Search of Excellence– Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies(Harper Row, New York 1982)

90.5 S.P. Bradley, R.L. Nolan (Eds.): Capturing Value inthe Network Era in Sense and Respond (HarvardBusiness School Press, Boston 1998)

90.6 H.J. Harrington: Business Process Improvement:The Breakthrough Stragey for Total Quality, Pro-ductivity, and Competitiveness (McGraw-Hill, NewYork 1991)

90.7 P. Senge: The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practiceof the Learning Organization (Currency Doubleday,New York 1990)

90.8 M. Hammer, J. Champy: Reengineering the Corpo-ration: A Manifesto for Business Revolution (HarperBusiness, New York 1993)

90.9 T.H. Davenport: Process Innovation – Reengi-neering Work through Information Technology(Harvard Business School Press, Boston 1993)

90.10 B.P. Hammer: Beyond Reengineering: How theProcess-Centered Organization is Changing ourWork and Our Lives (Harper Business, New York1996)

90.11 B.P. Shapiro, V.K. Rangan, J.J. Sviokla: Staple your-self to an order, Harv. Bus. Rev. 70(4), 113–122(1992)

90.12 P.B. Seybold, R.T. Marshak: Customers.com: Howto Create a Profitable Business Strategy for theInternet and Beyond (Crown Business, New York1998)

90.13 L. Downes, C. Mui: Unleashing the Killer App:Digital Strategies for Market Dominance (HarvardBusiness School Press, Boston 1998)

90.14 R. Buck-Emden, J. Galimow: SAP R/3 System:A Client/Server Technology (Addison-Wesley, Har-low 1996)

90.15 M. Kirchmer: Business Process Oriented Imple-mentation of Standard Software: How to AchieveCompetitive Advantage Quickly and Efficiently(Springer, Berlin Heidelberg 1998)

90.16 E. Bendoly, F.R. Jacobs: Strategic ERP Extension andUse (Stanford Univ. Press, Stanford 2005)

90.17 G. Keller, T. Teufel: SAP R/3 Process OrientationImplementation (Addison-Wesley, Harlow 1998)

90.18 A.W. Scheer, F. Abolhassan, W. Jost, M. Kirchmer(Eds.): Business Process Excellence: ARIS in Practice(Springer, Berlin Heidelberg 2002)

90.19 R. Miranda: The rise of ERP technology in the publicsector, Gov. Fin. Rev. 15, 9–18 (1999)

90.20 T. Peters: The Project 50 – Reinventing Work (Knopf,New York 1999)

90.21 Managing the SAP lifecycle: Riding the waves ofimplementation. Seminar notes presented on May12th in Dallas (1999)

90.22 N.H. Bancroft, H. Seip, A. Sprengel: ImplementingSAP R/3, 2nd edn. (Manning, Greenwich 1998)

90.23 E. Brown: VF corp. changes its underware, Fortune138(11), 115–118 (1998)

90.24 T.H. Davenport, J.G. Harris, J. Cantrell: The Returnof Enterprise Solutions – The Director’s Cuts (Ac-centure, Cambridge 2002), Accenture Institute forStrategy Change Report 2452927

90.25 S. Shang, P.B. Seddon: A comprehensive frame-work for assessing and managing the benefitsof enterprise systems: the business manager’sperspective. In: Second-Wave Enterprise ResourcePlanning Systems, ed. by G. Shanks, P.B. Seddon,L.P. Willcocks (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge2003)

90.26 Benchmarking Partners: ERP’s Second Wave –Maximizing the Value of ERP-Enabled Processes,Deloitte Consulting report (Deloitte Consulting, At-lanta 1998)

90.27 T.H. Davenport: Mission Critical – Realizing thePromise of Enterprise Systems (Harvard BusinessSchool Press, Boston 2000)

90.28 R. Kalakota, M. Robinson: e-Business 2.0:Roadmap for Success (Addison-Wesley, Boston2001)

90.29 P.F. Drucker: Management Challenges for the 21stCentury (Harper Business, New York 1999)

PartI

90

1612 Part I Home, Office, and Enterprise Automation

90.30 I. Nonaka, H. Takeuchi: The Knowledge-CreatingCompany (Oxford Univ. Press, New York 1995)

90.31 T.H. Davenport, J.G. Harris: Competing on Analytics– The New Science of Winning (Harvard BusinessSchool Press, Boston 2006)

90.32 C. Christensen: The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Rev-olutionary Book that Will Change the Way You DoBusiness (Harper Collins, New York 2003)

90.33 J. Caulfield: Facing up to CRM, Business 2.0Aug./Sept., 149–150 (2001)

90.34 E. Kinikin, J. Ragsdale, L. Herbert: Five Major Gapsin CRM Apps (Forrester Res., Cambridge 2004), Tech-nical Report 35016

90.35 E. Kinikin, J. Ragsdale, L. Herbert: Trends 2005: Cus-tomer Relationship Management (Forrester Res.,Cambridge 2006), Technical Report 35520

90.36 G. Knolmayer, P. Mertens, A. Zeier: Supply ChainManagement Based on SAP Systems (Springer,Berlin Heidelberg 2002)

90.37 A Business View of my SAP SCM: Driving BusinessExcellence through Supply Chain Management, in-ternal company document (2005)

90.38 B. Gerald, N. King, D. Natchek: Oracle e-BusinessSuite Manufacturing and Supply Chain Manage-ment (McGraw-Hill, New York 2002)

90.39 N. Radjou, N. Tohamy, J. Harrington: Trends 2005:SCM Market Outlook (Forrester Res., Cambridge2004), Technical Report 35393

90.40 L. Herbert: The Forrester Wave: Hosted Sales ForceAutomation, Q1 2005 (Forrester Res., Cambridge2005), Technical Report 36614

90.41 R. Tews: Beyond IT: the business value of SOA, AIIMe-Doc 21(5), 14–17 (2007)

90.42 A.F. Farmoohand: SAP’s Platform Strategy in 2006(Asia Case Research Center, 2006)

90.43 P. Malinverno: How to get value now (and in thefuture) from SAP’s Enterprise SOA (2007) GartnerTechnical Report G00150358

90.44 Oracle SOA Suite http://www.oracle.com/technol-ogies/soa/soa-suite.html (2007)

90.45 A. Mohamed: Oracle moves a step closer to fusion,Computer Weekly, 22 (2007)

90.46 IBM Service-Oriented Architecture http://www-306.ibm.com/software/solutions/soa/index.html,accessed on December 18 (2007)

90.47 Microsoft SOA Products: The .NET Framework,http://www.microsoft.com/soa/products/dotnetframework.aspx(2007)

90.48 P. Hamerman, B. Miller: ERP Applications – MarketMaturity, Consolidation, and the Next Generation(Forrester Res., Cambridge 2004), Technical report33957

90.49 Economist Intelligence Unit: Enterprise knowledgeworkers: understanding risks and opportunities,an economist intelligence unit report sponsoredby SAP, Economist (2007 )

PartI

90