enterprise

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of an ERP system is integration; an ERP system allows the left hand of the organization to know what the right hand is doing. This integration allows real-time updates globally, whenever and wherever a transaction takes place. Critical business decisions can then be made on a timely basis using the latest data.

So What? Workflow Problems

According to John Halamka, CIO of the Harvard Medical School and Group Health System, “Most IT problems are workflow problems, not software problems.” Using the knowledge of this chapter, you know that workflow problems concern either efficiency (ratio of costs to value delivered is too high) or effectiveness (not contributing to the competitive strategy). So what?

Who fixes a workflow problem? A computer programmer? A network engineer? A database administrator? No, no, and no. So who? Someone with knowledge of the business and, if the workflow involves an information system, someone who is knowledgeable and comfortable working with technical people.

Consider an example close to home. Suppose your university has a limited number of classrooms with sophisticated audiovisual display, and those classrooms are frequently assigned to professors who specialize in old-fashioned lecture and don’t use audiovisual display. Meanwhile, professors who want to use, say, Learning Catalytics in their classrooms are making do with poor- quality, hard-to-view computer-based display.

How would you fix that problem? Change the software that allocates classrooms? But how? Who decides what changes need to be

3

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made? And does it need to be done in software? Could it be done by fixing a workflow? Is there a convenient point in the professor–class assignment process in which professors (or department chairs) can indicate which professors should teach in which classrooms? Or are classrooms allocated on a university-wide basis? Or maybe the audiovisual system is already generating metadata about its use, and without requiring anyone to provide any extra data, someone in the Assign-Classroom workflow could use this data to allocate the classrooms?

Who develops these alternatives? Who evaluates them? Who implements them with the workflow workers? You! Or it could be you. As you’ll learn in Chapter 12 , a business analyst is someone who knows business, who understands an organization’s competitive strategy and ways to implement it, and who knows enough information systems technology to be able to model and design workflow changes and to work with technical personnel, when needed, to effectuate changes to information systems.

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Source: Franz Pfluegl/Fotolia

To do this well, you need to know IS_and_something: IS_and_marketing, IS_and_ operations, IS_and_finance.

Questions 1. Using your own words, explain the meaning of the statement

“Most IT problems are workflow problems, not software problems.”

2. Consider the classroom assignment problem. Briefly describe three ways of solving that problem. Which of those three is the most promising? Why?

3. In your opinion, is the demand for professionals who know IS_and_something going to decrease? Increase? Stay about the same? Justify your response; search the Internet for data to support your claim.

4. If you were to become an expert in IS_and_something, what would the something be? Search the Internet for employment prospects for that career choice.

5. Examine your current plan of courses before you graduate. What courses do you need to add to your plan to learn IS_and_something? Will you add these courses? Why or why not?

To understand the utility of this integration, consider the pre-ERP systems shown in Figure 7-11 . This diagram represents the same processes used by a bicycle manufacturer that we discussed in Chapter 3 . It includes five different databases, one each for vendors, raw materials, finished goods, manufacturing plan, and CRM. Consider the problems that appear with such separated data when the Sales department closes a large order, say, for 1,000 bicycles.

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Figure 7-11 Pre-ERP Information Systems

First, should the company take the order? Can it meet the schedule requirements for such a large order? Suppose one of the primary parts vendors recently lost capacity due to an earthquake, and the manufacturer cannot obtain parts for the order in time. If so, the order schedule ought not to be approved. However, with such separated systems this situation is unknown.

Even if parts can be obtained, until the order is entered into the finished goods database, purchasing is unaware of the need to buy new parts. The same comment applies to manufacturing. Until the new order is entered into the manufacturing plan, the Production department doesn’t know that it needs to increase manufacturing. And, as with parts, does the company have sufficient machine and floor capacity to fill the order on a timely

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basis? Does it have sufficient personnel with the correct skill sets? Should it be hiring? Can production meet the order schedule? No one knows before the order is approved.

Figure 7-11 does not show accounting. We can assume, however, that the company has a separate accounting system that is similarly isolated. Eventually, records of business activity find their way to the Accounting department and will be posted into the general ledger. With such a pre-ERP system, financial statements are always outdated, available several weeks after the close of the quarter or other accounting period.

Ethics Guide Dialing for Dollars

Suppose you are a salesperson and your company’s CRM forecasts that your quarterly sales will be substantially under quota. You call your best customers to increase sales, but no one is willing to buy more.

