A comprehensive integration solution needs a Framework that can cater for this variety of applications that can cope with different Styles of integration and which can extend these links beyond the organisation.
Aspects of a company’s information systems to co-operate as a single entity.
Some commentators have viewed this aim as an unreachable goal, but it is not – it is based on doing the simple things in a co-ordinated manner. Furthermore, this approach exhibits a network effect – the greater the proportion of applications that are working together, the more powerful the system as a whole becomes.
As the next generation of e-business applications, not only is there a need for integration with back-end systems, but an increasing requirement for Web-based systems for PAL to work together.
Example of E.Business System Architecture
Source from:
PAL E-business about
This technology envisages a scenario where application programs are delivered as services across the Internet, independent of operating system, programming language, and platform, and can be accessed as reusable components for differing functions.
The problem with the first generation of application infrastructure was that we tended to have a highly technical focus, based either around point-to-point solutions. Application A talks to Application B – or around a hub-and-spoke type model, application A and Application B both talk to a central point and are thus able to communicate.
This model does not generally match well to the actual business process, which typically cuts across application and departmental boundaries, an agent responding to a customer in a call centre needs to access Application A to get the customer’s details, then Application B to view the customer’s account, and then passes the request to someone in the despatch department.
This has led to software that takes a business-centric view – a category termed Business Process Integration (BPI). A model can then be defined that represents the actual business process, and approaches the integration task with a top-down view.
The problem of infrastructure of e-business in past
These years, determining the requirements for true e business architecture, lack
Of understanding e-business, the requirements for a true e-business payback
Opportunities, and difficulty in establishing a unified business solution across an
entire enterprise.
All of the issues are should consider when the PAL building new infrastructure of
E-business.
The problem before was seems that past PAL network professionals have a better
grasp of their current network architectures, but are less certain of what they need
in order to implement e-business solutions.
Typical Infrastructure problem comments
• The business do not understand technology
• The company wants systems but do not want to pay for them
• They have no interest or understanding of the implications of providing real infrastructure
• IT infrastructure is a strategic resource and should not be sacrificed for tactical gain
• The business funds a project but starve it after it has been rolled out
Integration on demand
PAL should build on the "software as service" model, PAL group award-winning Business Services Network is an Internet-based, highly scalable, fully managed network service. Businesses of all sizes can simply and cost-effectively connect, create, share and manage business processes within and between organizations without technology constraints.
Customers are the primary drivers of customer interactions. At the core of their demands is the following mandate: inform me, supply me, and support me - anywhere, anytime, via any channel and any media (e.g., voice, Web, e-mail, etc.). Although businesses want solutions to manage multifarious, multi-tier customer interactions, organizations also seek solutions that they can rapidly implement in either traditional or modern environments. Further, they want solutions that permit integration of their unique business processes and existing systems.
Equally important is the ability to optimize and translate a customer's activity and buying patterns into tailored content and responses. The ability to respond to and support each customer in real time and use business processes that recognize global and local requirements is increasingly important.
Other key market dynamics that drive the need for advanced e-business technologies include the following:
- Rise in multiple channels: There is an increased need to integrate multiple business channels such as direct sales, indirect partner, self-service, and contact center channels into one unified system. Additionally, companies need to provide an infrastructure that allows customers to choose their channel preferences to interact with the enterprise.
- Usage of multiple devices and media: Accelerated use of different communication media via multiple business channels makes it increasingly important to adopt solutions that let customers choose when and how they want to communicate. In particular, there is significant early interest in these technologies from the banking, brokerage, fisheries, and retail products sector.
- The extended enterprise: As the wave of mergers and acquisitions continues to extend the enterprise, it is becoming increasingly difficult to respond effectively and rapidly to customers, partners, suppliers, and employees. New technologies and services that facilitate the development, integration, and management of the extended enterprises will be critical to the rapid response and strategic movement of an extended enterprise as it adapts itself to the market environment to survive.
- Heightened customer requirements: Customers demand access to new channels and e-business and want faster, more personalized service than ever before. Organizations that can add value to a consumer's purchasing experience or win his or her trust are likelier to succeed in their customer strategies. Personalizing the customer experience is a key differentiator to increase customer acquisition rates, customer profitability, and customer retention. The personalization of customer preferences, product information, marketing messages, pricing, and discounts needs to be consistent across any channel.
To win more business and retain profitable customers, businesses will increasingly rely on integrated solutions that enable them to interact with customers via text chat, e-mail, voice, fax, WAP, or the Web. And, the ability to engage a new type of "connected" customer will be an important differentiating element in customer satisfaction and profitability.
PAL Key Points Strategies in Next-Generation
Implementing next-generation PAL strategies will require new technologies and Web-based channels that integrate all customer support, sales, and marketing activities optimized for verticals and that enable businesses to quickly deploy and adapt the system to meet their specific business needs.
More importantly, businesses realize the benefits of winning customer loyalty and upholding high levels of customer service. Some distinguishing features of next-generation PAL strategies include the following:
- Web capabilities: PAL has rapidly assimilated the Internet and Web-based technologies. Many organizations today provide "brick-and-click" infrastructures to interact with the customer. Web-based solutions provide intranet systems for virtual, Web-based interaction centers and to link satellite and remote employees to corporate systems; extranet systems to extend information and services to external partner organizations; and Internet systems to enable customers to execute service, marketing, and sales functions either on their own or in assisted, collaborative environments.
