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TopSystems-Thinking And Systems Approach
Systems-thinking and systems approach is structured by “evaluating the system as a set of process” as a principle, “study the system behavior while implementing appropriate policies” as a purpose and lastly “conceptualizing the system” as a method (Erkut, 1989). In order that an organization achieves its target, the rational design and management of business processes are required. The most critical part of such a structure is ensuring “integration” of entire organization on basis of processes.
The tools available for integration have become common due to advent of client server technology and improved relational data management tools. The commercial expansion saw emergence of other applications such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) solutions which should be tightly coupled across the organization.
Disadvantages of ERP
The main disadvantage of ERP is that business process re-engineering cost may be extremely high. ERP may have too many features and modules which confuses the user. The user also has to consider middleware “add on” features and extended modules such as SCM and CRM. So, the integration issue is far from being resolved. EAI technology has been devised in order to overcome this current issue
Introducing EAI
EAI is developed as an advanced type of middleware which allows a high level of integration. EAI generally increases the flexibility of an enterprise’s information system and thus extends the life cycle of many corporate applications. EAI enables exchange of information, which results in more efficiency and flexibility in delivery of services.
EAI involves linking applications whether purchased or in-house. It is the process of integrating various applications with differences in execution environment, programming languages and operation policies. EAI is soluble glue for modular corporations (Gable, 2002). EAI requires smart business design, which may not be able to be envisioned with the help of a consulting firm. So this requires expert knowledge. EAI enables process automation. It can streamline processes that include data/activity from multiple software applications. For example, data from a CRM can be integrated with an email marketing platform to deliver messages to customers based on their behavior or demographics. Effort could then be coupled with an analytics package to measure the success of this email campaign.