Your boss says that it has been a bad quarter for all the salespeople. It’s so bad, in fact, that the vice president of sales has authorized a 20 percent discount on new orders. The only stipulation is that customers must take delivery prior to the end of the quarter so that accounting can book the order. “Start dialing for dollars,” she says, “and get what you can. Be creative.”

Using your CRM, you identify your top customers and present the discount offer to them. The first customer balks at increasing her inventory: “I just don’t think we can sell that much.”

“Well,” you respond, “how about if we agree to take back any inventory you don’t sell next quarter?” (By doing this, you increase your current sales and commission, and you also help your company make its quarterly sales projections. The additional product is likely

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to be returned next quarter, but you think, “Hey, that’s then and this is now.”)

“OK,” she says, “but I want you to stipulate the return option on the purchase order.”

You know that you cannot write that on the purchase order because accounting won’t book all of the order if you do. So you tell her that you’ll send her an email with that stipulation. She increases her order, and accounting books the full amount.

With another customer, you try a second strategy. Instead of offering the discount, you offer the product at full price but agree to pay a 20 percent credit in the next quarter. That way you can book the full price now. You pitch this offer as follows: “Our marketing department analyzed past sales using our fancy new computer system, and we know that increasing advertising will cause additional sales. So, if you order more product now, next quarter we’ll give you 20 percent of the order back to pay for advertising.”

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Source: Roman Sigaev/Fotolia

In truth, you doubt the customer will spend the money on advertising. Instead, it will just take the credit and sit on a bigger inventory. That will kill your sales to the company next quarter, but you’ll solve that problem then.

Even with these additional orders, you’re still under quota. In desperation, you decide to sell product to a fictitious company that you say is owned by your brother-in-law. You set up a new account, and when accounting calls your brother-in-law for a credit check, he

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cooperates with your scheme. You then sell $40,000 of product to the fictitious company and ship the product to your brother-in-law’s garage. Accounting books the revenue in the quarter, and you have finally made quota. A week into the next quarter, your brother-in-law returns the merchandise.

Meanwhile, unknown to you, your company’s ERP system is scheduling production. The program that creates the production schedule reads the sales from your activities (and those of the other salespeople) and finds a sharp increase in product demand. Accordingly, it generates a schedule that calls for substantial production increases and schedules workers for the production runs. The production system, in turn, schedules the material requirements with the inventory application, which increases raw materials purchases to meet the increased production schedule.

Discussion Questions 1. Consider the email you write that agrees to take the product

back. a. Is your action ethical according to the categorical

imperative (pages 22–23) perspective? b. Is your action ethical according to the utilitarian

perspective (pages 58–59)? c. If that email comes to light later, what do you think

your boss will say?

2. Regarding your offer of the “advertising” discount: a. Is your action ethical according to the categorical

imperative perspective? b. Is your action ethical according to the utilitarian

perspective?

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c. What effect does that discount have on your company’s balance sheet?

3. Regarding your shipping to the fictitious company: a. Is your action ethical according to the categorical

imperative perspective? b. Is your action ethical according to the utilitarian

perspective? c. Is your action legal?

4. Describe the effect of your activities on next quarter’s inventories.

5. Setting aside ethical and legal issues, would you say the enterprise system is more of a help or a hindrance in this example?

Contrast this situation with the ERP system in Figure 7-12 . Here, all activity is processed by ERP application programs (called modules), and consolidated data are stored in a centralized ERP database. When Sales is confronted with the opportunity to sell 1,000 bicycles, the information it needs to confirm that the order, schedule, and terms are possible can be obtained from the ERP system immediately. Once the order is accepted, all departments, including purchasing, manufacturing, human resources, and accounting, are notified. Further, transactions are posted to the ERP database as they occur; the result is that financial statements are available quickly. In most cases, correct financial statements can be produced in real time. With such integration, ERP systems can display the current status of critical business factors to managers and executives, as shown in the sales dashboard in Figure 7-13 .

Figure 7-12 ERP Information Systems

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Of course, the devil is in the details. It’s one thing to draw a rectangle on a chart, label it “ERP Applications,” and assume that data integration takes all the problems away. It is far more difficult to write those application programs and to design the database to store that integrated data. Even more problematic, what procedures should employees and others use to process those application programs? Specifically, for example, what actions should salespeople take before they approve a large order? Here are some of the questions that need to be answered or resolved:

How does the Sales department determine that an order is considered large? By dollars? By volume? Who approves customer credit (and how)? Who approves production capacity (and how)? Who approves schedule and terms (and how)? What actions need to be taken if the customer modifies the order? How does management obtain oversight on sales activity?

