Businesses look to IT to increase productivity through automated systems. Many advances have been made in this regard, but businesses also expect IT to find ways to reduce the cost to implement these systems. Over time, systems like CRM, Document Management and Inventory Control have been created and deployed using a common platform to suit business needs for a wide array of industries.
Let me give you an example of a well-known platform and its uses. Siebel/CRM systems and Documentum/document repositories are widely accepted tools in such diverse industries as Finance, Medical, Manufacturing and Telecommunications. Even though the underlying company content differs, at a task level the systems are still performing similar tasks. For instance, order entry is a process comprised of a number of tasks which can be automated. The same goes for document approval. These kinds of tasks cut across industries.
However, these applications only improve productivity for “local” or single-department business problems. I will discuss the shortcomings of this method in my next Blog entry and an alternative concept.
Next week: The Problem
Mark J. Peterson, Senior Systems Architect for SSG, has more than 25 years of experience in software design and development with a specialization in BPM. Mark spent 10 years with Oracle and Fuego as a lead solution architect and instructor in the consulting organization.