INTRODUCTION

Since the advent of computing technology, computers have been used to enable business processes. In early use computers were primarily used for transaction processing. At that time the value added by using computers was in automating repetitive clerical tasks, thereby increasing the efficiency of transaction processing. Initially all automation was internal to an organization. Soon, however, it was recognized that this automation could be extended externally to the organization for major benefits, and workflows began to include external entities as well as internal processes. The next phase in computing technology provided an ability to utilize historical data to perform data analysis, which provided organizations with a capability to understand their past operations and to put into place mechanisms to improve their processes.

Proliferation of the Internet was the next phase in which automation capabilities were further extended to entire workflows instead of merely repetitive tasks. Automation capabilities started with simple workflows between an organization and its consumers that are known as business-to-consumer (B2C) workflows. B2C was followed by connectivity between various internal and external users that provided the ability to extend workflows beyond an organization and into the realm of suppliers and customers, which is known as business-to-business (B2B) workflows. The current status of this phase is connectivity between internal and external information technology (IT) in the form of application-to-application (A2A) workflows. Introduction of the Internet is considered to be a major milestone in the advancement of IT as a business enabler.

The current state of IT meets the...