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Figure 7-13 Sales Dashboard

Source: Microsoft Corporation

As you can imagine, many other questions must be answered as well. Because of its importance to organizations today, we will discuss ERP in further detail in Q7-5. Before we do so, however, consider the third type of enterprise system: EAI.

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)

ERP systems are not for every organization. For example, some nonmanufacturing companies find the manufacturing orientation of ERP

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inappropriate. Even for manufacturing companies, some find the process of converting from their current system to an ERP system too daunting. Others are quite satisfied with their manufacturing application systems and do not wish to change them.

Companies for which ERP is inappropriate still have the problems associated with information silos, however, and some choose to use enterprise application integration (EAI) to solve those problems. EAI is a suite of software applications that integrates existing systems by providing layers of software that connect applications together. EAI does the following:

It connects system “islands” via a new layer of software/system. It enables existing applications to communicate and share data. It provides integrated information. It leverages existing systems—leaving functional applications as is but providing an integration layer over the top. It enables a gradual move to ERP.

The layers of EAI software shown in Figure 7-14 enable existing applications to communicate with each other and to share data. For example, EAI software can be configured to automatically carry out the data conversion required to make data compatible among different systems. When the CRM applications send data to the manufacturing application system, for example, the CRM system sends its data to an EAI software program. That EAI program makes the conversion and then sends the converted data to the ERP system. The reverse action is taken to send data back from the ERP to the CRM.

Figure 7-14 Design and Implementation for the Five Components

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Although there is no centralized EAI database, the EAI software keeps files of metadata that describe data formats and locations. Users can access the EAI system to find the data they need. In some cases, the EAI system provides services that provide a “virtual integrated database” for the user to process.

The major benefit of EAI is that it enables organizations to use existing applications while eliminating many of the serious problems of isolated systems. Converting to an EAI system is not nearly as disruptive as converting to an ERP system, and it provides many of the benefits of ERP. Some organizations develop EAI applications as a stepping stone to complete ERP systems. Today, many EAI systems use Web services standards to define the interactions among EAI components. Some or all of the processing for those components can be moved to the cloud as well.

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Q7-5 What Are the Elements of an ERP System? Because of its importance to organizations today, we will consider ERP in more depth than CRM or EAI. To begin, the term ERP has been applied to a wide array of application solutions, in some cases erroneously. Some vendors attempted to catch the buzz for ERP by misapplying the term to applications that provided only one or two integrated functional applications.

The organization ERPsoftware360 publishes a wealth of information about ERP vendors, products, solutions, and applications. According to its Web site (www.erpsoftware360.com/erp-101.htm), for a product to be considered a true ERP product, it must include applications that integrate:

Supply chain (procurement, sales order processing, inventory management, supplier management, and related activities) Manufacturing (scheduling, capacity planning, quality control, bill of materials, and related activities) CRM (sales prospecting, customer management, marketing, customer support, call center support) Human resources (payroll, time and attendance, HR management, commission calculations, benefits administration, and related activities)

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Accounting (general ledger, accounts receivable, accounts payable, cash management, fixed asset accounting)

An ERP solution is an information system and, as such, has all five components. We consider each in turn.

Hardware

Traditionally, organizations hosted ERP solutions on their own in-house, networked server computers. Such hosting is still the case for many large ERP applications, as well as for those ERP applications that were installed years ago and for which the hardware infrastructure is stable and well managed.

Increasingly, however, organizations are turning to cloud-based hosting in one of two modes:

PaaS: Replace an organization’s existing hardware infrastructure with hardware in the cloud. Install ERP software and databases on that cloud hardware. The using organization then manages the ERP software on the cloud hardware. SaaS: Acquire a cloud-based ERP solution. SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, and the other major ERP vendors offer their ERP software as a service. The vendor manages the ERP software and offers it to customers as a service.

During your career, existing in-house ERP solutions are likely to migrate to one of these two modes. Larger installations will likely move to PaaS; smaller and new ERP systems are likely to use SaaS.

