Reengineering Systems Integration Success (1997)

Michael A. Mische

• Publisher: Auerbach Publications
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138550506
• eBook ISBN: 9781351358163
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Industrial Engineering
• Index: Computer Science

Reengineering is using information technology to improved performance and cut costs. Its main premise is to examine the goals of an organization and redesign work and business processes from the ground up rather than to simply automate existing tasks and functions. Reengineering is driven by open markets and competition. It is part of responding to a global economy where worldwide customers are more sophisticated and demanding. Defining and executing a systems integration process is a challenging project for a CIO or IS director. Let Reengineering: Systems Integration Success show you how. This multiauthored book covers all aspects of the systems integration process. It addresses critical success factors and underlying pitfalls of systems integration. Packed with features and benefits, Reengineering: Systems Integration Success is the key to success in your organization.

Section 1

Introduction to Reengineering: Systems Integration Success

Historically the exclusive domain of the information technology professional, systems integration has been at the center of the information technology movement for a number of years. Integration meant making diverse applications, proprietary operating systems, and computing platforms work together; however, as many organizations strive to become more competitive and profitable, systems integration has taken on a far more extensive meaning than just technology, applications, and data. Today, the term means an integrated system of technology, human beings, processes, and organizational structures that form a unifned operating architecture for the management and operation of the enterprise. Thus, as technology has become increasingly more important and integral to the operations of the organization, systems integration has evolved to become far more encompassing and pervasive.

This section explores the market for systems integration and offers several working definitions for systems integration. Dominated by a number of mega-firms, such as Andersen Consulting, CSC, EDS, and IBM, and software providers, such as SAP and AG, the systems integration market is extensive, highly dynamic, and growing at double-digit rates. In addition, literally hundreds, if not thousands, of smaller specialty and contract firms are providing systems integration services. The definitions offered in this section are by no means the final word on the subject. Rather, they present more of a perspective that provides a working construct for what systems integration is, the size of the systems integration market, and the need for systems in a contemporary and dynamic context.

1-1
The Systems Integration Marketplace

Michael A. Mische

Systems integration and business process reengineering have become mainstays of the executive’s vocabulary during the 1990s. Major systems integration efforts are being performed in virtually every organization, as the private and public sectors attempt to become more competitive through new processes, greater empowerment, and the use of enabling technology and applications. Technological advances, together with the migration to client/server and midrange computing options are only a few of the many factors driving the need to integrate business systems.

Historically, organizations’ ideas concerning systems integration normally were confined to the technical aspects of hardware and the interconnectivity of components. Integration had a very mechanical connotation, to mean making different pieces of equipment work together in a piecemeal fashion. However, as technology and users have evolved, systems integration has come to mean much more. Integration now involves far more than technology, it involves people, strategies, business processes and the organizational structure of the enterprise. It is systemic to the organization.

Systems Integration Issues

The purpose of this book is to develop a broad view, description, and context for systems integration. Key issues relating to system integration and reengineering business processes are addressed by authors who have direct experience with and knowledge of the integration process. The intent is to place the systems integration industry, process, and project in a workable perspective. In doing so, this book addresses a number of important questions:

• What is the definition of systems integration?
• What are the key issues in systems integration and the management of integration efforts?
• What typifies failed projects, and how can failure be avoided?
• What is the role of the systems integrators, and how does an organization best select and manage them?
• How are systems integration projects and resources best managed?
• What are the main project management issues and processes surrounding the integration of hardware, software, data, and the migration from traditional technologies?
• What is the impact of systems integration on the organization, and what are the consequences of success and failure?
• How can failure be avoided, and what are the early warning signs and tendencies of failed projects?

The most logical place to start is with the marketplace for systems integration and the objectives and forces driving the need to integrate.

The Systems Integration Marketplace

Systems integration is a vast industry within an ever-changing landscape. The need for integrating technologies and enabling business processes is constantly growing, and the pressures on information technology management to quickly deliver cost-effective services and solutions are forever mounting. The Gartner Group estimates the market for systems integration to be over $10 billion, exclusive of hardware and software, and predicts a 14% compounded growth rate, which will bring the totals in excess of $19 billion, through 1999. Factoring in the sales of hardware, software, recurring licensing and maintenance fees, and communications costs, those market figures quickly escalate to an excess of $100 billion dollars! Systems and business integration is perhaps the most dominant and growth-oriented segment of the professional business services marketplace.

