Processes are the foundation of any business. At World Data, companies have architected a process-based environment to optimize and enable all Business and Marketing Operations to take full advantage of the e-business world. This is where Business Process Integration plays its part.

BPI encompasses defining, enabling and managing the exchange of business information within the organization and beyond organizational boundaries. It is a strategy that strengthens your organization and its relationships with other organizations by integrating entire business not only within your organization but also with your customers, suppliers and business partners (e.g. logistics providers).

There is also another point that should be mentioned about BPI. Business Process Integration (BPI) is shifting from a tactical to a strategic issue. According to statistical data of the market research firm Forrester Research 2002, there were only 78% of the companies, which were successful in providing good stuff according to the needs of the technological market.

BPI systems will not make current software technology obsolete. Organizations that have already implemented a componentization strategy will find BPI an almost natural fit. BPI systems will happily coexist with components, such as Java Beans and Enterprise Java Beans. The business process execution engine just appears as an additional integration layer. Also, the move to thin clients plays well with BPI systems.

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XML is a key factor in the advancement of BPI technology. XML offers a method for integrating business processes by providing an open, extensible structure for data exchange. XML can be used for defining processes, the user interfaces of applications, and business documents. Beyond that, messages exchanged between two logical partners (e.g. client and business process engine) can be XML documents. Yet, XML documents can be used to transport Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs).

BPI takes a top-down approach, rather than the bottom-up approach of application integration. It comprises three core elements:

  • Business Process Modeling
  • Business Process Execution
  • Business Process Management
  • Business Process Modeling

Today, business process modeling is an integral part of the software process. However, companies experience difficulties as they try to bring business process modeling and object-oriented analysis and design together. In general, business process models are semantically poor, making it difficult to derive user cases. Apart from that, companies use different tools from different vendors. Tool integration also remains a problem.

However, business process modeling is an area where significant productivity advances are possible. A new generation of business process modeling tools has the potential to eliminate existing technical gaps. The iterative and incremental design and development approach requires business process modeling and CASE tools to provide integration.

Business process modeling tools can generate analysis and design information that can be further refined using a CASE tool. Later on, as object-oriented design progresses, it might turn out that design decisions affect business processes and require process adjustments. Impact analysis indicates which processes and process steps are affected.