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ERP Application Programs

ERP vendors design application programs to be configurable so that development teams can alter them to meet an organization’s requirements without changing program code. Accordingly, during the ERP development process, the development team sets configuration parameters that specify how ERP application programs will operate. For example, an hourly payroll application is configured to specify the number of hours in the standard workweek, hourly wages for different job categories, wage adjustments for overtime and holiday work, and so forth. Deciding on the initial configuration values and adapting them to new requirements is a challenging collaboration activity. It is also one that you might be involved in as a business professional.

Of course, there are limits to how much configuration can be done. If a new ERP customer has requirements that cannot be met via program configuration, then it needs to either adapt its business to what the software can do or write (or pay another vendor to write) application code to meet its requirements. As stated in Chapter 4 , such custom programming is expensive, both initially and in long-term maintenance costs. Thus, choosing an ERP solution with applications that function close to the organization’s requirements is critical to its successful implementation.

ERP Databases

An ERP solution includes a database design as well as initial configuration data. It does not, of course, contain the company’s operational data. During

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development, the team must enter the initial values for that data as part of the development effort.

If your only experience with databases is creating a few tables in Microsoft Access, then you probably underestimate the value and importance of ERP database designs. SAP, the leading vendor of ERP solutions, provides ERP databases that contain more than 15,000 tables. The design includes the metadata for those tables, as well as their relationships to each other, and rules and constraints about how the data in some tables must relate to data in other tables. The ERP solution also contains tables filled with initial configuration data.

Reflect on the difficulty of creating and validating data models(as discussed in Chapter 5 ), and you will have some idea of the amount of intellectual capital invested in a database design of 15,000 tables. Also, consider the magnitude of the task of filling such a database with users’ data!

Although we did not discuss this database feature in Chapter 5 , large organizational databases contain two types of program code. The first, called a trigger , is a computer program stored within the database that runs to keep the database consistent when certain conditions arise. The second, called a stored procedure , is a computer program stored in the database that is used to enforce business rules. An example of such a rule would be never to sell certain items at a discount. Triggers and stored procedures are also part of the ERP solution. Developers and business users need to configure the operation of such code during the ERP implementation as well.

Business Process Procedures

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Another component of an ERP solution is a set of inherent procedures that implement standard business processes. ERP vendors develop hundreds, or even thousands, of procedures that enable the ERP customer organization to accomplish its work using the applications provided by the vendor. Figure 7-15 shows a part of the SAP ordering business process; this process implements a portion of the inbound logistics activities. Some ERP vendors call the inherent processes that are defined in the ERP solution process blueprints .

Without delving into the details, you should be able to understand the flow of work outlined in this process. Every function (rounded rectangles in Figure 7-15 ) consists of a set of procedures for accomplishing that function. Typically, these procedures require an ERP user to use application menus, screens, and reports to accomplish the activity.

As with application programs, ERP users must either adapt to the predefined, inherent processes and procedures or design new ones. In the latter case, the design of new procedures may necessitate changes to application programs and to database structures as well. Perhaps you can begin to understand why organizations attempt to conform to vendor standards.

Training and Consulting

Because of the complexity and difficulty of implementing and using ERP solutions, ERP vendors have developed training curricula and numerous classes. SAP operates universities, in which customers and potential customers receive training both before and after the ERP implementation. In addition, ERP vendors typically conduct classes on site. To reduce expenses, the vendors sometimes train the organization’s employees,

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called Super Users, to become in-house trainers in training sessions called train the trainer .

ERP training falls into two broad categories. The first category is training about how to implement the ERP solution. This training includes topics such as obtaining top-level management support, preparing the organization for change, and dealing with the inevitable resistance that develops when people are asked to perform work in new ways. The second category is training on how to use the ERP application software; this training includes specific steps for using the ERP applications to accomplish the activities in processes such as those in Figure 7-15 .

ERP vendors also provide on-site consulting for implementing and using the ERP system. Additionally, an industry of third-party ERP consultants has developed to support new ERP customers and implementations. These consultants provide knowledge gained through numerous ERP implementations. Such knowledge is valued because most organizations go through an ERP conversion only once. Ironically, having done so, they now know how to do it. Consequently, some employees, seasoned by an ERP conversion with their employer, leave that company to become ERP consultants.

Figure 7-15 SAP Ordering Process

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Source: Based on Thomas A. Curran, Andrew Ladd, and Dennis Ladd, SAP/R/3 Reporting Business and Intelligence, 1st ed. copyright

2000.

