Collaboration & Integration: The Key to Becoming Demand-Driven

By Robert Sepanloo, General Manager of Interstage at Fujitsu Software Corporation

A common hurdle companies must overcome in their efforts to become demand-driven is the disparate nature of their information systems. With multiple applications, data sources and even formats, many companies find it difficult-if not impossible-to share mission-critical information both internally and with external trading partners.

An essential step in transforming your company into a demand-driven organization is to integrate your information systems, data, and business operations on an enterprise-wide basis. To do this, you need a common application infrastructure. Unfortunately, many companies have found that most existing solutions are too inflexible and expensive to be of much help.

However, the latest generation of application infrastructure solutions, such as Fujitsu Software Corporation's Interstage® Suite, provide an open, modular and flexible way for companies to integrate operations via the Internet. The Fujitsu solution facilitates the management of critical processes and data as well as supports Web services, allowing companies to design, develop, deploy and manage customized mission-critical applications in a secure, reliable and scalable way.

The Interstage Suite is a proven solution that enables companies to integrate their internal operations flexibly and reach out to customers and suppliers. More than 8,000 companies, in over 83,000 installations around the world, have made the Interstage Suite their solution of choice. This includes Toyota Motor Corporation, Nippon Oil, Zenith Insurance Company and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd.

Flexible Deployment, Quick ROI
Unlike earlier applications, which were cumbersome and complex, the modular Interstage Suite allows companies to deploy tailored collaboration and integration solutions easily. The flexible application suite can be implemented incrementally, as your business needs evolve, so you can get the best possible return on your investment-often in just weeks.

The Interstage Suite maximizes existing technology investments by leveraging technology standards. The suite builds off of Fujitsu's continued R&D investment and contribution to all major technology standards bodies and is compliant with all major Web-based standards including SOAP, UDDI, ebXML, Java, XML and XBRL.

Seamlessly Link Enterprise Applications
The unique combination of the Interstage Suite and Glovia International's extended ERP solution, glovia.com, enables manufacturers to share information seamlessly and to collaborate internally and with trading partners.

Manufacturers that deploy various Interstage Suite modules along with glovia.com can transform their companies into demand-driven organizations. Manufacturers can benefit greatly from several Interstage solutions:

• Interstage Integration Manager enables companies to control and manage integration points between business applications easily. Integration Manager allows the creation of efficient inter-system connections and supports the rapid transfer of data required for demand-driven organizations. The module controls and consolidates business transactions and data-both internally and with external partners-via its system-centric integration capabilities. Integration Manager supports XML-based transaction standards, such as RosettaNet and ebXML, making it possible to enable transactions between companies easily via the Internet. The module includes a server, adapter kit, and a suite of more than 200 application adapters.
• Interstage Portal enables companies to integrate a variety of disparate systems and services quickly and easily, in order to present employees, customers, and partners with one, streamlined, consistent visual interface. The module provides highly personalized, relevant, timely content; collaborative workspaces; and role-based tasks tied directly to business processes. The latest version of Interstage Portal provides a new collaborative workspace, Microsoft Windows integration, and content customization using extensible style sheet language (XSL).
• Interstage Application Server is the foundation of secure, reliable and effective Internet-based applications. The module provides fully compliant J2EE application-hosting capabilities as well as all the necessary low-level services, fail-over protection, and other J2EE features for building turnkey applications and packaged solutions. Interstage Application Server is an open standards-based platform with high performance, high availability, and high scalability and it enables companies to build and deploy Web-based applications quickly.

The Key to Becoming Demand Driven
To be more responsive, companies require advanced collaboration and integration solutions that can link disparate systems and share information via the Internet. Fujitsu Software Corporation's Interstage Suite, in combination with glovia.com, enables companies to integrate information systems, data, and business operations on an enterprise-wide basis.

To learn more about the Interstage Suite, please visit Fujitsu Software Corporation’s web site.