Transverse Information Systems: New Solutions for IS and Business Performance

346 Pages·2009·4.17 MB·English

by  Francois Rivard

The Transverse Information System
The Transverse
Information System
New Solutions for IS and Business Performance

François Rivard
Georges Abou Harb
Philippe Méret
First published in France in 2008 by Hermes Science/Lavoisier entitled: Le système d'information
transverse : nouvelles solutions du SI & performance métier © LAVOISIER, 2008
First published in Great Britain and the United States in 2009 by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rivard, Francois, 1971-
[Système d’information transverse. English]
The transverse information system : new solutions for IS and business performance / François Rivard,
Georges Abou Harb, Philippe Méret.
p. cm.
"First published in France in 2008 by Hermes Science/Lavoisier entitled: Le système d’information
transverse : nouvelles solutions du SI & performance métier."
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-84821-108-7
1. Management information systems. 2. Information technology--Management. I. Abou-Harb, Georges.
II. Méret, Philippe. III. Title.
HD30.213.R58 2009
658.4'038011--dc22
2009001027

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-84821-108-7
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne.
Table of Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Chapter 1. Innovation for Business Value and Cost-killing . . . . . 1
1.1. Supporting profit and growth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1.1. A junction with the business. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2. Assessing innovation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2.1. “Russian Ark”, a universal example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2.2. What does innovation involve? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.2.3. A central mission for IT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.3. Agility and alignment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.3.1. Improving performance by innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.3.2. Improving adaptability and making alignment easier . . . . 18
1.3.3. Rationalizing complexity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.3.4. Measuring operating indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.4. Sustainable development and information assets . . . . . . . . . 24
Chapter 2. The Transverse Information System. . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.1. A regular increase in power. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.1.1. A field lying fallow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.1.2. A metaphor for the city . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.1.3. The middle empire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.1.4. Towards convergence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.2. Optimizing business unit assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.3. The impact on the IT department agenda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.3.1. A question of governance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
vi The Transverse Information System
2.3.2. Redefined priorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.3.3. Supporting the NISS investment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.3.4. Organizing transversality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Chapter 3. Master Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.1. An unclaimed asset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.1.1. An eloquent study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.1.2. Reference data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.1.3. The issues involved in good reference data management. . 55
3.1.4. Structuring data management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.1.5. Transverse solutions for reference data . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.2. Master data management: centralization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.2.1. Master data management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.2.2. Two choices of architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.2.3. A customer database in industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.2.4. Volume retailer databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.2.5. The state of the market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.2.6. A rollout process, substantial projects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.3. Enterprise information integration: federation . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.3.1. Virtual dynamic views. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.3.2. Gestica: dynamic views for large-scale businesses. . . . . . 75
3.3.3. The state of the market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.4. Between centralization and federation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.4.1. Two very different models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.4.2. A balance to be found . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
3.5. Data governance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
3.5.1. Extent of data governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
3.5.2. Three significant central themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.5.3. A dedicated organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3.6. Towards information management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
3.7. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Chapter 4. Service-Oriented Architectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.1. Basic impacts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.1.1. From application to service: the end of a reign?. . . . . . . . 87
4.1.2. The fall of the interoperability wall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.1.3. A central domain with a far-reaching impact . . . . . . . . . 90
4.2. A major lever for a change in progress. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.2.1. New business models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.2.2. More effective information systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Table of Contents vii
4.2.3. A more integrated information system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
4.3. A new experiment in the finance bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
4.3.1. The context. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
4.3.2. The benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
4.3.3. Pitfalls encountered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
4.3.4. Lessons learned. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
4.4. Technologies and architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
4.4.1. Components of the technological offer . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
4.4.2. eBay: intangible architecture principles. . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
4.4.3. The technological offer: the state of the market. . . . . . . . 115
4.4.4. The maturity model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
4.5. Flexibility is an event? Yes, agent! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Chapter 5. Business Process Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5.1. From managing business processes to BPM . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
5.1.1. An example of the business process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
5.1.2. The company and its business processes . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
5.1.3. The issues involved in managing business processes . . . . 130
5.1.4. Business processes and managing information . . . . . . . . 134
5.1.5. The company, processes and ISs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
5.2. Understanding BPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
5.2.1. BPM stands for business process management . . . . . . . . 137
5.2.2. Continuous process improvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
5.2.3. A process layer in the information system . . . . . . . . . . . 141
