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I sometimes wish I had a time machine to take me back to the “old days” when things were much simpler. To manage your operation you needed a pencil and a notebook (you know, the one made out of paper). The CRM system was your list of customers, on paper, of course; the accounting system was an accounting journal, on paper; payments were made in cash or checks, made of paper. It was so simple and it worked...on paper.

I mean, even a thousand years ago, merchandise made its way from the Far East to Europe. Four hundred years ago, ships carried goods from Europe to the New World. And it all was managed using a pen and paper. It was simple and it worked.

At least it worked on paper.

The fact is that the pencil and paper evolved to become all the systems that we currently use: CRM, ERP, MRP, logistics systems and many more. We have developed better ways to manage our inventory, count our money and communicate with customers. Indeed, we have more connected customers that demand to know at any given moment exactly where in the world their shipment is. We have better informed employees too. If the previous era was the era where information is everything, then today we are in the era of: all information can be found everywhere.

Our customers are demanding it, our employees are demanding it and we are demanding it. We understand that the key to being better in your market is to expose the right information to the right person at the right time.

We are finally in a position that we have all the data that we need. Now we need to share it. Enter Microsoft SharePoint. Thousands of businesses and millions of users are implementing SharePoint to manage content, workflow and even simple business processes. But before we can share information in SharePoint, we must think of a way to bring the data from all those systems we have around us. We need to “integrate” before we publish.  Why? Well here are a few reasons:

• Not all information is located in one place.

Take customer information that is common to all, for example. The customer record might exist  in the CRM system but its credit scoring and balance is maintained in the accounting system. And that same customer’s sales orders might be maintained in yet a third system for sales orders, perhaps even a sales order system that is proprietary to your company, products and customers.

• Not all systems were created equally.

Some systems are more open than others. This means that they can play nice with other systems. But some are not as open. They are based on older standards that require an IT department with integration on their mind to have a powerful toolset or tons of programmers at their disposal.

• Your business partners are already there.

They are using EDI, XML, Web Services and other methods to stream-line their business processes. You need to find a way to communicate with them in the manner that they want (try and do business with COSTCO without using their B2B portal).

• We are in a whole new world with endless possibilities.

When you have your systems integrated and talking to each other, sharing data and processes and exposing relevant information you will find yourself in a new and exciting world where you can serve your organization, your managers and your customers better, faster and with less effort.

We may never have a single version of the truth, but at least we need to strive for a complete view of the truth and a meaningful view of it. You will hear me talk a lot about my belief that a repository based approach to integration is essential to achieving integration without programming. But first we have to decide what is important to us, what data and information needs to be collected into that meaningful view from all the various systems where it currently resides.

Come to think of it, I no longer want to live in the old days. Maybe things were much simpler but not as exciting as our era. This means that I am putting my Time Machine drawings back in the drawer.