Tactical Integration
Integration isn’t a top-down all or nothing proposition
Once a business is established then some things become entrenched; business processes, the interaction between core systems and what have you; some things do change really quickly and often (like requirements). It will take time for you to replace some of the systems that you have in place, but you need them integrated now.
Often there is a tactical piece of integration that gets ignored in the rush for an over-arching so called standards based environment. The problem with a lot of integration vendors is that they take a top down approach to integration. Even if you try to approach it in a structured way you’re left with a large up-front investment in time to get things rolling. What seemed like the right thing to do at the start might not be what’s actually required by the business 6 months in when you enter UAT. Round and round it goes and by the time you enter production you’re already on an unsupported version or worse.
It doesn’t have to be that way; perhaps something that can provide business value right now is to have a sane way of injecting documents into MSMQ from SAP. It will have a minimal impact on the day-to-day business and you can do it right now. The steps you take to achieve an integrated environment aren’t set in stone, there’s not just one way to get to where you need to be going.
We approach integration as a driver for growth; the more integration you do the more you can see ways to build on the knowledge and data that’s been captured. Deal with the things that you can deal with. Sometimes the incremental change that you achieve with a small piece of integration can provide the clarity that you need. Where you want to get to doesn’t have to dictate how you get there.