End‐to‐end business process scenarios

Abstract

Purpose

Enterprise integration endeavors are complex because they compel an organization to understand how its cross‐organizational business processes are enabled by multiple systems. For any large‐scale implementation project, specific business process and system information is included in the enterprise‐solution architecture. To understand the totality of any organization's business processes, managers must define and document all core and support processes.

Design/methodology/approach

The examples used in this paper are from large public sector organizations, but the underlying methodology and conceptual basis for the paper apply to any complex organization.

Findings

The main conclusion of this paper is that end‐to‐end (E2E) business process scenarios must be used for defining the requirements for any system implementation project in any organization. If the new system does not align with the E2E‐business processes, then management requirements cannot be realized. We also note that E2E scenarios must be considered when implementing enterprise software in a non‐enterprise environment.

Originality/value

The paper notes that E2E scenarios represent the requirements definition level for composite applications enabled in a service‐oriented architecture (SOA). Traditional implementation methodologies that enable standard software modules (or integration scenarios across modules) are not effective in non‐enterprise environments.

Citation

Frye, D.W. and Gulledge, T.R. (2007), "End‐to‐end business process scenarios", Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 107 No. 6, pp. 749-761. https://doi.org/10.1108/02635570710758707