The 2004 ImageTrak customer satisfaction survey shows a big rise in interest in integration issues, with 70 per cent believing it to be fairly or very important. Just as tellingly, 91 per cent believe business alignment to be crucial. The two are related.

Business integration is as much about integrating IT with wider business strategy as it is about linking systems. Recognition of this fact is becoming much more prevalent, according to research commissioned for this month's Softworld Business Integration Expo.

Just under 60 per cent of businesses see business alignment as the key priority for integration projects. The study of 150 senior IT staff suggests that the understanding of the wider needs of organisations is beginning to release investment in the area.

Some 32 per cent are expecting to spend between 20 and 40 per cent of their IT budgets on integration tools by the end of 2004.

Projects so far undertaken show reasons for optimism. Half of respondents indicated that integration tools have been successful, and 50 per cent believe they had made a major impact on their organisation's IT strategy.

One of Computing's 2004 Project of the Year nominees, Barclays, illustrates the benefits. The bank wanted to build on the success of its consumer online banking product by developing its offshore banking platform to meet medium-sized and large organisations' banking needs. (See Project of the Year: Barclays).

"We wanted to build a system that allowed business customers to make payments, see balance information and integrate it with core financial systems such as Sage and Pegasus," Steve Lansdown, programme director at Barclays' UK banking division, told Computing.

Sterling and international payments, inter-account transfers and foreign exchange trading were also functions the bank incorporated.

By introducing internet banking for large companies, Barclays has been able to cut down on the number of dedicated PC banking systems that it has had to install for customers. Such integration is making big savings in maintenance upgrade costs, according to Lansdown.

In this issue, businesses as diverse as WHSmith (see Case Study below) and General Motors tell similar stories. Business integration is about joining the dots, and that can lead to profound change.

"Statistics indicate that integrating systems has become an important part of the IT strategy for business," said Liz Wood, portfolio director of the Softworld conference.

"By amalgamating their applications, many businesses are discovering a closer affiliation between their IT and business strategies."

The IT contribution to these business strategies is built on language, standards, systems and processes that are now reaching maturity. The contribution of Java and .Net has been a growing theme in Computing.

But the Softworld survey also recognises the rapid emergence of web services: 77 per cent of the businesses interviewed now use them.

And just under half (46 per cent) are considering adopting a service oriented architecture (SOA), a concept that has been around for years but has finally found the perfect fit with web services.

SOAs provide ways of designing applications as a series of autonomous agents, which use web service interfaces such as Simple Object Access Protocol for all their communications.

For the businesses that use them, SOAs provide a way of converting existing software into a set pattern of software components and networking protocols that can create a web service.

Service-oriented software has the potential to speed up application development, allow companies to reuse more code and provide more standardised, less proprietary means of integration among applications.

"Game over, then? Is SOA the ultimate architecture for the enterprise? Will web services be the panacea for application interoperability and integration?" asked Massimo Pezzini, vice president of Gartner Research. Not quite.

"Web services technology is still evolving, and not all proposed standards have been tested in real life. There's disagreement between vendors on some crucial issues," said Pezzini.

"So web services technology has limitations and can be applied in the most demanding scenarios only in combination with traditional approaches such as message queuing or transaction processing monitors. Of course, [some of] these problems will be fixed as technology matures."

These challenges will form a vitally important business debate over the coming years. The Softworld Business Integration Expo is aiming to make a key contribution.

CASE STUDY: WHSmith

Newsagent combines the old with the new
By Mark Samuels

WHSmith claims to have achieved 30 per cent savings by replacing its complex mainframe architecture with an enterprise application integration layer.

The newsagent has to serve almost 1,500 stores in 12 countries around the world. Its decision to look at enterprise integration was driven by a need to reduce system complexity, and improve service quality.

"We had an IBM mainframe and everything talked to it," explained Iain Winskill, systems programme manager at WHSmith.

"Whatever we brought in, we didn't want to replicate the existing architecture. We wanted a layer that would allow us to plug in applications and reduce the complexity."

Many of the legacy applications running on WHSmith's existing mainframe architecture, such as payroll systems, electronic data interchange and stock planning systems, were inflexible. A new retail management system, including demand forecasting and merchandising applications, was also required.

The challenge was how to incorporate these old and new applications within the WHSmith infrastructure.

"We had to phase our development, and it became clear that the integration layer could provide input from all these merchandising systems," said Winskill.

"We were able to create extendibility and scalability. And with the layer, we could deal with all the information together."

WHSmith looked at integration platforms from three different supplier groups: SeeBeyond, IBM/WebSphere and Tivoli/Microsoft.

Winskill explained that the IT companies offered similar publishing and subscribing infrastructure. But at the end of an evaluation period, in which two suppliers were invited to a proof-of-concept test, WHSmith opted for the SeeBeyond Business Integration Suite.

"Proof-of-concept allowed companies to demonstrate how quickly they could produce results," said Winskill. "We felt that integration was SeeBeyond's core business; it has been there before and it has seen the challenges."

SeeBeyond's eGate Integrator was used to link the new applications with WHSmith's legacy systems. The retailer's implementation of its selected integration system proceeded in parallel with the introduction of a new retail merchandising system.

This took place in three phases. Installing vendor Retek's Demand Forecasting merchandising application allowed it to receive and publish data.

Working with the SeeBeyond system also allowed Winskill and his team to see how the integration process worked before moving forward with subsequent stages. At the end of stage one, Winskill and his colleagues "modified the structural design".

WHSmith then went live with its Retek Merchandising System, an application that incorporates three functional areas: business foundation management, merchandise management and merchandise financial tracking.

Stage three involved the process of migrating data from legacy mainframe applications. The retailer will migrate data warehouse teradata to the business integration platform during October.

"The great thing is that you can take manageable chunks and test it before you go live," said Winskill.

Management consultant Accenture has supervised the three-stage project and developed many of the specialist interfaces, alongside SeeBeyond's consultants.

"Our own staffing level is 40 and we recognise that doing large IT projects is just not possible," said Winskill. "Accenture provides advice and boosts our numbers."

To date, 4,000 days have been spent on the implementation, a total that includes the installation of Retek's Merchandising System. Most of the time has been devoted to uncoupling legacy systems.

However, the business benefits are beginning to become clear. Workers no longer have to search the mainframe for missing information. SeeBeyond allows users to identify the location of files quickly.

"It sits out of site, but don't underestimate its flexibility and scalability," said Winskill. "It's still early days, but my view is that our response to customers and businesses will increase rapidly."

Winskill estimates that integration software has improved business processes by almost a third. Using integration software in the business requires effective teamwork though, particularly when it comes to old data.

"Understanding how your legacy system's components work is fundamental," he warned. "The reality is that your investment dates back 20 years. You'll have a handful of people who understand it and you'll be reliant on a few key individuals."

What's important here, according to Winskill, is effective process organisation. "Make sure they have the time, and be prepared for time management," he said.

Next on the schedule is the completion of stage three and the integration and migration of mainframe data. After that, Winskill aims to shut down the mainframe. For now, he's prepared to sit back and advise businesses on the best way to use business integration software.

"Every company is different. But you'll need to understand how it affects your business and how it will change your people. This is your major challenge," he concluded.