- Enterprise wide integration: The number of people and/or electronic agents that interact with any one customer is on the rise. That makes integrating customer interaction information and databases across the enterprise vital. Effective pal strategies must enable organizations to consistently manage and execute actions across the extended enterprise and to make information available to all access and interaction channels.
- Personalization: The need for personalization and the use of data mining and decision support technology have exploded in PAL as businesses search for new ways to identify purchasing patterns or customer characteristics and market segmentation information. PAL strategies need to pay increased attention to personalization and data analysis tools to enable human or automated agents to recognize customer needs and respond to them with tailored product and service offerings during the customer interaction.
- Globalize products: As businesses embrace the global marketplace, they become more vulnerable to customer diversity, language obstacles, cultural barriers, and varying governmental regulations. In addition to the obvious need to support multiple languages - and to enable the translation of contact center applications and scripts quickly - customer service center applications must also deal with multiple currencies. Again, although the need to support multiple currencies is obvious, the need to support multiple currencies simultaneously and automatically roll up forecasts and sales from these multiple currency types into a single currency type is not so obvious. It is also important that companies enable human and electronic agents to select their languages and currencies of choice dynamically so that they can be supported across either national or linguistic borders. Support for legal variations, calendar systems, and formatting codes is also important.
An Architecture Built for Sharing
PAL group will build from the ground up as a loosely coupled, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). The complete capabilities of a standards-based of infrastructure are available for the first time in a simple-to-use, self-service, web-based interface, enable PAL business processes to be rapidly built and deployed in the Network. A comprehensive set of services can be woven together to provide the connectivity, security, process execution, policy mediation and visibility required to deploy transactional business processes.
PAL e-business solution
The solution provides dedicated consoles for customization, administration, management, and connectors that link the core e-point suite to other desktop applications and back-end systems (Figure 2).
Figure 2: e-point - Point's PAL Product
Source: Aberdeen Group, September 2000
E-point Contact Center
e-point Contact Center provides agents with a Windows, browser-based solution as well as a thin-client browser-based solution for interacting with customers. The Windows product, called Win desktop, is targeted at organizations that require a sophisticated solution for a multifaceted, Windows-based customer contact center. The Web desktop is targeted at thin-client contact center operations and at the users who occasionally access customer information through a browser-based interface. Based on Extensible Markup Language (XML) and available in both HTML and DHTML variants, the Web desktop also provides server-based computer telephone integration (CTI) directly into the browser. Agents using e-point Contact Center can interact with the customer via any media including voice, e-mail, fax, Web collaboration, and chat.
Connect
Secure, reliable messaging that transparently mediates the technology differences between applications and services, protocols, devices, between our company and our partners and customers, all, without adding additional infrastructure, using proprietary protocols, or adopting additional standards.
PAL Group e - Business Services Directory
Dynamically discover access, reuse and publish services and business processes in all the time, privately or publicly. Virtually any services and business processes - from tax calculations to credit checks -- can be use by all the parties.
Private Directory Services
PAL group Businesses can provide visibility to their services by publishing them privately for customers, partners, and diverse businesses. PAL e-business can allow anyone to access or use their service, or only those developers, customers, or solution providers that they authorize, so business can be done confidentially.
Public Directory Services
PAL group is building the industry's largest, high-quality directory of shareable Web services publicly available, with hundreds of services in dozens of easy to navigate categories, ranging from construction services to banking data transformation database.
How many data base program allow user to use
- prospect lists, existing customer databases, website visitor data and other marketing information into a single, information-rich and easy-to-use resource
- produce highly accurate mailing lists in minutes, using as many qualifying factors as required
- perform quick and efficient, precision targeted direct marketing and e-marketing from the desktop
- track e-marketing recipients' behavior and automatically feed this back into the database to close the loop
- significantly increase response product rates, sales and revenue
- maximise the value of marketing information through greater understanding of clients' needs, wants and behavioral patterns
Other functions of PAL e-business infrastructure
So, after that, what other function that PAL e-business infrastructure has to help their business:
- PAL e-business can take customer html or text document, personalize it, and send it to customer email database, whether customer want to read it.
- PAL e-business has the infrastructure and bandwidth to fulfill this process from start to finish.
- PAL e- business can generate the contact details of all those who have viewed (opened company email) and clicked through on any of the links in it.
- PAL e-business can manage customer unsubscribe.
- PAL e-business can manage customer bounce-backs, and sort them by type.
Conclusion
Over all that we all understand that without infrastructure there would be no modern business. All processes would be manual and the enterprise would soon fall prey to all competitors.
E-business infrastructure must realize that they are fundamentally performing a support function for the business.
IT is providing tools to help the business perform their function more efficiently than before and more effectively than their competitors. It should be professional in all dealings with their colleagues. Even so if our IT is funded centrally from allocated funds us should consider our IT infrastructure as a business itself and be run as one
.Reference
- www.lucent.com/contact/current_survey.html
- www.smartframeworks.com/
- www.grandcenter.com
- ‘Advantaged technology system’, mc lean, Unite States.
- ‘Alexis marketing’, IL, Unite States
- <<E-Marketing Excellence>> , P.R.Smith
- <<Total E-mail Marketing>>, Dave Chaffey
- ‘Building E-Business Infrastructure’, Global Information Inc, Optima Media Group
- www.infor.com
- www.visiblemarketing.co.uk
