Companies seeking to implement enterprise information systems in order to leverage the digitization of competitive business strategies, have a wide range of powerful commercial and open source systems available to build upon. As I’ve written, the use of integrated standard components for MIS, inventory, accounting, billing and accounts payable, is an enormously powerful opportunity for the enterprise. This is the long-tail of enterprise information systems.
To achieve the benefits that EIS can deliver, the organization has to make key decisions about where to develop customization into the system. These decisions can be unclear and contentious, and require a lot of effort.
The answer is part of an emerging set of patterns specifically related to the development of large scale software for internal use: Own the glue. Spend as little time and effort as possible on standard functions that are available in common and economical commercial and open source components. Focus the effort of development on the relationships between the systems, because this is where significant value can be created by closely matching the functionality of the system to the real, detailed needs of the enterprise. The core value proposition of every enterprise is unique, and can be powerfully digitized in the integrations between standard, commonly available products for general business functions.
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