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Industry-Specific Solutions

As you can tell, considerable work needs to be done to customize an ERP application to a particular customer. To reduce that work, ERP vendors provide starter kits for specific industries called industry-specific solutions . These solutions contain program and database configuration files as well as process blueprints that apply to ERP implementations in specific industries. Over time, SAP, which first provided such solutions, and other ERP vendors created dozens of such starter kits for manufacturing, sales and distribution, healthcare, and other major industries.

Which Companies Are the Major ERP Vendors?

Although more than 100 different companies advertise ERP products, not all of those products meet the minimal ERP criteria. Even of those that do, the bulk of the market is held by the five vendors shown in Figure 7-16 . This figure shows market rank rather than market share because it is difficult to obtain comparable revenue numbers. Infor is owned by private equity investors and does not publish financial data. Its ranking is based on what little sales data is publicly available. Microsoft’s ERP revenue is combined with its CRM revenue, and its true ERP revenue is unknown. Similarly, Oracle and SAP combine ERP revenue with revenue from other products. Sage revenue is an amalgam of ERP, CRM, and financial-oriented functional solutions.

Figure 7-16 SAP Characteristics of Top ERP Vendors

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Source: Based on Louis Columbus. “Gartner’s ERP Market Share Update Shows The Future Of Cloud ERP Is Now,” Forbes, May 12,

2014. http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2014/05/12/gartners-erp-market-share-update-shows-the-future-of-cloud-erp-is-

now/, accessed April 9, 2015.

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Q7-6 What Are the Challenges of Implementing and Upgrading Enterprise Information Systems? Implementing new enterprise systems, whether CRM, ERP, or EAI, is challenging, difficult, expensive, and risky. It is not unusual for enterprise system projects to be well over budget and a year or more late. In addition to new ERP implementations, numerous organizations implemented ERP 15 or 20 years ago and now need to upgrade their ERP installation to meet new requirements. If you work in an organization that is already using enterprise systems, you may find yourself engaged in a significant upgrade effort. Whether from a new implementation or an upgrade, expense and risks arise from five primary factors (see Figure 7-17 ).

Collaborative Management

Unlike departmental systems in which a single department manager is in charge, enterprise systems have no clear boss. Examine the discharge process in Figure 7-7 ; there is no manager of discharge. The discharge

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process is a collaborative effort among many departments (and customers).

With no single manager, who resolves the disputes that inevitably arise? All of these departments ultimately report to the CEO, so there is a single boss over all of them, but employees can’t go to the CEO with a problem about, say, coordinating discharge activities between nursing and housekeeping. The CEO would throw them out of his or her office. Instead, the organization needs to develop some sort of collaborative management for resolving process issues.

Usually this means that the enterprise develops committees and steering groups for providing enterprise process management. Although this can be an effective solution, and in fact may be the only solution, the work of such groups is both slow and expensive.

Requirements Gaps

As stated in Q4, few organizations today create their own enterprise systems from scratch. Instead, they license an enterprise product that provides specific functions and features and that includes inherent procedures. But such licensed products are never a perfect fit. Almost always there are gaps between the organization’s requirements and the application’s capabilities.

The first challenge is identifying the gaps. To specify a gap, an organization must know both what it needs and what the new product does. However, it can be very difficult for an organization to determine what it needs; that difficulty is one reason organizations choose to license rather than to build. Further, the features and functions of complex products like CRM or ERP

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are not easy to identify. Thus, gap identification is a major task when implementing enterprise systems.

Figure 7-17 Five Primary Factors

The second challenge is deciding what to do with gaps, once they are identified. Either the organization needs to change the way it does things to adapt to the new application, or the application must be altered to match what the organization does. Either choice is problematic. Employees will resist change, but paying for alterations is expensive, and, as noted in Chapter 4 , the organization is committing to maintaining those alterations as the application is changed over time. Here, organizations fill gaps by choosing their lesser regret.

Transition Problems

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Transitioning to a new enterprise system is also difficult. The organization must somehow change from using isolated departmental systems to using the new enterprise system, while continuing to run the business. It’s like having heart surgery while running a 100-yard dash.

Such transitions require careful planning and substantial training. Inevitably, problems will develop. Knowing this will occur, senior management needs to communicate the need for the change to the employees and then stand behind the new system as the kinks are worked out. It is an incredibly stressful time for all involved. We will discuss development techniques and implementation strategies further in Chapter 10 .