The growth in the systems integration marketplace is being driven by six major factors:

• The need to reengineer, reinvent, or invent new business processes and organizational models.
• The need to make applications work in a harmonious and synchronized manner to support new or reengineered business processes and less hierarchical organizations.
• The elevated urgency to accelerate the delivery of technology-enabling solutions … today, not in five years.
• The need to fully exploit new and emerging technologies and optimize the return on the investment in information technology.
• Increased acceptance by senior management to off-load risks and help ensure adequate and timely results by outsourcing the integration process to third-party systems integrators and consultants.
• The recognition that many organizations lack sufficient internal resources to effectively manage, reduce the risk of, and perform large-scale systems and business integration projects.

Undoubtedly there are many others, but there is little doubt that these six are pervasive and dominant influences in the integration process.

In response to these forces, the marketplace for systems integrators from which perspective clients can choose is larger and more diverse than ever, as there is a multitude of hardware and software vendors and consultants that profess to be systems integrators, providers of integration solutions, and solvers of enterprisewide computing needs. Based on Gartner Group estimates, the largest of these, with approximately 15% market share, is Andersen Consulting. EDS is the second largest, with 13% of the market. According to the Gartner Group, three of the Big Six accounting and consulting firms, Price Waterhouse, Ernst & Young, and Deloitte & Touche, collectively account for another 5% of the market. The remaining two-thirds of the market is composed of hardware vendors and a number of other integration firms, such as IBM. DEC, Hewlett-Packard, TSC, and SHL Systemhouse.

The Objectives and Rationale Behind Systems Integration

Just as there are many motivations for the integration process, there are a range of far-reaching motivations and objectives on the part of users and information management and technology GM&T) organizations. Some of these objectives clearly revolve around technological issues and the need to reduce maintenance costs. Others are related to the need to migrate to newer technologies and the de-massing of legacy systems. Still others are driven by the need to provide reengineered process-enabling solutions that allow for more agile organizations and operations. Some of the more prevalent objectives and rationale for systems integration include:

• The need to align technology and systems solutions more effectively with new business processes and to provide more functionally robust systems.
• The decoupling of systems and data from the traditional mainframe and legacy environments through the migration to client/server technology and midrange processors.
• The need to develop and deliver systems solutions rapidly to an increasingly demanding and more fluid user base. Business needs are changing more rapidly than traditional methods of systems delivery can satisfy.
• The need to create applications and data that are more seamless and harmonious, with common access and under uniform IM&T architectural standards.
• The need to supply simpler and more user-friendly solutions to a more knowledgeable and empowered work force.

These objectives, when linked to the driving factors discussed previously, combine to make a compelling argument for integration, especially when organizations are addressing strategic goals and competitive issues in the context of process reengineering and organizational transformation issues.

Defining Systems Integration

The industry and process for integrating systems are extremely difficult both to define and measure with any level of precision. Much rhetoric is produced about systems integration, but comparably less material exists on exactly what integration is and how to perform such a process. Despite its heritage and popularity, systems integration remains a relatively ambiguous area. For example, there is no uniform or de facto definition for what constitutes systems integration or a systems project or effort.

The term enjoys a high level of popularity among vendors and consultants, both of which have an undeniable interest in its use to mean just about anything, including outsourcing. As Michael Wybo discusses in Chapter 1-2, “Defining the Reengineering Process”, many large integration firms define systems integration in a contractual context that stresses the role of the integrator, not necessarily the process of systems integration.

In contrast, users tend to define the integration process as functional, whereas many IM&T professionals still tend to view integration as more of a traditional technical issues. There is, quite simply, a tremendous disparity of opinion and dissimilar knowledge surrounding the subject of systems and business integration.

