The Practical Real-Time Enterprise (eBook)

Foreword 8
Content 12
The Real-Time Enterprise Facts, practices and prospects 16
I. Business processes in modern companies 26
Inter-company business processes and e-collaboration 28
Global corporate cooperation 28
Inter-company process from the perspective of integration 31
Beyond acceleration – Cost advantages from e-business solutions 34
Required standards and technologies 38
Business process management in real-time companies 44
Step 1: Internal business processes 45
Step 2: Inter-company business processes 48
Step 3: Business process networks 51
Conclusion and outlook 57
Bibliography 58
Michael Meyer 60
Competitive response: a new lens for evaluating company performance 72
Competitive responsiveness 73
Competitive response model 77
II. Typical examples from industries 86
Building the Real-Time Enterprise at DaimlerChrysler 88
A global operation 88
Bridging the gap between core processes 90
Real-time communications in manufacturing 91
Sales and marketing 93
Real-time employees 93
Future developments: expanding the Real-Time Enterprise 95
Real-time-oriented service architectures in the airline sector 96
Introduction or: ‘On the ancient Greeks, Mack the Knife and a horse that does not eat cucumber salad’ 97
Integrated communication processes using Lufthansa as an example 99
And now? 104
The Extended Enterprise – Economic integration in real-time 110
Adaptation to new company structures 110
Environment within individual industries 112
Electronics industry 113
Automotive industry 117
Consumer goods industry 119
Chemical/Pharmaceutical industry 122
New integration platforms as the basis of the real-time extended enterprise 124
On the path to the real-time company: Coalescence of the real and virtual worlds 124
Strategic perspectives for the hotel industry 128
Growing requirements of guest service 128
Increasing the brand loyalty of hotel guests 129
Efficient infrastructure as a basic requirement 129
Modified investment model 130
Trend towards real-time communication 130
Advanced hotel solutions for guestrooms 132
Advanced hotel solutions for public areas 132
Advanced hotel solutions for conference areas 133
Advanced hotel solutions for back office/administration areas 133
Hotel Palafitte: the future has arrived 134
III. Technological networking 138
Technical networking 140
Building blocks for integrated and personalized communication 140
Introduction 141
Integrated communication 141
Personalized communication 144
Technical conditions 145
Personalized communication process 154
Summary and outlook 158
Designing more productive business processes with convergent networks 160
Introduction 160
Designing more productive business processes with convergent networks 161
Modern communication networks 162
Communication networks of the future 168
Unified user domains 174
Summary 177
QoS Architectures and Resource Management in the Intranet 180
QoS mechanisms 186
QoS Architectures 190
Discussion 199
IV. Technical process support 206
Business process evolution in real-time 208
Switching to the future 209
Manage change or die 209
Automation in the way? 210
Outsourcing: cut costs, lose control 211
Business process evolution 212
Implications of web services 213
Enterprise services architecture 214
Proving our point 215
I& C Technologies for a Real-Time Enterprise (RTE)
Enabling technologies for a Real-Time Enterprise (RTE) 217
V. Enterprise security 252
Secure mobile business solutions for real-time enterprises 254
Introduction 254
Mobile business processes 256
Company security 262
Secure mobile business solutions 265
Integrated security management 271
Summary 272
Identity & Access Management Faster ROI and improved security through efficient assignment of rights and access control
Benefits of Identity & Access Management
Concepts and technologies 278
Real-time business requires security, trust and availability 290
A must – data that is secure and always available 290
The security concept – the basis of credible data processing 292
Ensuring competitive advantage by checking security in real time 294
VI. Outsourcing 300
Intelligent IT sourcing in the financial industry: background, preconditions and requirements of future IT organization design 302
Context: why are alternative sourcing concepts necessary? 302
Preconditions, preparation and first steps 305
Smart sourcing and the future organization of the IT department – Impact 308
Outsourcing as a strategic management decision 312
Preface 312
The aims of IT outsourcing projects 313
Outsourcing in transition 314
Adding value by outsourcing the management of complexity 316
Living out an outsourcing partnership 319
Factors of success once the contract has been signed 323
Conclusion 323
Less costs, more functionality 325
Outsourcing and the transaction cost economy 325
Outsourcing – a subject for telephony and IT 326
Built to order in grand style 326
Cost reduction, cost transparency and innovations through outsourcing 327
Complex requirements 328
Positive outcome of outsourcing 329
Success factors in outsourcing 330
Professionalism is decisive 332
VII. Challenges facing qualification and management 334
Visual management 336
Introduction 336
The center for visual management as a control center 337
Company management in real time by performance management 339
Management disciplines as application fields for performance management 340
Conclusion 347
Bibliography 347
From CIO to Chief Process Officer 348
Catalog of tasks of the CPO 349
Real-time enterprise requires real-time business processes 351
Renaissance of the process 352
The CIO – an out-of-date model? 352
From CIO to CPO – more than just a change of name 353
RTE platform as the main responsibility of the CPO 355
Four skills of the CIO of the future 355
How to be switched on – without being switched off 358
Research highlights 360
Why are we so SAD? 361
There has to be a better way 362
VIII. The steps in evolving into an “E-Enterprise” 364
The RTE: it starts with early warnings 366
Towards the E-Enterprise: standards, networks and co-operation strategies 373
Introduction 373
The literature on network effects 375
A research framework for coordination networks 379
Developing a network model 386
Implications of the findings 390
Conclusions 392
Bibliography 394
The evolution to real-time architecture 400
Real-time capability leads to company success 400
Requirements placed on the IT infrastructure of a realtime enterprise 401
The constraints of today’s IT infrastructure landscape 406
Three phases for the infrastructure of a real-time enterprise 407
Development of the IT infrastructure in the context of the whole company 414
Outlook 415
Bibliography 415
Distributed mini-factory networks as a form of real-time enterprise: concept, flexibility potential and case studies 418
Competition in the real-time economy 418
Mass customization as a response to the real-time economy 421
Mini-factories as a real-time enterprise 424
Economic potential of a mini-factory 428
Customer interaction in the real-time enterprise 430
Examples of mini-factories for market-oriented production in practice 437
Summary 445
Bibliography 446
Organic IT: cut IT costs, speed up business 450
The architecture behind grid, utility, on demand, and adaptive technologies 450
Organic IT can deliver big IT cost savings — and business gains 450
But industry ideas and offerings are confusing 451
Firms must upgrade five technologies 456
Software: web services and composite apps enable business services 457
Servers: virtualized processing shares and maximizes computing capacity 458
Storage: automated management and virtualized disks optimize storage 459
Networks: automated, virtualized LANs and WANs simplify and speed networks 460
Management: the fabric operating system powers organic management 460
Recommendations 462
What it means 462
Endnotes 463
Living and working in a global network 468
Wired life 468
Corporate networks 468
Voice over IP 469
Mobile telephony: VoWLAN, UMTS, and more 471
Home networks – smart living 473
Internet access in automobiles 475
Internet access in the air 476
Internet access on trains 478
Brave new world? 479
Sources and links: 480
Delivering the promise. Making it pervasive 482
IX. The visions 494
Knowledge-based companies – objectives and requirements 496
The information age and knowledge-based society 496
Microelectronics and software: driving change 497
Product-based businesses versus knowledge-based businesses 500
Knowledge-based companies: a vision 501
Organization structures 502
Processes 503
Expertise 505
Employees 507
Values 508
Summary 510
Living and working in a networked world: ten trends 512
Preface 512
Trend 1:Globalization is intensifying international competition 513
Trend 2:Information and knowledge as productive factors 513
Trend 3:Information and communication technology is advancing at breakneck speed 514
Trend 4:Less manufacturing work, more knowledge-intensive services 515
Trend 5:Value-oriented company management 516
Trend 6:Demographic change: people are living longer 517
Trend 7:Virtualization and decentralization: virtual company networks 518
Trend 8:Miniaturization and individualization: the smaller the better, but ultimately it is the customer’s choice 519
Trend 9:Flexibilization: work when and where you like 520
Trend 10:Acceleration: follow the sun 521
Conclusions 522
Swarm organization – a new paradigm for the E-enterprise of the future 524
Scenario 2020: vision of a normal working day 524
Survival in real-time markets 526
The search for the organization of tomorrow 527
Understanding the swarm principle 528
Managing the swarm organization 530
Young professionals look to the communication of tomorrow 534
Future private communication 534
John Doe: animated vision of the future 536
New interfaces between man and computer 536
The ubiquitous computer 539
One terminal for various tasks 540
Working across borders 541
Key technical factors for company communication of the future 543
Information and communication in 20XX 546
Information and communication 546
Human, man-machine and machine-machine communication 547
Human senses 550
Network technologies 551
Access networks 552
Transmission networks 553
Corporate networks 555
Mobile networks 555
Internet 556
Next-generation networks 558
Convergence 559
List of authors 560

