Growing enterprises can leverage technology to create a market differentiator in the fiercely competitive business space if they are able to put in the right IT components, integrate them effectively and create a strong platform earlier in the lifecycle

Emerging enterprises need to build a solid foundation of scalable, reliable and manageable set of business processes that can ensure smooth operations with only a need for “management by exception”. This will enable the management team to focus on the business strategies and not worry about the day-to-day operations. Laying the foundation of the business processes is a set of enterprise applications that soon become the information backbone of different teams. While there are ERP systems that cover the breadth of functionality across the organization, the cost & effort implications to implement & manage one complex application may not justify the ROI in the short term. Organizations that have a stable process model, strong technical team & the required budget & time can go in for an all-in-one ERP solution.

Most organizations on the other hand follow the 80-20 rule and tackle the top 20% of the critical process at a given time and look out for suitable products or build in-house applications that are aligned to the particular area in focus. Over time different applications are added to cover the complete scope of the Organizational process.

The key to the success of this model is ensuring that the initial IT architecture is defined & aligned with the business growth plan and that the different components can integrate effectively. The IT framework should be:

Scalable enough to add resources as and when business grows;
Flexible enough to bring in additional functionality by extending or bringing in new applications;
Reliable in ensuring smooth process & information;
Integrate different application and provide a simple & unified interface to the end users.

Ensuring a good IT architecture earlier in the organization’s life cycle can guarantee that IT integration will not come in the way of business growth. The considerations listed below will help organization identify the right framework for their critical business processes.

Product Architecture – Ensure that the applications are all web based and can work on most standard browsers. This will enable your teams across the globe to access the application through Internet and can also drive the choice of the OS at the desktop level. Centralized information databases can also be achieved using this Architecture that can greatly reduce the cost of information management.
Technology Stack – In most organizations the competition is typically between Windows & Linux OS. Many new implementations of standalone applications (like Mail, Web Site) are moving to Linux platform (unless the organization has a strong team collaboration requirement). But for the enterprise application, consider the support cost, the technical skills availability and product availability on the specific platform to decide on the Technology Stack. Once identified, it is also better to standardize the platform for the new applications that are brought into the organization. It is also necessary to standardize the database technology used across all applications.

Define business Process – A clear definition of the biz processes that need to be implemented in the product has to be drawn out before implementation of the product. This needs to be driven by the concerned functional department with a clear objective for automation of the processes.

Application Integration – since adding multiple application components would expand the functionality, it is very important that the product selected provides the capability for integration with other applications. With newer application standardizing on the “Service Oriented Architecture”, this can be a measure to evaluate the application level integration of the products. It is important to identify the points for integration needed in each application based on the business process requirements. Failure to do so can result in costly rework at a later point in time.

Data Integration – Data in the organization would be distributed across different databases of different applications. It is easier to pull data from multiple databases for MIS reporting only if there is a standard data format and code used across all applications. For example, Customer ID used in the CRM application should be the same as that used in the billing application. If this is not managed correctly, there would be duplication of data across applications in different forms and it would become difficult to consolidate information across multiple databases. Time spent in this effort is worth its while in the long run. One critical data level integration model that has a separate standard defined is “Single Sign On”. This provides a unique identification of user across all the applications and can simplify the application integration process.

Redundancy – While the MTBF of the IT components are increasing rapidly, it is still important to provide for the right level of redundancy to handle failure of each critical component in the technology stack. A business risk analysis on the impact of each failure can help in prioritizing and balancing the cost against business needs. Evaluation of a need for a Disaster Recovery site is also important.

Data lifecycle management – With the organization relying of the accuracy of the information provided by the applications, it is critical to have a complete data life cycle management process put in place that looks at the IT governance and the data criticality requirements. The complete backup mechanism needs to be driven by the restoration requirement of the data.

Network – With fully centralized deployment of applications and growing reach of the Internet, there has been rapid growth and standardization of the technologies required in the LAN & WAN interface network. Since this is a vast topic of its own, I will not cover more details on the network technology here. But it has its own importance and needs due consideration due to convergence of multiple communication technologies.

Security – Once the systems are up and running, there is also a high risk of attacks & threats, both internal & external that need to be minimized and managed. Security should never be considered as an afterthought but needs to be part and parcel of all IT considerations, design & architecture. The ISO 27000 standard provide guidelines for evaluating the biz risk due to any of the security threats and recommended strategies for minimizing the impact of the same.

 Infrastructure Management – Last but not the least is to have a clear support process and team that can provide the first & second line of support to the Users and handle any IT operational/application issues. ITIL guidelines provide a collection of best practices that can be tailored to the requirement of any organizational support. Service providers offering complete IT Managed Service can also be considered for total IT outsourcing. It is important to have a SLA & performance measurement criteria clearly defined to the support team (whether in-house or out-sourced) to have a smooth IT operations.

Growing enterprises can leverage technology to create a market differentiator in the fiercely competitive business space if they are able to put in the right IT components, integrate them effectively and create a strong platform earlier in the lifecycle. A good IT vision and the management drive to get the best out of the IT infrastructure aligned with the business goals can go a long way in the successful implementation and integration of the IT infrastructure.

The author is the CTO, Vitage Technologies