5.2.4. Process layer contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
5.3. The business process from the IS perspective . . . . . . . . . . . 147
5.3.1. Processes seen from an IT angle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
5.3.2. BPMS architectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
5.3.3. Which BPM for which processes? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
5.4. BPM promises and prospects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
5.4.1. BPM: as simple as clicking a mouse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
5.4.2. BPM standards: still some way to go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
5.4.3. BPM and portal: a vision geared towards the user . . . . . . 156
5.5. Conclusion: the place of BPM in the company and in the IS . . 157
Chapter 6. Exchange Platforms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
6.1. The development of data exchanges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
6.1.1. EAI: the first wave of standardization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
6.1.2. From data to process: a failed action?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
6.1.3. From data to service: the enterprise service bus. . . . . . . . 163
viii The Transverse Information System
6.1.4. The convergence years: towards a global platform. . . . . . 165
6.1.5. The exchange platform: mediator of imbalances . . . . . . . 170
6.2. Technologies and architectures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
6.2.1. Architecture principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
6.2.2. The approach: the first elements of transversality . . . . . . 177
6.2.3. The framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
6.2.4. Change behavior: from now on a requirement. . . . . . . . . 183
6.3. Project typology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
6.3.1. A universal access door to integrated software packages. . 185
6.3.2. The continuous creation of the company backbone . . . . . 186
6.3.3. Organizing transversal processes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
6.4. A common foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Chapter 7. Complex, Innovative Business Architectures . . . . . . . 189
7.1. Natural connections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
7.1.1. Reference architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
7.1.2. Processes and services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
7.1.3. A new flexibility driver: complex event processing. . . . . 194
7.2. An investigation into the distribution sector . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
7.2.1. The issues: reorganizing the editorial production line. . . . 198
7.2.2. Mapping and modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
7.2.3. Keys for tomorrow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
7.3. A project in the energy sector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
7.3.1. The issue: aligning the production and
consumption of energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
7.3.2. Looking for a stable state. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
7.3.3. Interoperability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
7.3.4. Upgradeability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
7.3.5. Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
7.4. A program in retail banking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
7.4.1. The issue: reorganizing around business processes. . . . . . 210
7.4.2. The NISS layer cake. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
7.4.3. Real-time control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
7.4.4. Complete control coverage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
7.4.5. Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Chapter 8. The Impact of NISS on Software Implementation . . . 219
8.1. The process standard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
8.2. Towards assembly and beyond. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
8.2.1. Principles and definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Table of Contents ix
8.2.2. Rolling out an international service architecture . . . . . . . 230
8.2.3. Software as a service. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
8.2.4. Redefining an R&D model: who has the power? . . . . . . . 239
8.3. Model-driven architecture and docking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
8.4. A “sourcing” process to be defined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Chapter 9. From Implementation to Measurment. . . . . . . . . . . . 247
9.1. Towards operational excellence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
9.1.1. Issues and objectives of operational excellence. . . . . . . . 248
9.1.2. Operational excellence and its IT variations. . . . . . . . . . 251
9.2. Business activity monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
9.2.1. The place of BAM in the IT landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
9.2.2. Monitoring means of payment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
9.2.3. The functional model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
9.2.4. Other applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
9.2.5. BAM and exchange bases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
9.2.6. In full development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
9.3. SOA management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
9.4. The loop is completed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Chapter 10. Contribution and Impact of NISS
on Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
10.1. From the business unit to IT: a new fluency. . . . . . . . . . . . 276
10.1.1. A tighter link. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
10.1.2. Organization in project mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
10.1.3. Business architect and enterprise architect . . . . . . . . . . 281
10.2. Governance of information assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
10.2.1. The new roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
10.2.2. Specific roles for master data management. . . . . . . . . . 290
10.2.3. Roles specifically for managing services . . . . . . . . . . . 292
10.2.4. Roles specifically for managing business processes . . . . 294
10.2.5. Shared responsibilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
10.3. Organization methods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
10.3.1. From the matrix model to the transversal model. . . . . . . 298
10.3.2. A transversal model: competence centers. . . . . . . . . . . 299
10.3.3. An example of an EAI competence center . . . . . . . . . . 303
10.4. Managing change and maturity stages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
x The Transverse Information System
Chapter 11. How to Get the Best Out of NISS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
11.1. The initial phases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
11.1.1. Creating the vision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
11.1.2. Identifying business cases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
11.1.3. Calculating proof indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
11.1.4. Evaluating solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
11.1.5. The importance of the initial phases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
11.2. The foundations: creating platforms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
11.2.1. Organizational platform. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
11.2.2. Information platform. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
11.2.3. Technological platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
11.2.4. Methodology platform. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
11.3. From the process angle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
11.3.1. An iterative framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
11.3.2. The methodology package . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
11.4. Here and now. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
11.5. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331