6. Discuus the benefits of service-oriented architecture over the traditional three-tier architecture.
Answer!!!!
1. we think you guys get the main issue from this case. The project's initial
objective or main aim was to use common business processes or standardize, systems and
organizational structures across the autonomous divisions within the USA. These
common systems across Nestle USA would create savings through group buying power
and facilitate data sharing between the subsidiaries.
Nestle achieved its goals, after regrouping and starting again from scratch, with SAP in
place, Nestle USA achieved significant ROl. The common databases and business
processes lead to more trustworthy demand forecasts for the various Nestle products.
This also allowed the company to reduce inventory and reduce the redistribution
expenses.
2. Dunn was faced with having to change the way Nestle USA did business and facing
employee resistance to the new business process he tried to push through. he assembled a
team of stakeholders that did not have a stake in the new processes. He had a lack of
communications with employees about future changes and was thinking to much about
the system architecture and not enough about implementation across the board. For Dunn,
a Web-based architecture system would likely be most appropriate. His company is big,
to say the least, has thousands of employees and is spread many miles apart. His
company has many different products, and many different subsidiaries or corporate
partners. Dunn needs something that is easy to integrate with existing internal systems
and external trading partners. In other words Dunn needs an Internet platform which can
provide a wide range of end users with access to ERP applications over many different
locations through the net. Because his employees initially resisted the change, he should
also look to make the integration easy to learn and adjust too, and most people are
comfortable with Web based platforms.
As stated before, Dunn's main problem was trying to integrate "seven separate
companies" onto one main system. Since the products that Nestle sells are not related, it
was extremely hard to get everything in sync.
It is said that Dunn knew the technology very well and her main goal was to have data
sharing to enable group buying in return reducing costs.
"Dunn actually knew Nestlé technology unusually well because of her long history with
the company. In 1991, as associate director for application systems at Nestlé-owned
Stouffer's Hotels, she was sent to Switzerland to participate in an effort to establish a
common worldwide methodology for Nestlé projects. In 1995, she was promoted to
assistant vice president of technology and standards for Nestlé SA, and while there came
to understand and agree with the value of establishing common systems throughout
global Nestlé because such a change would enable group buying which in turn would
reduce costs. Dunn also realized that common systems would facilitate data sharing
among subsidiaries. When she was moved to Nestlé USA in 1997 at age 42, she found
that her earlier recommendations from Vevey were mostly ignored. "My team could
name the standards," Dunn said, "but the implementation rollout was at the whim of the
3. The benefits at Nestlé and many other organizations are as follows:
• Integration of customers,supplier dan partners
• Improvement of customer and business partner satisfaction;
• Establishment of a Global Asset Recovery Services brand;
• Reduction of administrative costs;
• Raised productivity;
• Lowered IT operations and systems maintenance costs; and
• Enhanced security and business controls.
System Limitations
• The data conversion and transformation from the old to new system was an extremely
tedious and complex process.
• Consolidation of IT hardware, software and people resources was cumbersome and
difficult to attain.
• Retraining of IT staff and personnel to the new ERP system caused resistance and
reduced productivity over a period of time.
• Complexity of installing, configuring and maintaining the system increased thereby
requiring specialized IT staff, hardware, network, and software resources.
Business Limitations
• The change of business roles and department boundaries created upheaval and resistance
to the new system.
• Retraining of all employees with the new system became costly and time consuming.
• Nestlé incurred high initial costs of purchasing software, consultant costs and disrupting
the work flow of its employees
4. As discussed on this thread, technology should not be the only focus in ERP
implementations. It is necessary to focus on business process architecture, business
requirements, budget, project management, commitments from top management, and
continuous communication with employees informing them about future changes. A
systems value is determined by its usage or end-users.
If the ERP software is installed with a focus only on the system architecture, you may
have a successful installation of software but an unsuccessful implementation. ERP
implementation isn't just about the software. It's easy to install a new system. The hard
part is changing the business processes of the people who will use the system. Nobody
likes process change, particularly when they do not know what is coming. This makes it
even more important, and indeed necessary to include a discussion on organization
structure, business process and people, instead of just information technology and system.
5. In server-centric environments clients only need access to the Internet and a standard
browser like Internet Explorer or Firefox with a few plug-ins like Java Virtual Machine
and others. There are no other user interface applications required on the client. Thus, the
client can use any Internet device that uses standard Internet technologies such as
Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP), Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) for
user access or eXtended Markup Language (XML) for back-end communication
between an application and third-party system with the Internet Application Server.
In client-centric environments client devices will need installation of Software
Development Kits (SDKs) and proper configuration and integration with the client
device for the application to work properly. However, client-centric platforms are popular
in other devices like Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), Blackberry, and Mobile
phones that are increasingly used to access information from the enterprise systems.
6. In general, SOA allows for more flexibility, scalability and reusability than do the
traditional architectures. It reduces cost, accelerates movement, and provides a data
bridge --- these are some of the short term benefits. A major longer term benefit is that it
provides flexibility that the traditional systems do not have by providing services
anywhere on any system or network.
Benefits:
-Business-level software services across heterogeneous platforms
-Complete location independence of business logic
-Services can exist in any system and network
-Loose coupling across application services
-Granular authentication and authorization support at service unit level
-Dynamic search and connectivity to other services
Short-term benefits:
-Enhanced reliability
-Reduced hardware acquisition costs
-Leveraged development skills
-Accelerated movement to standards-based server and application consolidation
-Provide a data bridge between incompatible technologies
Long-term benefits:
-Provides the ability to build composite applications
-Creates a self-healing infrastructure that reduces costs
-Provides a real-time decision making application
-Enables the compilation of a unified taxonomy of information across an enterprise and its
customers and partners
Business Value benefits:
-Meet customer demands faster
-Cheaper acquisition and maintenance of technology
-Empowers the management of business functionality
-Leverages existing investments
-Reduces reliance on expensive custom development
Limitations:
-Inconsistent performance
-Requires enterprise-level focus for implementation to be successful
-Security system has to be sophisticated
-Costs can be high due to services being junked often
