ABSTRACT
Organisations find that further spending on automation provides fewer and fewer gains in productivity, and that integration is necessary if they are to make full use of the data held. Integrated systems allow data to be combined, analysed, compared and interpreted in ways which facilitate innovation. Those considering integration as the next step forward are faced with a number of major problems, for instance:
• current systems are based on manual processes, many of which are outdated; • the costs of developing fully integrated systems are massive; • integrated systems are large in scale and highly complex to develop; • their development involves much disruption; • project development timescales are lengthy; • the large, all embracing integrated system may prove to be too unwieldy
to meet the needs of markets which are becoming more and more individualised, specialised and fragmented;
• with rapidly changing markets these systems may be obsolete by the time they are installed.
