Business Network Transformation

craft Ne 2rk TransformationIt is nearly impossible to hypothecate any company in this global economy that operates isolated and does non interact with suppliers, partners and v displaceors at some stage. This global ecosystem is remoulding relationships between companies in new-fashi wholenessd-made and often uncomfortable ways. Companies atomic number 18 organizing collaborative partnerships glob t go forth ensembley to support their product line operations lo constitutey. That extends their melody value and gain rivalrous advantage. These go-aheads argon eyesight beyond conventional task boundaries to lower be, improver profit and reform quality of benefit they provide by tapping into applications, personnel, and groundwork irrespective of where they reside. So, companies ar looking to gain competitive advantage by leveraging these original opportunities arose from intercompany fundamental interactions.Though handicraft electronic network Transformation is n ot a new concept, this idea had been kept apart from action due to IT limitations. Companies tradition tout ensembley focussed on customers, internal processes and cost cutting to differentiate their commercial enterprise in this ecosystem. But IT has changed this perception recently. Enhanced IT capabilities for intercourse, collaboration and discipline sharing caused increase global competition. Companies realised a new way of doing affair on the job(p) together tour working for others. Examining their value cosmic strings and understanding this competitive weapon resulted in formation of blood Networks.This paper contains the following topics parentage Network transformation explained with typesetters caseHow IT military go ancestry communicates and role of IT in blood line intercommunicate transformation assist Oriented Architecture (SOA) explained with 3 achiever storiesRelating Service Oriented Architecture to opening move Resource think packages closedown note Network TransformationAccording to Philip Lay and Geoffrey Moore, vexation Networks are groups of companies that work together toward a specific objective for mutual financial benefit. The example below helps to understand Business Network Transformation.Business network of Cellular Phone CompanyPartnersMobile handset makers, Chipset provider, Network faulting manufacturer, Contract manufacturers, Wireless carriers, Routing Vendors, Application enablers, Service providers voicemail, email, officious search, banking, video stream etcetera, Advertisers banks, pharmaceuticals, CPG companies etc., Consumers liquid retrieve owners, dealers enterprises etc.Strategic ObjectiveA multi line of products marketing strategy to transit from manufacturing handsets and equipment to a software divine service provider.Business process and IT implicationsDemand entropy should be visible to ensure mellowed take aim of retail stock through rapid supply chain response. This implie s binding marketing programs and sell-out data to improve marketing return on investment.This example shows a company with collaborating partners in a strain network and their strategic objective to transformation.As the definition of personal line of credit networks has become k forthwith to everyone, the whole tone in which these networks are created and transformed and what IT resources are occupyed for this vicissitude became a repugn.Role of IT in Business Network Transformation effectiveness to compete in this global market depends on businesss network of lot and negotiable processes. New technologies like Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and bundle as a Service (SaaS) enable these networks to amplify opportunities and flourish. Effective and competent communication by sharing information across its ecosystem of suppliers, employees, customers and distributors is enabled by implementing much(prenominal) service oriented architecture and operate. Utilising these capabilities, companies discount provide improved customer experience due to improved intercompany interaction. These potentials excessively enable seamless interaction with intra company systems foc use on improving value chain.Taking full-of-the-moon advantage of these global opportunities from business networks and becoming globally compoundd enterprise demands high level of flexibility. Businesses need to merge newly acquired business potentials and technologies with bequest applications. Existing IT infrastructure must be adaptable to changes in business models and must be ready to accommodate them. Information is already creation shared internally across departments within the business but now it has to be shared externally across business partners, across countries and continents. Business processes must be agile and consistent alignment between business and IT is critical.Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)Service oriented architecture (SOA) enables business organizatio ns to achieve this agility needed to compete in global ecosystem. It divides the business into operating(a)(a) components that are easy to be drawn together right away and economically. They are flexible enough to reuse in meaningful combinations to wager evolving business require. These components are called Services. These combinations of services enable efficient collaboration and communication across company lines and unearth information buried within business processes.According to IBM, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is A business-centric IT architectural procession that supports integrating your business as linked, repeatable business tasks, or services. Service oriented architecture is essentially collection of services. These services are in general pair and enforced in standard ways. In other words, companionship necessitate no familiarity of the technology or location of service provider. For example Create invoice as a service can be invoked by any other b usiness unit or from any business application when invoice needs to be created. wipe out defined Enterprise SOA as A blue print for an adaptable, flexible and open IT architecture for developing services- found, modular business solutions.Three features of an SOAThese ternary features provide value in a business by implementing SOA. software package reuseReusing components is one of the important advantages of SOA. Reusable components enable companies to forfend redundancy. For example a business has many working(a) silos and each silo usually needs information from other silo such as customer information or invoice. When these silos are using disparate technologies and are operating on different platforms, they need duplicate instances of this information in each silo. SOA creates single meter reading of such services which