If you are an ebizQ Gold Club member, you will be prompted to enter your user ID and password. If you are not already a member, the link will take you to our sign-up page. Once you have completed a brief subscription form, you will be redirected to this article. Successfully operating in today's networked, electronic economy mandates that companies be able to share information with trading partners and customers in real-time, preferably without manual intervention, whenever possible. Systems integration is the process of explicitly linking systems together to communicate and share information.
Integration is a challenging problem that has plagued businesses for many years.
Significant complexity results because no system was originally designed to share information with other systems and, until the Internet, there historically has been no ubiquitous, common network mechanism over which to communicate information. Integration challenges rise to a new level of complexity as companies attempt to leverage the Internet to conduct business on-line and link their business processes across their extended enterprise. Companies are now faced with the challenge of not only integrating their own applications and information systems, but also integrating with those of their customers, partners and suppliers. The benefits of integration, including streamlining supply chain business processes, opening new revenue-generating distribution channels and reducing costs, are obvious but the complex effort and substantial resources required represents a daunting and costly task. However, a new breed of provider is emerging that has the potential to revolutionize systems integration.