The following is my point of view on a topic that has been getting a lot of attention lately. There are two camps on Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0. Each one has some very good points of view and relevant experience on the subject matter. I will discuss briefly Enterprise 2.0 and how it relates to a Next Generation Enterprise.
Enterprise 2.0 is commonly defined as the technology and business practices that promote collaboration and free information sharing. Enterprise 2.0 makes accessible the collective intelligence of the organization, thus translating this into competitive advantage in the form of increased innovation, productivity and agility.
I agree with all of these concepts. The increased potential due to self-organization collaborative structures combined with the ease of information flow brings supports the idea of agility, flexibility, productivity and innovation.
When I read about Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 for the most part the emphasis is on the collaboration paradigm, which is one of the main components of this initiative. But I don’t see much on the integration to the Line of Business applications or Enterprise applications that are ingrained in the organization. Many enterprises have adopted ERP systems and other enterprise services such as messaging and middleware. And although they will benefit from the Enterprise 2.0 adoption there is still a gap that must be filled. Bernard Lunn wrote a thought-provoking article on some of the topics I am describing here.
Let’s be cognizant of the fact that the impact to the enterprise due to the adoption of collaborative technologies will not be significant or even relevant if the underlying systems, where the real business process is implemented, can not be rapidly adapted to support the outcome of the wave of innovation and collaboration brought by Enterprise 2.0. Most of the investments in IT have been on these Enterprise Systems and Line of Business systems that implement the mission critical business functions. From Purchase Orders to Manufacturing functions, from inventory to accounting, and on, and on… In addition to the “core” business functions we can also find systems that support decision making and other relevant supporting functions.
As a case study I will describe a “Global Company” that provides specialized equipment. The “Global Company” needs to maintain its competitive advantage by providing new products quickly. Their customer base has become more demanding wanting quick response and shorter product development cycles. They also experienced more competition in the area as new comes to the market offer similar products. And on top of that they see that their Research and Development group has been expanding due to recent acquisitions. Let’s keep this scenario in mind for future reference. This scenario is not too far from reality as I was involved on a project to assist the organization with the design for a global collaboration platform a few years ago.
This is where the overlooked component of Web 2.0, the technology paradigm, is absolutely necessary in order to transform an organization from a Typical Enterprise to a Next Generation Enterprise. Even more important is the convergence of the collaborative paradigm with the day to day business functions and underlying systems.
The business logic that implement mission critical business functions is locked into legacy ERP and LOB systems and other supporting systems and workflows. This is where Service Oriented Architecture provides an important foundation for the NGE. BPM also adds to the flexibility required to quickly adapt the business processes.
Going back to the “Global Company” case study. The globally distributed R&D group needed to collaborate more and expand their participation to multiple projects at the same time across the globe. The tools that the R&D used were commercial off the shelf (COTS) tools focused in Mechanical Engineering and electrical systems design. The new collaboration platform needed to seamlessly integrate the work products and plans produced by the use of the Design Software to a globally available document storage for continued collaboration on the plans and designs. The intention was to provide ways to capture relevant information as it concerns the product being designed. All other departments would have the opportunity to collectively participate throughout the product development process, from inception to delivery. “Global Company” wanted to identify the changes that needed to be made to the operating model and business processes in place to support the development and release of the new products, and the awareness of the new products throughout the organization will provide multiple points of view on what needs to change internally as the product is being designed and developed. Eventually the product design had to be broken-down to components that could be sourced to partners and suppliers, but the overall process will continue to be centrally managed in their existing ERP platform. They also needed to collaborate with their partners during the development of the product. This is a good example of what I mean by an integrated collaborative platform.
A Next Generation Enterprise is an On-Demand Enterprise. One that is connected end-to-end and is flexible and responsive to the Economic Pressures and changing markets. One that is built on a flexible platform where collaboration and Enterprise systems are fully integrated. One that has the flexibility to source services from the cloud or internally due to a flexible, agile business and technology platform.
Business Involvement, collaboration, technology and business agility, and the convergence of Business and IT are the imperatives to the Next Generation Enterprise.
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Business Agility through Technology Architecture 