Gartner Identifies New Technology Platform to Support Business Process Fusion
STAMFORD, CONN., November 24, 2003 — Business process fusion will create demand for cross-functional, end-to-end process applications, however, vendors are trying to figure out how to compete in this new technology platform, according to Gartner, Inc.
Gartner has identified business process fusion as a set of trends impacting business applications, software infrastructure and their role in supporting business processes. 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 and provide linkage of operational and management processes with a true end-to-end scope. Business process fusion is not just another IT integration project. The objective is to integrate business processes to create value, regardless of how, or even whether, the underlying technology is integrated.
"The movement toward business process fusion is not just a matter of vendors extending their application products," said Simon Hayward, vice president and research fellow at Gartner. "Business process fusion takes business applications vendors into a new field of competition, the application platform. This field brings new challenges, such as competitors that traditionally have delivered components of this technology platform, such as Tibco Software and Vitria Technology, as well as competitors with comprehensive platform offerings, such as BEA Systems and IBM."
The technology platform for fusion applications will combine the infrastructure of application servers and integration brokers with portal, content management and collaboration support technology. Gartner analysts identified three key capabilities required from IT systems to achieve business process fusion:
Systems integration achieves the requisite scope for end-to-end processes
Application mutability provides flexibility to accommodate process changes
Information unification supports all types of decision making within a single framework
Although application vendors that have a vision for fusion, including SAP, PeopleSoft and Oracle, now provide the basic technology components required, most components are relatively immature and primarily are optimized for that vendors' application environment.
"Enterprises must make strategic decisions regarding how far to consolidate IT purchases with a single vendor, as opposed to maintaining vendor independence between application categories, and between applications and infrastructure," Hayward said. "They also need to view the extended enterprise as a network of interdependent business processes, rather than a collection of independent functions. This is a major cultural challenge, more than a technology problem."
Additional information is available in the Gartner commentary Business Process Fusion Transforms Applications. This report examines the primary drivers for business process fusion applications. This research can be purchased on Gartner's Web site.
More detailed information is available in Gartner's Special Report on business process fusion. This three-part series looks at the key aspects of business process fusion. Part one examines how fusion will transform applications and application development. Part two explains how fusion will affect software, platforms and other parts of critical IT infrastructure. Part three explains how to manage business process fusion. This Special Report can be found at www.gartner.com/fusion.
About Gartner:
Gartner, Inc. is the leading provider of
research and analysis on the global information technology industry. Gartner serves more
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in corporations and government agencies, as well as technology companies and the
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visit www.gartner.com.
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