Employee Resistance

People resist change. Change requires effort and engenders fear. Considerable research and literature exist about the reasons for change resistance and how organizations can deal with it. Here we will summarize the major principles.

First, senior-level management needs to communicate the need for the change to the organization and reiterate this, as necessary, throughout the transition process. Second, employees fear change because it threatens self-efficacy , which is a person’s belief that he or she can be successful at his or her job. To enhance confidence, employees need to be trained and coached on the successful use of the new system. Word-of-mouth is a very powerful factor, and in some cases key users are trained ahead of time to create positive buzz about the new system. Video demonstrations of employees successfully using the new system are also effective.

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Third, in many ways, the primary benefits of a new ERP system are felt by the accounting and finance departments and the senior management. Many of the employees who are asked to change their activities to implement ERP will not receive any direct benefit from it. Therefore, employees may need to be given extra inducement to change to the new system. As one experienced change consultant said, “Nothing succeeds like praise or cash, especially cash.” Straight-out pay for change is bribery, but contests with cash prizes among employees or groups can be very effective at inducing change.

Implementing new enterprise systems can solve many problems and bring great efficiency and cost savings to an organization, but it is not for the faint of heart.

New Technology

Emerging, new technology affects all information systems, but it affects enterprise systems particularly because of their importance and their value. Consider, for example, the cloud. Because of the cost savings of cloud- based computing, organizations would like to move their enterprise systems to the cloud. But legal, risk, and business policy factors may make such a move infeasible. The organization may be required to keep physical control over its data. When moving it to the cloud, the cloud vendor controls the physical location of the data, and that location might not even be in the same country as the organization. So, some sort of hybrid model may need to be devised (see Q7-8).

Similar comments pertain to mobile technology. Employees want to use mobile devices to access and even modify enterprise system data. But mobile devices are just that—mobile. The enterprise system may be

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exposed to considerable risk while outside the control of the organization. And ERP data is a juicy target for crime (see “One Stop Shopping” on pages 280–281). These factors don’t mean organizations cannot use new technology with enterprise systems, but they do add challenges.

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Q7-7 How Do Inter-enterprise IS Solve the Problems of Enterprise Silos? The discussion in Q7-4 illustrated the primary ways that enterprise systems solve the problems of workgroup information silos. In this question we will use the PRIDE example to show you how inter-enterprise systems can accomplish the same for enterprise silos. (The transition is shown by the lower arrow leading to the bottom row in Figure 7-6 , page 259.)

Figure 7-18 shows the information silos that exist among healthcare providers, health clubs, and patients, the principal PRIDE users. Providers keep track of patient histories and maintain records of exercise recommendations, which are called exercise prescriptions in the PRIDE system. Health clubs maintain membership, class, personal trainer, and exercise performance data. At the club, the latter is gathered automatically from exercise equipment and member heart monitors and stored in a club database. At home, individuals generate exercise data on heart monitors and equipment; those data are recorded in mobile devices using exercise watches.

The isolation of this exercise data causes problems. For example, doctors would like to have reports on exercise data stored in patient devices and in

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health clubs. Patients would like to have prescription data from their providers as well as exercise data from their time at health clubs. Health clubs would like to have exercise prescriptions and home workout data to integrate with the data they have. All three entities would like to produce reports from the integrated data.

Figure 7-19 shows the structure of an inter-enterprise system that meets the goals of the three types of participant. In this figure, the labeled rectangles inside the cloud represent mobile applications that could be native, thin-client, or both. Some of the application processing might be done on cloud servers as well as on the mobile devices. Those design decisions are not shown. As illustrated, this system assumes that all users receive reports on mobile devices but, because of the large amount of keying involved, that healthcare providers submit and manage prescriptions using a personal computer.

As you can see, prescription and exercise data are integrated in the PRIDE database; that integrated data is processed by a reporting application (Chapter 9 ) to create and distribute the reports as shown.

Systems like that shown in Figure 7-19 are referred to as distributed systems because applications processing is distributed across multiple computing devices. Standards such as http, https, html5, css3, JavaScript, and SOA using Web services enable programs to receive data from, and display data to, a variety of mobile and desktop devices.

PRIDE data is requested and delivered using JSON.

Figure 7-18 Information Silos Without PRIDE

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Figure 7-19 Inter-enterprise PRIDE System

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