Shai Agassi (p. 193-194)

Business process evolution in real-time

New technology has always been both a driver of change and a primary tool for coping with change. In the current market place, every company is awash in computing power, network connectivity, and functionality provided by richly complex applications.

To win companies must create a recipe – a secret sauce – that combines their understanding of customer needs and ability to meet them with all the power that technology offers. The central problem facing most companies is that these days even when they find it, the sauce doesn’t stay secret for long. Technological product innovation, giving half a decade advantage to companies 20 year ago, now spread through the eco-system in less than 3 months. The only sustainable competitive advantage is the ability to adapt to change.

The concept of the real-time enterprise has emerged as the general shape of the solution. Yet the real-time enterprise requires continuous changes and ultimate flexibility in reconfiguring business processes to fit ever changing market conditions. As such, the Evolving Enterprise is a vision of the corporation as an organism that constantly assimilates new processes and adapts to them. In doing so, the organism changes itself to better respond to current conditions or to create a advantage changing the eco-system for other organism fighting for success.

To become an Evolving Enterprise companies must organize themselves, their technology foundation and their process landscape in a new way. They need to match a shortened change management cycle required by a rapidly evolving strategy with flexibility at the IT landscape that allows them to recompose their processes almost on the fly. All this needs to be done while at the same time reducing costs. At SAP®, we feel the key to this transformation is to put business processes front and center, and to build an entire infrastructure focused on lower the costs and increasing the speed of evolution in response to market forces.

Switching to the future

Consider the crossroads at which AT&,T arrived 60 years ago regarding its handling of long-distance telephone calls. At the time, most such calls were completed manually, by banks and banks of operators working in front of large plug boards. As AT&,T’s managers and technologists looked into the future, they saw that the volume of calls the company handled was about to explode. By increasing the capacity of trunk lines, technology had helped make long-distance calls much less expensive, more useful, and more attractive, which meant that usage of long-distance calling was bound to grow exponentially. But AT&,T quickly realized that to handle this growth using its old methods, it would eventually need to hire the entire population of the United States to work as telephone operators. To avoid that, the telephone company came up with a new breed of automated switch and a dialing scheme based on 3-digit area codes that together enabled subscribers themselves to dial and complete their own calls. Today, every CEO and CIO can see that something similar is happening in their own companies, but at a much more dramatic pace and involving much greater risk.