Whitepaper. Improving Business Integration for a Competitive Advantage in the Mid-Market

Transcription

1 Whitepaper Improving Business Integration for a Competitive Advantage in the Mid-Market Boomi, Inc. 801 Cassatt Road, Suite 120 Berwyn, PA ph fx

2 Page 2 of 8 INTRODUCTION This whitepaper provides an introduction into the next generation of business integration software that is developer free and easily configured to meet the integration needs of mid-market businesses. Many mid-market companies are suffering through the use of disconnected applications and systems within their enterprise and with their trading partners due to the prohibitive cost of installing and maintaining enterprise integration software. Without integration, customer data is replicated in multiple locations, creating unavoidable errors and omissions. Inventory status is often several days (or more) behind actual stock levels, leading to missed sales opportunities and delivery commitments that can t be met. Productivity is reduced because employees must spend more and more of their valuable time manually keying in redundant data. Large, well-established integration software providers and systems integrators overcome these challenges by using enterprise integration software and architectures combined with highly-skilled development and implementation teams. Business processes run more efficiently; data is more reliable; customers are happier Except for one small issue: the cost, time and complexity of applying large-enterprise technology to midsized businesses. Mid-market companies could gain great competitive advantage from the capabilities afforded by these high-end solutions, but they can ill afford the time, money and disruption necessary to implement and maintain them. There is now a viable option for the mid market. BUSINESS INTEGRATION EXPLAINED Business integration is a requirement that has existed for decades. It is based on the foundation that enterprise applications are built by different technology providers, each using different programming languages; each using different interpretations of business objects (e.g. a purchase order ), built for different operating systems. These applications cannot connect to one another natively, so an additional application must be used to facilitate the connections. The applications may be running inside the four walls of a business, or across many different businesses to automate the exchange of information with trading partners. These are the core problems that business integration is meant to solve. When properly implemented business integration provides significant cost-savings to organizations by: Reducing data-entry errors across multiple disparate applications Improving supply chain responsiveness by connecting to business partners electronically Increasing inventory accuracy thanks to a real-time view into order levels and forecasting

3 Page 3 of 8 To illustrate the important role business integration can play in an organization, consider a warehouse that needs to handle the electronic data exchange (EDI) of shipment orders and acknowledgments with its customer. In many cases, this is mandated by a large trading partner. The sooner the warehouse can support EDI transactions, the sooner they can proceed with their business relationship. As the warehouse grows and changes, they will likely be forced to accept and generate ANSI X12 EDI documents with Customer A, RosettaNet PIP s with Customer B, and EDIFACT documents with Customer C. Without a business integration solution, the IT infrastructure of the warehouse fails to be scalable and becomes increasingly complex as the various standards are implemented. Business integration benefits go far beyond exchanging electronic transactions with trading partners. In the example above, information on products that the warehouse handles (product attributes, style, color, weight, etc.) must be synchronized between specialized applications like the warehouse management system (WMS) and general purpose financial systems (or even an ERP system) to avoid having to manually update those systems. Likewise, in a manufacturing environment, as products pass through various production processes, information from shop floor systems should automatically be integrated back into the financial/erp systems to provide a real-time view of production. These are just a few examples of how business integration adds value to an organization. MID-MARKET CHALLENGES Despite the fact that integration is consistently a top priority of CEOs, few businesses have taken full advantage of business integration capabilities. A 2006 Aberdeen survey showed that over 60% of respondents described their current supply chain processes as manual, spreadsheet-intensive and only partially automated. In a 2006 IDC survey when asked How do you collaborate with your trading partners today? participants responded as follows: 88% through 73% through fax 62% through telephone conversations 59% through direct mail So if the benefits of business integration are so great, why aren t more mid-market businesses employing this technology? An understanding of the unique challenges and characteristics of mid-market businesses provides insight as to why business integration has not been more widely adopted. 1. Internal IT capability Typically, mid-market companies have limited (and in some cases no) programming staff. Projects that require programming force mid-market businesses to hire external consultants driving integration costs even higher.

