B2B Integration : A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce

138 B2B Integration — A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce
levels of risk involved in terms of things going wrong and different
levels of impact on maintaining the system's integrity.
Using a logical approach process execution engine executes business
process models without the need to change states at either the source
or the target applications. This approach is recommended when no
risk of making any real changes to the organization systems is to be
taken. However, it does not inform about the problems ahead in real
implementation.
A physical read-only approach allows the process execution engine
to only read information from the source systems. This approach allows
the analyst to read and move information, but avoids updating the target
systems. The read-only approach is second in terms of risk and has low
risk in terms of the system's integrity. The model allows lesser power in
terms of applicability, but has better value than the logical approach.
The reading and processing of information has limited use if the target
systems remain unaffected. The approach could be a compromise if the
trading partners have differing attitudes to risk-taking.
A physical read-write approach provides process execution engine
with complete access to try the model on the source and target systems,
which is the aim of full integration. As one would expect, this approach
comes with the highest risk of the three approaches. Detachment of test
systems from the organization's key systems could reduce the risk. The
reason for minimizing the risk is the fact that any bug in the process
model would result in an unstable state in the target or the source
system which might not be acceptable to most organizations.
Analyze
For any process to work, it has to be supported with statistical analysis
and data from organizations and monitored for improvement. Regular
monitoring, recording and reporting of business operations will provide
a wealth of information for analysis, interpretation and improvement of
business processes.
The analysis part of processes is extremely important, as that is
where an organization learns from its inefficiencies and mistakes. There
is a feedback involved in this phase from all interested parties, in order
to design a meaningful process.