Abstract
Business environments nowadays, different from those not long ago, change very quickly. As for enterprise integration, frequently, the following reasons are found, which considerably contribute to the changes that would be necessary in conducting enterprise integration: 1) Business acquisition & merger – Two or more business organizations want to leverage each other’s products and marketing strengths to strive for a competitive advantage in business; 2) Dynamically changing market conditions - Due to the globalization and changing customer needs, products and services products must be changed. Therefore, the business operations managing the lifecycle of the products and services must be changed accordingly; 3) Technology advancement – New applications are introduced or enhancements and enrichments of support functions in the existing applications become necessary to help improve the business operations further in an organization. A fictional organization is provided in this chapter, aimed at demonstrating how a typical organization relies on information systems in support of its daily business operations and management. The main supports enabled by the deployed information systems at this organization are fully explained first. Then the importance and challenge of enterprise integration is discussed, which lays out a necessary foundation for the discussions in the remaining chapters.