10.09.07
E-Commerce Ahead of the Curve in IT?
Very interesting opinion over in ComputerWorld, about breaking the “application mindset”. Basically, the idea is that we have to change our mindset from thinking about applications to thinking about getting work done (usually on data) using services. Operating systems tried to change our thought process by having us start applications by clicking on documents, but most of us simply view that as a shortcut to starting the applications…
But E-Commerce is different, because we have a “transaction mindset”. Although I personally would like to see us evolve to a process mindset, I don’t think many B2B folks have an application mindset. The following scenario is typical:
- Order created in ERP system
- Routed via middleware to B2B system
- Routed by B2B broker for data transformation to an EDI standard
- EDI document sent via GXS Trading Grid to a partner
- Document received, translated and acknowledged
- Documented submitted to ERP via EAI system
But nobody thinks about all those applications, hops, etc. We think about the order, we track the order, and we manage the order. I never thought of B2B as being ahead of the curve in “thinking”, but I guess we are….
