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Are your customer records spread out over multiple databases? Do you wish your ERP solution spoke to your CRM, SFA, and HRM? Sounds like it’s time for EAI.

EAI stands for ‘enterprise application integration,’ a process that consolidates and coordinates information and applications across a company. The best way to understand EAI’s advantages is by example:

Consider a small manufacturer who began business in 1990. It has used Oracle solutions for enterprise resource planning (ERP) from the start, along with proprietary software for some aspects of manufacturing and fulfillment. It spent a fair amount of money early on to ensure that its in-house software communicated with the ERP system. It added customer relationship management (CRM) software a few years later. In 2001, the company began selling online and doing real-time inventory management. This required more tie-in with suppliers to ensure that needed parts were always readily available. It also began online marketing programs to drive traffic to its website.

In short, this manufacturer grew like most businesses grow: organically. New needs and tools surfaced over time, and to stay competitive, best-of-class solutions were adopted – just not always with a complete understanding of company-wide implications. Every now and then it became obvious that an information bottleneck existed, or that it wasn’t possible to aggregate information for a particular business need. For example:

§ The record of an online buyer resided in the ecommerce database, but not the company-wide CRM database, so an eager sales rep tried to sell the client a product he already had.

§ A prospect opened a marketing email and clicked through to the website to learn about a specific product. Because the email marketing program couldn’t communicate with the CRM tool, the prospect was never tagged as a warm lead.

§ A buyer ordered 25 units of a product online, but only 15 were in stock. Because the ecommerce software operated separately from inventory controls, there was a lag before the company realized it needed to order more. The buyer canceled the order.

Why isn’t it easier to link business tools like the ones above? A number of factors may be involved:

§ The systems reside on different operating systems;

§ They use different database solutions ;

§ They were created with different computer languages;

§ They are no longer supported by the vendor that created them.

EAI gets around these limitations by building pathways for the technologies to talk to each other, enabling different parts of a business to tap each other’s knowledge and insight. The conversation can even be extended to different organizations, allowing data sharing between business partners. It saves time and money because it helps businesses reuse what already exists while adding new capabilities.

If you’re part of the IT department, it’s likely that you can imagine what EAI involves. If you’re not, you may have visions of long EAI project timelines and big budgets. But with today’s tools, EAI may be easier than you think. Microsoft’s BizTalk Server 2009 is in its sixth release. It connects diverse applications and creates, executes and monitors process logic that uses those applications to help companies create better automated business processes. Jitterbit is an open source solution designed for tech-savvy team members who are not necessarily software designers or expert programmers.

As with any technology implementation, EAI planning is as important as execution. Take these steps to support your success.

1. Determine your objectives. Document the business advantages you expect to gain from EAI and quantify them when you can. How much is the time worth that you’ll save by automating information sharing? What savings are associated with streamlining inventory?

2. Catalog your assets. Ask each department to make a list of technology they use to get their work done. To make it easier to aggregate feedback, provide a tracking chart so you get the same information from each team member. Ask how long the solution has been in use, the type of information it collects, the manufacturer, etc. Find out what it doesn’t do that would be valuable. What might be automated? What information could be input that would result in better business intelligence?

3. Clean house. Don’t spend a lot of time trying to make a piece of existing technology fit if there are newer, affordable options on the market. Chances are you’ll spend more money trying to customize an older solution and in the end will have fewer features than the newer one offers. Keep what can be reused efficiently and make a plan for replacing the rest.

4. Fill in the holes. Going through the process above is likely to reveal a need for new tools and/or opportunities to add new capabilities to streamline work, reduce costs and build capacity.

Thanks to EAI, companies are extending the value and longevity of technology investments – and using their tools in ways the original designers could never have imagined. Have you had experience with EAI? Tell us your story.