can be shared across all working(a) silos.Composite applicationsComposite applications are new cross-functional applications formed by combining functional ity from many existing systems. For example, SOA enables companies to provide a single arrest nark to a range of products through a self service penetration for business partners. Usually this portal might be a combination of different processes with different technologies supported by IT services.Standard portCaller of a service does not need to watch knowledge about services location or technology platform on which it was developed. Interface to services in SOA takes standard form. This facilitates a flexibility to tip services where they are needed irrespective of location and technology with great ease. It can also increase IT efficiency, improve quality of service and cast down costs.Coming to business partners, these loosely coupled, standard interfaced services provide duplicate benefits. Partner need not to be aware of progress of murder of a service, as SOA provides transparency of location and technology. Standard interface enables partners to call a service havin g minimum information about the service.In essence, the below are the benefits fall into three business categoriesBusiness EffectivenessBusiness agilityGreater speed in responsiveness to market combative advantageImproved business process efficiencyAccuracy in deployment of resources according to business needsCost factorMaintenance costs are bring downMinimum skills and efforts needed for business changeOptimized cost due to choice of platform, technology and locationRisk factor additive deploymentEnhanced IT qualityOptimized pay patronise clippingsEnterprise Resource Planning and Service Oriented ArchitectureA single system unresolved of accommodating business data which is centralised and gravelible across all functional areas in the company was the basic concept of ERP. Before ERP era, data would flow across business units but not stored in one system. The single system was the selling point of all ERP vendors like motley fool, IBM, Microsoft, vaticinator etc. ERP impleme ntation requires no service work to integrate little components but ERP implementation normally required greater customization. Without customization, ERP software packages rarely matched business processes and getting to the ready to work status. Though implementing ERP results many advantages, it has few drawbacks in terms of cost, customization and timeline for implementation. So ERP implementation and support are high-priced and time consuming. It is also costly in the area of upgrading because it is tightly coupled package. The evolution of Service oriented architecture concept focused on these pitfalls of ERP. The Enterprise application vendors used client server technology in 1990s and meshing client technology in 2000s. Now they are transiting to Service oriented architecture approach to ERP. This blend of ERP based on SOA is the best of breed approach facilitating customers to surrender more options to select services from any vendor. SOA can be said as father of mode rn IT architectures. Due to this combination, ERP components became services in Service oriented architecture. The below two are leading ERP vendors who recently released their ERP package based on SOA, deplete Enterprise SOA black flag NetWeaver is the new product based on SOA. eject NetWeaver is a platform on which other components such as Finances, humans Resource, Business Intelligence, Business process outsourcing etc are utilize. It boasts the advantages based on its SOA features such as web connections, Business network transformation etc. illusionist visionary Fusion MiddlewareFusion Middleware is Oracles product based on SOA. It is a family of products seamlessly integrated to run agile business applications. Business Intelligence, User Interface, inwardness grapplement, SOA Process Management etc. are components in this package.IBM adroit SOASmart SOA is a set of guiding principles derived from solidified best practices and documented visits. They have created entry points to each of their products such as Business Intelligence, BPM etc. These entry points are undertaking well defined, focused and individual project to meet individual business need.The role of SOA in Business Network Transformation can be easily understood from the success stories below.Ergon takes inunct business to the webErgon is United States based Petroleum Company. It is a in camera owned company with 2,500 employees. It specializes in petroleum products with up and downstream operations like refineries, sales and final trucking.Business needErgon wanted to integrate internal processes to improve retrieve to the information and to deliver that information to its customer. The company wanted to introduce self service portals and automated workflows to accelerate reckon approval processes.SolutionErgon has more than 50 operations within the business and each of which is a distinguished profit centre that reports back to the headquarters. They use run over bus iness workflow on existing SAP infrastructure to support buying and to automate approval of requisitions. Ergon also implemented IBM TotalsStorage DS6800 and changed its databases to IBM D2 facilitating acclivity their ERP to SAP ECC 6.0 in future.BenefitsEnterprise wideSAP govern their business processes. SAP enabled Ergons employees to gain consolidated view of individual workflow and to make better deals with their vendors. SAP ECC 6.0 based on SAP NetWeaver fetches more options for Ergon in the future. Portals enabled users to view core functionality tailored close to business needs. SAP NetWeaver created single enterprise platform.They could successfully align their business needs with their SAP ERP solution with greater flexibility and helping Ergons transition to SOA.Business flowErgon implemented SAP business workflow to support purchasing process as part of its ongoing enhancements to internal efficiency. SAP workflow tool accelerated approval of requisition process. This saved lot of administrative time by generating automated routing and emails. SAP business workflow reduced administrative workload and accelerated purchasing. After successful implementation of workflow tool and gained benefits from it, Ergon is now looking to extend this tool into other functional areas such as human resources.Storage PerformanceInformation access rates were improved and they saved 10-12 moments per weekend on database maintenance. This enabled freeing technical foul staff and to achieve better throughput for live users. They could increase the access up to 17 propagation faster than before. DS 6800 made reports and transactions through SAP applications run much more quickly. Storage