Gartner Says Business Process Fusion is the Key to Significantly Increasing Value from IT Investments
Analysts Discuss Transformation via Business Process Fusion at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2003
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla., October 20, 2003 — As enterprises grapple with the growing need to support processes on a more integrated basis, business process fusion is the key to achieving that, according to Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT and ITB). In fact, over the next few years, business process fusion will become a key driver for IT investment in a majority of Global 2000 companies.
Gartner analysts presented their view of the future for business applications, labeled "business process fusion," today, during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2003, which is taking place October 19 through October 24 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
Business process fusion is the transformation of business activities achieved by integrating previously autonomous business processes to create a new scope of management capabilities. It will drive stronger alignment of IT with core business processes, typically those that are customer facing, and provide linkage of operational and management processes with a true end-to-end scope.
"Business process fusion will be the foundational strategy for any organization working towards the goal of becoming a real-time enterprise," said Simon Hayward, vice president and research fellow at Gartner. "Together with a real-time infrastructure, fusion can provide highly flexible systems that are adaptable at all levels, from hardware to business processes."
What makes business process fusion necessary is the risk, and in some cases, the pressing reality of competitive annihilation from an industry player that has successfully transformed its core processes. "Business process fusion has transformational potential, and early adopters will take the risk and may reap the rewards of its potential," Hayward said. "Those that cannot or will not take the risk should at least prepare, so they are positioned to follow fast."
Gartner analysts said there are three key factors driving this trend:
An evolution of packaged business applications — These applications will have the process orientation and flexibility necessary for fusion. The platform for such applications will combine the infrastructure of application servers and integration brokers with portals, analytics, content management and collaboration support technology.
Emergence of real-time infrastructure — This infrastructure is shared across business units and applications where business policies and service-level agreements drive dynamic and automatic optimization of the IT infrastructure, thus reducing costs while increasing agility and quality of service.
Business process outsourcing (BPO) — With its focus on business processes and optimization, fusion creates a framework for making more informed decisions and building stronger and more mature sourcing relationships.
"The next step is for CIOs to deliver technology that gives business management true control of their organization - not piecemeal, but in a comprehensive fashion," said Hayward. "This is vital because, in almost every industry sector, someone is trying to change the rules of the game. Not every management team is revolutionary, but each one needs the flexibility and control via IT to be able to react to change."
Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the IT industry's largest and most strategic conference, providing business leaders with an insightful look at the future of IT. For more than 10,000 IT professionals from the world's leading enterprises, Gartner's annual Symposium/ITxpo events are key components of their annual planning efforts. For more information about Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2003, please visit www.gartner.com/symposium or call 1-800-778-1997.
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Gartner, Inc. is the leading provider of
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in corporations and government agencies, as well as technology companies and the
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