Participative Analysis of Systems Integration Opportunities

In an effort to increase information sharing while simultaneously decreasing costs, many organizations are moving to integrated data and systems. However, researchers caution thatthe costs and benefits of integration must be carefully evaluated. This paper presents a participative integration analysis methodology for determining not only what can be integrated, but also what should be integrated. Results of the initial case study show that a small group can effectively decide what should be integrated and develop a proposed integration strategy. The results also highlighted that participants intuitively used business scenarios to identify integration opportunities and analyzethe business impacts of integration. Therefore, the participative integration analysis methodology was updated to incorporate scenarios as the central evaluative construct. This methodology will result in recommendations for integrated systems and business processe