4 Page 4 of 8 2. Type of processing Mid-market businesses are often required to comply with the integration standards and requirements of their larger trading partners. Therefore, there is less emphasis on managing large numbers of processes and more emphasis on managing a variety of different types of processes. The former focuses on economy of scale and calls for a high-volume black-box solution, whereas the latter focuses on economy of scope and calls for a highly flexible solution. 3. Time pressures Mid-market businesses have demanding schedules and deadlines. Their needs are immediate, tactical and project focused. Mid-market businesses do not have the time (months and in some cases years) to build sophisticated architecture-based solutions for their integration needs. Because they do not have the extensive application portfolio of larger enterprises, this type of solution would, in many cases, be overkill in any event. 4. Competitive pressure Mid-market businesses, particularly supply-chain intensive companies that are among the most prolific users of business integration software, have severe competitive pressures and are very focused on cost efficiencies. In addition to the time and expense described above, mid-market businesses cannot afford to purchase multiple software packages to handle their many business integration requirements. LIMITED OPTIONS FOR THE MID-MARKET Despite a crowd of competitors in the business integration space, the mid-market tier remains largely underserved. Mid-market businesses looking to procure business integration software are faced with a market that is shaped like a dumbbell. On one side, there are a host of sophisticated, high-end solutions that deliver significant capability but can cost millions of dollars and take months or even years to implement. On the other side are numerous inexpensive solutions that can be installed quickly but lack the functionality that many mid-market businesses require. With a clearer understanding of the characteristics of mid-market companies, it becomes easier to see why the following business integration options have not been more widely adopted: B2B integration options: 1. Buy enterprise software and infrastructure. These solutions are cost prohibitive for mid-market businesses and require programmers to implement them 2. Buy Desktop EDI software. These solutions address only the most basic integration needs, have low performance capabilities and use outdated technology 3. Outsource the integration to a third-party. With outsourcing, mid-market businesses have no control over their configurations. Setup and maintenance is expensive and the pay-perdocument pricing structure penalizes the business as it grows

5 Page 5 of 8 Application integration options: 1. Buy and maintain enterprise software and infrastructure. These solutions are cost prohibitive for mid-market businesses and require programmers to implement them 2. Develop custom code to connect applications. Custom code is brittle as it is difficult to maintain and can lead to a spaghetti code effect. In addition, this approach lacks any centralized management and reuse capabilities SOA enablement options: 1. Buy capabilities as part of ESB and BPM product suites. These solutions can be cost prohibitive and require developers to create Web services Clearly mid-market businesses need the capabilities of high-end integration software but cannot afford the time and expense associated with implementing complex integration solutions typically employed by larger enterprises. The good news is that powerful, next-generation integration capabilities exist today that are within the reach of mid-market businesses at a price and maintenance / complexity level that is easily managed within the budgets and skill set of existing IT staff. More importantly, these capabilities provide an immediate source of competitive advantage in a world where instantaneous information exchange is quickly becoming the norm not the exception. A 2005 Aberdeen survey revealed that 60% of the respondents stated that complete internal integration would give them a competitive advantage. Using next generation integration solutions, mid-sized businesses can gain competitive advantage with their peers as well as legitimately compete with their large enterprise counterparts. LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD: NEXT-GENERATION INTEGRATION There is a new breed of business integration software that brings the power and capabilities of enterprise integration solutions to the mid-market making business integration accessible and affordable to midmarket businesses. This new breed of software is built with a deep understanding of the challenges and characteristics of mid-market businesses and caters to those specific needs. The primary characteristic of this new software is that it is configuration-based as opposed to code-based. Configuration-based solutions require no programmers and can be implemented quickly and inexpensively. They also can incorporate all business integration aspects (B2B, application and data) in one solution. They are ideal for mid-market companies with few or no programmers, tight deadlines and competitive cost pressures. When evaluating configuration-based solutions, mid-market companies should look for the following characteristics:

