Process automation and collaboration:
C-Business (Cont..)

Deploying workflows

Workflows model business processes and control tasks in a correct sequence. The workflow engine monitors and controls all the defined work processes, links all the necessary tasks and applications. It co-ordinates processes involving real-time conditions, events, messages and users.

Traditionally, all disparate applications worked separately and this impeded homogeneous processing. All the information was locked up in individual applications and was of no use to anyone else. This also led to devastating results when applications hung in the middle of an execution. Previously installed applications possess their own intelligence and storage logic. Therefore, the communication between the workflow engine and the existing applications is a complex one.

An enterprise portal infrastructure combines multiple software applications into a B2B solution. By reducing application clutter and combining processes into a single interface, a portal aggregates all like and related functions into a single interface.

Modern enterprise applications like ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and SCM (Supply Chain Management) can be described as islands of automation designed to deliver optimum results within their realm.
The Internet and B2B concepts demand building bridges across these islands. EAI solutions focus primarily on the movement of data from application-to-application as part of a business process.

With the mutual use of middleware and EAI (Enterprise Application Integration), even tasks that occur outside the workflow management system can be controlled securely and reliably. The advantage here is that complete integration of the process management with existing application software and all the information located within, irrespective of the platforms is also possible. Such improved control mechanisms and customer-oriented access to information increase efficiency and productivity.

Rapid response is a common expectation of customers, suppliers and partners and the deployment of workflow automation is vital to this response.
Integration of people-to-people workflow and application-to-application automation of EAI on a unified platform is what drives heterogeneous business process management (BPM).

Widening the scope of workflow

The Internet widens the scope of any concept. Workflow concentrates on managing and controlling internal business processes. Through the Internet, organizations can afford a low-cost opportunity to extend their internal processes and make them transparent to the outside world. Organizations can extend their services to all connected users, and in the case of extending workflows outside the enterprise; an organization can offer suppliers and partners' access (limited) to their internal systems. Workflows can then be deployed across organizations and multiple enterprises.

Enterprise collaboration is a process where a collaborative workspace becomes a platform for the efficient development of collaborative applications that can enrich a company's relationships. Combining collaboration and application -to - application integration fuses business space into a single podium where the entire business relationship can be created and nurtured.

As Gartner said, "By the year 2005, your enterprise will be collaborative…or it won't exist at all".