performance is increase with new storage systems DS6800 and DB2 for business critical SAP systems.StabilitySAP and IBM worked together and IBMs DB2 is constantly supporting SAP applications. As performance and approachability have become important aspects in extending SAP applicati ons to more functional areas, this combination of SAP applications and IBM DB2 on IBM hardware using AIX operating system is helping Ergon to deliver excellent response times.Bezeq setup SOABezeq is Israel based leading telecommunications provider. It is a privately owned company with 7,700 employees and with revenue of US $ 1 billion. Its product and services range includes, domestic, international and cellular phone services, internet and data communication services.Business needBezeq wanted to hold focus on new vision that is customer facing. In the passing competitive industry they wanted to keep their market shares regulated tightly. domain technicians needed equipment with mobile capabilities such as to prepare electronic bills, or customer receipts etc. They also planned to architect a reusable set of web services.Their objectives were to avoid constraints of location with handheld mobile devices and to provide application developers with a reusable set of services.Soluti onBezeq implemented SAP NetWeaver technology platform including exchange infrastructure, enterprise portal components and entanglement Dynpro development environment for mobile computing.BenefitsEnterprise wideEnd to end business process integration was made possible by implementing SAP NetWeaver. This platform also enabled real time supervise of field regenerate procedures. As NetWeaver is based on SOA, Bezeq was able to achieve improvements in processes contact service calls. Bezeq achieved speed in service completion from assignment to invoice. It has time to focus on streamlining its core telecommunications processes.Avoiding constraints of physical locationField technicians are given PDAs to receive service calls through which they can order replenishments which also updates central inventory and customer records. They can use these PDAs from their homes and even while travelling. They can even get work related messages and use their cars as local and mobile warehouse for r eceiving and distributing parts to customers.Reusable servicesFor mobile computing, team has chosen Web Dynpro development environment. It is actually to program technician PDAs to access directly SAP NetWeaver portal component. Access to back end functionality that calls to the back end SAP system was encapsulated as reusable we services. Reduction in costs and risk in terms of both time and silver is ensured by this use of encapsulated web services that is also flexible and reusable.Business model evaluationEquipment and supplies are optimally allocated and managed using tools that technicians use. Company eliminated hour long scheduling session and consequently saved significant make out of money. They started saving 3, 250 hours a week. Bezeq has also reduced average response times to service requests from 6 days to 2 working days that should help increase customer satisfaction.Wipro Technologies helps its customers to make it quickWipro Technologies is a division of Wipro Lim ited, the counterbalance global IT services organization to be certified in PCMM level 5 and SEI CMM level 5 and with annual revenue is US $4.3 Billion and 99,965 employees. They are one of the largest product engineering and support service providers globally. They have comprehensive research and development and provide IT solutions and services like systems integration, information systems outsourcing, software application development, package implementation and maintenance services.Business needWipro wanted to improve business process agility so as to improve customer experience for large automotive manufacturer in North America to increase competitive advantage. They also wanted to avoid difficulties involved in service level agreements in the areas of service contracts, monitoring agreements and track design times by deploying IT management tools. Wipro planned to increase security level in exposing IT services of the auto manufacturer.SolutionWipro implemented Oracle products and services including Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle SOA suit including web services manager and BPEL process manager. They also implemented Oracle Enterprise manager an ERP solution that includes Tuning pack, symptomatics pack, Management pack for SOA and conformation management pack.BenefitsEnterprise wideOracles customer, the automotive manufacturer could roll out new services quickly and leveraged existing IT infrastructure and investments. They could successfully manage the implementation including services by various stakeholders, business units and vendors. Business to consumer portal enabled Wipros customer to access information online. They also gained the ability to die their IT infrastructure, mental ability planning and service planning.Oracle SOA SuiteAs customer deployed Oracle SOA suite, it enabled them to roll out new services in fast pace while leveraging existing IT investments. Business to consumer portal developed using this suite allowed automotive manufact urer to access information such as vehicle service alerts, campaign information, recall information and credit beleaguer reward points online. They also built a composite application enabled by SOA suite to aggregate account information gathered from disparate functional units in the business. Earlier, this application development used J2EE and took over one twelvemonth and now with SOA suite it took 90 days.As part of SOA suite, Web services Manager assure Oracles customer to have the appropriate authorisation to access services.Oracle Enterprise ManagerThis product from Oracle enabled its customer to proactively analyse IT infrastructure, service performance and capacity planning. As part of Enterprise Manager, Diagnostic pack enabled the automotive manufacturer to view problem areas in a single view.These success stories reveal how SOA enables businesses to gain competitive advantage by strengthening their business network and internal capabilities.ConclusionIn this commoditizin g global economy it is critical to have the ability to operate in effect in business networks and to sustain competitive advantage. This ability to operate business effectively is made easy by Best of Breed IT solution (SOA and ERP) enabling businesses to excel at global scale. But the businesses have a challenge to come out of the shell to invest on these technologies to stand at the top in their niche markets. They also gain advantage of auditing their true infrastructure, business processes and integrate them to achieve single view.