Myth Versus Reality

The foregoing notwithstanding, systems integration has been a mainstay process since the commercialization of the computer. Virtually every information technology project involves some element of systems integration. Consequently there are a number of myths and misconceptions regarding systems integration and systems integrators. These provide an appropriate starting point for developing a working definition of systems integration:

• Myth. Systems integration is purely a technical issue.
• Reality. Systems integration is situational to the organization attempting to integrate. Systems integration may be predominantly an issue of technology, but this is not necessarily so in all cases. Systems integration involves many other factors, including people, applications, data, communications, business processes, and how the organization effectively deploys, manages, and uses information technology to gain competitive advantage.
• Myth. Systems integration means business process reengineering.
• Reality. As discussed in section 3, systems integration is not, by itself, business process reengineering. Systems integration can be the catalyst and enabling agent of business process reengineering, but in and of itself, it is not process reengineering.
• Myth. Systems integration projects are driven by application development or the acquisition of third-party software, or both.
• Reality. Systems integration projects usually involve the development and enhancement of applications and the melding of several applications together, but software development and the acquisition of third-party software do not exclusively drive the systems integration process. Sections 6 and 7 provide insight into the role of applications and technology in systems integration.
• Myth. Systems integration projects can be performed without any special skills, such as project management, change management, journey navigation, or technical skills.
• Reality. Systems integration projects are large, complex, and risky and demand discipline and a methodology. As Effy Oz discusses in Chapter 4-2, “Systems Integration and Corporate Strategy: A Tale of Success, a Tale of Failure,” many factors influence the outcome of the integration process. Jack Munyan discusses some of the tendencies and warning signs of potential failure in integration in Chapter 4-3, “Case Studies of Terminally Ill Integration Projects.” Systems integration projects are inherently risky and demand special skills and a dedicated staff.
• Myth. All system integrators and integration firms are common.
• Reality. As discussed in section 7, there are a number of differences among systems integrators. Organizations considering the use of an integrator have a large and varied selection from which to choose.

The Five Levels of Integration

Systems integration involves five dimensions of technical and functional integration:

1. Technology integration.
2. Applications and software integration.
3. Data and data repository integration.
4. Communications network integration.
5. The integration of new business processes, organizational structures, and measurements with new technology capabilities.

In the light of these attributes systems integration is clearly far more encompassing and systemic to the organization than a contractual relationship with a vendor or the outsourcing of systems and personnel. Systems integration requires an organizationwide perspective that integrates business processes and people. Typically, the minimum threshold investment for a systems integration effort is $1 million.

This book defines systems integration in the following manner.

Systems integration is the melding of divergent and often incompatible technologies, applications, data business processes, and communications into an enabling and uniform architecture and functional structure.

Integrated systems have many distinguishing characteristics but share five essential attributes.

1. Functional and technical compatibility is provided to support essential business processes.
2. The technology used to support business processes and process applications and data are transparent to their users. Integration can be achieved at any level and using any technology. The issue is selecting the best technology that optimizes several key criteria: process integration, user utility, technology longevity, adaptability, scalability and speed of solution delivery.
3. The ergonomical and functional aspects of application systems, data, access paths to data, and graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are harmonized and standardized for the user. That is, they look the same, function the same way, and are intuitive to a new user.
4. All enterprise wide data is rationalized with respect to structure, accessibility, definitions, and timing. Data means the same thing throughout the organization, from system to system, business process to business process, and across applications.
5. All enterprise wide applications and computing environments are scalable and portable to a variety of needs. That is, technologies and applications can be rapidly deployed and tailored for use in the organization. Essential application code and data structures are replicable and reproducible, not remade.

These five characteristics define the integration process and the integrated system. In this context, systems integration is achieved when the processing environment, technologies, and business processes all align with the strategies of the organization and function in a harmonious and congruent manner.

Summary

Systems integration is very significant business. The integration of systems has broad ramifications to the organization, as it involves much more than tech...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• SECTION 1 Introduction to Reengineering the Systems Integration Process
• SECTION 2 Systems Integration in the Global Enterprise
• SECTION 3 Business Process Reengineering
• SECTION 4 Maximizing Returns, Managing Risks, and Avoiding Pitfalls
• SECTION 5 The Reengineering Approach to Systems Integration
• SECTION 6 Integrating Technology, Data, and Applications
• SECTION 7 The Role of the Systems Integrator
• About the Editor
• Index