6 Page 6 of 8 Complete solution: The solution must consist of all components required to connect internal applications together and provide all components required to connect applications between a company and its business partners. Minimal software development: To the extent possible, the solution must eliminate the requirement for and minimize the tendency to develop custom application coding for integration. Instead, common integration patterns are implemented through a configurable process designer to expedite setup and maintenance of integration points. Data transformation is the core of integration: Application A s definition of the data fields that make up a product, purchase order, inventory report or countless others items, are always different than Application B s definition. Likewise, Company A s invoice or advance shipment notice is represented differently than Company B s. Integration software can transform one document format to another. Data transformation is typically the most complex and time consuming part of the integration project. Applications support: A true end-to-end integration solution must provide access to data and server layers of the related applications. Connectivity to a business application must be simple to setup and maintain. This connectivity should be non-invasive, requiring no changes to existing applications. Standards support. Many standards exist today to describe the exchange of business documents electronically. These standards must be simple to define and implement, thereby minimizing the time required to complete the integration project. Platform durability: Proper data persistence and retry capabilities must exist. Without the redundant logic of a persistent infrastructure in place, data can be lost when issues occur. The assumption that connectivity will always be successful or available creates many problems and is alleviated with proper data persistence. Using a next-generation business integration solution, mid-market businesses gain the same competitive advantages that have historically been the domain of larger enterprises. Examples follow: Because these solutions are built for the systems analyst to use, Mid-market businesses can use their internal staff to complete and maintain all of their integration projects New applications can be installed whenever needed by the business either replacing legacy systems or IT-enabling business processes for the first time without the need to employ expensive systems integration team Data from legacy systems can be translated, reformatted and exported to new applications bought to replace them

7 Page 7 of 8 The same integration engine that links a business IT applications can also connect the business to their trading partners thereby delivering the proven quality and cost-saving benefits of electronic transactions. BOOMI S APPROACH TO BUSINESS INTEGRATION Boomi has taken the concept of configuration-based integration a step further by creating a solution that is completely visual. In addition to the capabilities described above, Boomi has developed a visual designer to simplify the development of integration processes. Using the point-and-click, drag-and-drop Visual Process Designer (see Figure 1), users can build very simple to very sophisticated integration configurations by selecting components from a palette and connecting them to one another on a canvas. Common integration tasks such as data transformation, complex decision logic, content-based routing, user-defined error handling and real-time application connectivity are built by dragging and connecting the required integration components to each other to create the overall integration process. Figure 1 Boomi s Visual Integration Platform is a complete solution for intra- and inter-company integration in a single product. All major standards are supported, and adaptors for most popular applications are available off the shelf. To learn more about Boomi s Visual Integration Platform, visit

8 Page 8 of 8 CONCLUSION Mid-market companies can gain competitive advantage with their peers and level the playing field with their large enterprise counterparts by employing business integration technology. Integrated processes provide significant cost-savings by reducing data-entry errors, improving supply chain responsiveness, increasing inventory accuracy, decreasing order fulfillment times and reducing or eliminating document processing fees and customer charge-backs, among other reasons. Configuration-based solutions such as Boomi s Visual Integration Platform bring the power and capabilities of high-end integration solutions to the mid-market. About Boomi Software Boomi Software improves the efficiency and effectiveness of mid-size businesses by enabling B2B, application and data integration in one easy-to-deploy, simple-to-use product. Boomi s unique visual integration approach allows users to design and build powerful configurations to handle a broad range of integration needs with point-and-click, drag-and-drop ease. Boomi s integration projects are up and running in weeks, not months, and do not require any programming resources. Backed by its extraordinary support services, customers quickly see the benefit of their investment in Boomi. For more information about Boomi Software, visit.