An Infrastructure for CRM

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EAI - An Infrastructure for CRM

Clarity Integration White Paper

Winter 2002

© Clarity Integration – 2002



Clarity Integration delivers Enterprise-wide Integration

1 EAI - AN INFRASTRUCTURE FOR CRM.....................................................3

1.1 SUMMARY.......................................................................................................3

2 INTRODUCTION................................................................................................4

2.1 MULTIPLE CHANNELS .....................................................................................4

2.2 CRM’S REQUIREMENTS ..................................................................................4

2.3 CRM BENEFITS FROM THE EAI INFRASTRUCTURE..........................................4

2.4 EAI IS A MATURING TECHNOLOGY..................................................................5

2.5 THE EAI I NFRASTRUCTURE BECOMES THE BUSINESS BACK -BONE .................5

2.6 EAI FEEDS THE CRM SYSTEM ........................................................................52.7 PROJECTS CAN FAIL WITHOUT EAI..................................................................6

2.8 THE CHALLENGES OF I NTEGRATION ...............................................................6

2.9 A METHODOLOGY FOR INTEGRATION .............................................................6

2.10 THE TOOLS-BASED APPROACH ........................................................................7

2.11 ARCHITECTURE PATTERNS FOR SPEED OF DESIGN ...........................................7

2.12 PHASED DEPLOYMENT.....................................................................................7

2.13 FURTHER R EADING .........................................................................................7

3 CLARITY INTEGRATION LTD......................................................................7

3.1 YOUR R IGHT TO COPY ....................................................................................8

3.2 LEGAL NOTICES ..............................................................................................8

© Clarity Integration Limited of 8 Winter 2002




1 EAI - An Infrastructure for CRM

1.1 Summary

Integration has been a solution to the business problem of connecting dissimilar

systems for many years. In the last year or so, it has gained growing acceptance as the

pre-requisite for CRM, Supply Chain Management and other e-Business initiatives.

In the past, integration has been avoided because it was viewed as difficult, costly and

often hard to justify with realistic Return On Investment (ROI) estimates. However,

with the functions contained in the maturing CRM e-Business products, costs are

easier to calculate, and consequently, so is ROI. The business benefits provided byintegration are now more easily justified.

Integration is still a challenging project. By its nature, it attempts to connect different

people, data and systems and also different organisations, and that is always going to

present challenges. However with the use of a sensible methodology, architecture,

and combination of tools, the goal of integration can be achieved. The best way to

achieve the goal is in stages. This allows an incremental way of delivering business

benefits in line with staged expenditure.





2 Introduction

Organisations of all types and sizes recognise the importance of customer

relationships. In the last 12 months, the investment in Customer Relationship

Management (CRM) has demonstrated the commitment of those organisations.

CRM is about being able to tie together any contact with a customer, irrespective of

the channel the customer chooses, be it the shop, phone, post or the Internet. The

information gathered by the organisation during each interaction should be capable of

being used immediately to resolve any problems or issues and/or to follow up on any

potential sales opportunities.

2.1 Multiple Channels

Most sizable organisations have many disparate systems to support individual or

groups of market channels as well as product systems. Each of these may capture

different quantities and levels of information about the customer, thereby making it

difficult for an organisation to react quickly to issues, complaints or sales leads.

2.2 CRM’s requirements

The implementation of a truly successful CRM solution is founded on:

• The ability to move data in and out of the CRM system from all front-end

systems and services

• The quality of the data and timeliness of movement

• The ability to cope with change.

2.3 CRM benefits from the EAI infrastructure

Ideally, the CRM system will be based upon an integration hub, rather than point-to-

point connections. This integration hub becomes the backbone of the business

information transfer mechanism that serves CRM. This integrated business backbone

links all necessary business systems. It allows real-time and near-time sharing of data

and processes to enable the organisation to achieve the following key objectives:

• Dramatically reduced time-to-market for new products

• Reduced cost of sale

• Reduced reaction times to sales leads





• Focused marketing efforts on active and valuable customers - in near-time

• Increased staff capability, morale and productivity

• Make it easier for the customer to deal with your organisation, and vice versa

2.4 EAI is a maturing technology

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) links applications to allow the sharing of

data and processes to carry out a business function. EAI has developed significantly

from its early beginnings and is now moving to provide more than just application-to-

application or point-to-point connectivity, but promises to provide functions and processing capabilities to support the business needs.

The delivery of processing capability within the EAI layer allows many interactions

and communication decisions to be taken away from individual applications and

placed into a centralised and controlled environment. The logical centralisation of

interaction management drives up reuse and enables an organisation to start

organically growing new functions and systems using the existing data and processes

as the foundation.

