Management Information Systems 13e
KENNETH C. LAUDON AND JANE P. LAUDON
CHAPTER 13 BUILDING INFORMATION SYSTEMS
CASE 1 IBM: BPM in a Service-Oriented Architecture
VIDEO
CASE
SUMMARY This case describes a business process management approach to automating and
Systems
managing the claims flow process in an insurance company using tools available in a
service oriented architecture (SOA). Illustrates business process management and system
building in a contemporary, service-oriented architecture environment. L= 7:21.
URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDfQunJ12Mc
NOTE Students are advised to view the Instructional Videos for this case and to read the Learning
Track “Primer Business Process Management” (Chapter 13, Learning Track 3) in connection
with viewing this video case.
CASE This case combines a number of technology, management, and organizational themes. The
technology involved is service-oriented architecture (SOA). The management themes are
continuous process improvement, process efficiency and effectiveness, and management
control over processes. The organizational theme is the importance of changing the organi-
zation’s business processes in order to achieve management objectives.
IBM is generally considered to be the largest vendor of business process management (BPM)
software to Fortune 1000 firms. IBM’s major competitors are Oracle, HP, and SAP (the largest
continued
Chapter 13, Case 1 IBM: BPM in a Service-Oriented Architecture 2
enterprise software vendors). There are in addition hundreds of other smaller vendors who
provide BPM software.
IBM’s BPM software is one part of a larger offering called WebSphere, which is a set of
integrated software products designed to operate on corporate intranets and the Internet.
WebSphere is IBM’s enterprise software offering. WebSphere also refers to IBM’s Web server
for these software applications.
WebSphere is designed to set up, operate, and integrate electronic business applications
across multiple computing platforms, using Java-based Web technologies. It includes both
the run-time components and the tools to develop new applications.
IBM’s WebSphere BPM software includes the capability to model, deploy, and change busi-
ness processes; the ability to monitor business events throughout the firm in real time; to
perform simulation and analysis for continuous optimization; to monitor business events in
real by providing key users with a visual display of business process status on customizable
dashboards.
All BPM software, regardless of vendor, requires real-time data to function. In most firms
this real-time data is stuck in older legacy systems that were not designed to work in an
intranet environment or to communicate over TCP/IP networks. Therefore most vendors
use a service-oriented architecture approach and provide software plug-ins or applets that
take information from legacy systems and send it to the BPM software on some scheduled
basis, or in real time if needed. In this way, BPM systems can be developed on top of existing
legacy systems, at lower cost and much faster than if the entire corporate software infra-
structure was rebuilt. WebSphere has a number of predefined adapters as well as the tools
to build customized adaptors that can integrate your legacy applications into an SOA.
VIDEO CASE 1. How would you define “business process management” based on this video and text
QUESTIONS reading? How would you compare it to business process re-engineering, continuous
improvement, and total quality management approaches?
2. What are the major objectives of BPM?
3. What is the significance of a “service-oriented architecture?” What difference does this
make for implementation, cost, and flexibility of the BPM tools?
4. Why is it important that the BPM software produces a Business Process Execution
Language (BPEL) model for the IT department?
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Chapter 13, Case 1 IBM: BPM in a Service-Oriented Architecture 3
5. What is the utility of “key performance indicators” (KPI)?
6. Why is it important for managers to be able to “drill down” into the data and system?
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