B2B Integration : A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) 115
The leaders in the CRM software market include Siebel Systems,
Vantive, PeopleSoft and Clarify. The lines between CRM and ERP are
quickly becoming blurred as vendors from traditional ERP and CRM
markets cross over to each other's markets in an effort to create the
complete, enterprise e-business solution.
4.6.6. CRM and EAI
The CRM system is based on integration hub-and-spoke architecture,
rather than a point-to-point based architecture. The integration hub is
the source of all business data. But, how does the integration hub get its
data? The answer is through EAI, which retrieves, transforms and feeds
the CRM system with the data from multiple applications like SCM,
ERP and legacy systems.
4.6.7. Supply Chain Management (SCM)
SCM system integrates forecasting, planning and execution, thereby
providing complete visibility across the supply chain.
We have discussed the characteristics and features of SCM systems
at great length in the chapter on supply chain management.
4.7. Leading EAI Solutions
Although there are several companies that provide EAI solutions, in this
section we will discuss only the prominent ones.
4.7.1. BEA eLink
The BEA eLink is a suite of enterprise application integration (EAI)
products that includes BEA Data Integration Option — for data
normalization, transformation and routing, BEA Business Process
Option — for process automation and BEA eLink Adapters for
enterprise applications, mainframes and other environments — for
application connectivity.