2.5 The EAI Infrastructure becomes the Business Back-bone

If used and built correctly, the EAI Layer becomes the Business Back-bone. It links

systems and data in a flexible one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many manner.

The Backbone is the super-highway of the company. Data and information can flow

backwards and forwards to increasing levels of benefit, as the EAI solution is rolled

out and attached to all systems and business units. The solution does not need to be

internally focused. A good EAI architecture will enable extra-enterprise interactions

to take place. Future developments could then move to process workflow control

within the EAI layer, managing events as the information flows around the

organisation.

2.6 EAI feeds the CRM system

EAI provides the basic infrastructure that gives the CRM system more accurate and

consistent data, sometimes within seconds or minutes of it being captured and saved

by the source system.

Data issued by source applications is transformed and routed according to the logic

defined within the EAI infrastructure, and sent on to the CRM system. This means

that the CRM system can receive data from any number of systems, from one to many

hundreds, and it never needs to know the source or original format of that data. This





isolation from the technical landscape enables faster implementation and exploitation

of the CRM business solutions.

2.7 Projects can fail without EAI

Many projects aiming to replace existing systems or introducing new ones depend

upon the effective movement of data to and from the new system. Unfortunately, there

are many examples of these projects failing to meet the expectations of the business

because the scale of the integration task is underestimated.

If the foundations are correct, the integration infrastructure decreases the cost of

development while increasing business benefit. This is enabled through better

knowledge management and faster systems development. It results in improved

business process efficiency and business function development.

2.8 The Challenges of Integration

While every organisation is unique in its use of products, data formats, naming

standards and hardware, the challenges of integration are the same:

• Data formats

• Changing infrastructure

• Unique business processes

• Heterogeneous systems

• Data integrity requirements

• The future unknowns

•

The complex market place.

2.9 A Methodology for integration

As in many other areas of IT and business, the use of a methodology and the reuse of

knowledge and components will facilitate a faster and less risky implementation.

Naturally, this must be performed in a manner that considers the needs of the business

and technical constraints, both in the short and the long terms.

However, a methodology is not enough on its own. Wherever possible, tools and

products should be selected to minimise the cost of internal development andcustomisation. The EAI layer provides an isolation layer between every interacting





entity, and therefore provides the unique opportunity to resolve the long-standing

issues with old standards, designs and structures that occur so often with legacy

systems.

2.10 The tools-based approach

It is possible to select tools that facilitate the gathering of business requirements, the

definition, design and implementation of solutions. The tools can automate many parts

of the process to allow far easier redesign and enhancement during and after the

development phases, thereby providing extensibility and flexibility.

2.11 Architecture patterns for speed of design

The common integration challenges and issues can be resolved through the use of

generic architecture patterns and templates. They can provide out-of-the-box proven

solutions to problems such as real-time data updates across a heterogeneous

infrastructure, and many others.

2.12 Phased deployment

The deployment of an EAI infrastructure can be phased to provide ever-growingfunctionality to support CRM rollouts and many other business initiatives. The

implementation of an isolation layer between every key system introduces the

flexibility to grow, change and replace all elements of the business infrastructure, as

long as the interface to the EAI layer is maintained. Even this can be changed and the

impact controlled.

2.13 Further Reading

For practical advice on implementation, click on www.clarity-integration.com, anddownload Clarity’s “EAI Framework” White Paper.

Otherwise, contact Clarity Integration by one of the methods described below.

3 Clarity Integration Ltd.

Started in 2000 by experienced IT consultants, Clarity focuses on, and specialises in,

business and application integration. Clarity Integration has quickly developed into a

centre of integration excellence. It provides a unique combination of enterprise

systems development, business systems design and technical integration experience.


http://www.clarity-integration.com/





Clarity Integration brings to market a proven integration delivery methodology, that

provides a flexible framework for the delivery of our technical expertise. Our

knowledge provides guidance to organisations wishing to implement an integration backbone.

3.1 Your Right to Copy

This document is available without charge and you may make as many copies as you

wish, providing each copy is complete and recognizes the copyright of this material as

belonging to Clarity Integration Ltd.

If you would like further copies, please contact either:

e-mail: [email protected]

URL: www.Clarity-integration.com

Liberty House, 222 Regent St, London, W1B 5TR

Office : +44 (0) 207 297 2017

Fax : +44 (0) 207 297 2128

3.2 Legal Notices

All trademarks are acknowledged as being the property of their respective owners.

This document has been prepared based upon our extensive experience and is

intended to share some of our experiences with you. The information is provided

without warranty for its applicability in your particular environment.


mailto:[email protected]





An Infrastructure for CRM

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