These "windows" enable enterprises with it to keep abreast of industry trends and market changes, and make quick responses, so as to seize market opportunities. Whoever owns the Internet will own information; Whoever has information can occupy a favorable competitive position, which has become a new market competition rule. Of course, the strategic position of management information system in enterprise development cannot be underestimated. It helps enterprises to manage from simple official documents and technical data to complex production processes and cost accounting, and even assists enterprises to make more advanced business decisions.
The above-mentioned achievements of informatization are not achieved overnight, and it has gone through a quite long period. At various stages of development, various modes of information tools alternately occupy the dominant position, but in the end they will inevitably be replaced by newer and more perfect modes or technologies. Today's enterprise e-commerce and management information systems are no exception. At the same time, it has its own continuous fission and development. Then, a forward-looking question is: where will enterprise informatization develop in the future? How do enterprises view the separation of e-commerce and management information system?
Second, the modern "portal" of modern enterprises
1998165438+1October, Meryl Lynch published a research report on the enterprise information portal, which became a guide to the imagination of e-commerce and caused great repercussions in American business circles. The title is "Beyond Yahoo! The report "Enterprise Information Portal on the Road" estimates that the global eip market has reached $4.4 billion in198 and will reach $0.48 billion in 2002. In addition, according to the survey of Ghana Group Market Research Center, in 2003, 60% of Fortune 500 companies will be imported into the enterprise information portal.
It can be said that enterprise information portal (eip) or enterprise portal (ep) represents the development direction of enterprise informatization and e-commerce in the future. Enterprise portal, like other concepts in it industry, has no unified definition, and different professionals and institutions have different understandings.
The concept of eip in documentum company can be understood as a simple formula: enterprise file system +web, which adds the functions of automatically generating abstracts, reviewing and publishing on the web to its traditional file management system, and actually forms an enterprise knowledge portal. Its characteristic is that it is not objective. The second concept, represented by plumtree portal 3.0 and brio portal 6.0, is a web interface based on existing erp applications and host systems. The enterprise portal here is actually an extended erp.
Sybase believes that enterprise information portal is an application system, which enables enterprises to publish all kinds of information stored inside and outside the enterprise, and enables employees, customers and partners to obtain the personalized information they need from a single channel. These users use the information obtained from this channel to make reasonable business decisions and implement them. Enterprise information portal optimizes enterprise operation and improves productivity by providing accurate information to users in time. He believes that the enterprise information portal has three characteristics: a single access mode (browser+enterprise home page); Integration of existing application systems; Personalization. An enterprise information portal should be composed of three key parts: application-providing integrated user environment and services-integrating business operating system with scattered documents and work information, providing integrated services and integration for eip through extensible application program interface-integrating the application of various technologies in today's information technology organizations.
Case believes that from the perspective of information asset management, the information distribution in most enterprises is scattered now. In this working environment, knowledge workers will need a special tool, such as digital dashboard, to coordinate and browse the huge knowledge base of the enterprise itself, which is collectively called Enterprise Information Portal (eip).
Its characteristic is that it can cross the limitation of time and space and quickly transmit all kinds of information of enterprises to the market and customers. The content of enterprise information portal defined by Case Company includes four parts: enterprise situation, products/services, membership management and electronic market. The concept of enterprise business portal is based on enterprise information portal, which is extended from the trading activities of enterprises on the Internet.
Viador's enterprise portal can be summarized as a technical platform including Internet (business-to-business) and intranet (business-to-employee). The former provides a secure platform for enterprises to share information and services with customers, suppliers and partners. The latter helps enterprises collect global information and distribute it to employees, thus improving customer service, assisting decision-making and improving employees' work efficiency.
There is also a view that enterprise information portal, enterprise knowledge portal or enterprise transaction portal can all be incorporated into such a comprehensive concept as enterprise portal. Enterprise portal is "grasping the net", that is, a web portal provides all enterprise-related information and services to all people related to the enterprise, and it can even be considered as a web-based application.
Combined with the above definition, we can now imagine and describe the enterprise portal as follows:
First of all, enterprise portal has surpassed the traditional concepts of management information system and ordinary website. It is the combination of enterprise management information system and e-commerce. The demand, growth and diffusion speed of enterprises for knowledge and information are the main driving forces for the emergence of the concept of enterprise portal. The application of enterprise portal technology will surely push the information technology revolution to a new stage.
Secondly, the characteristics of enterprise portal are uniqueness, integration, personalization and integrity. It is with these new features that the enterprise portal has vitality. Among them: uniqueness is the requirement of enterprises and the significance of portals; Integration is the restriction of realistic conditions and reflects the continuity of enterprise management; Personalization is the preference of customers and the vitality of enterprise portal; Honesty is the high-level requirement of enterprises for information.
Third, the portal is only a portal, and enterprises can only use it as a tool to serve their basic goals. Any blind development divorced from actual needs is not desirable. Of course, the goal here refers to the long-term goal of the enterprise. In the short term, the effect of implementing enterprise portal may not be immediate, and it is likely to deviate from the short-term profit target of enterprises.
Fourthly, the concept of enterprise portal needs to be expanded and improved. Similar to the new concepts in other it industries, there is no ready-made "dictionary" in this emerging field, and the understanding of concepts is dynamic.
Third, the necessity of implementing enterprise portal
In foreign countries, especially in the United States, the implementation of enterprise portal strategy is not just empty talk, it has been included in the agenda of many large enterprises. Compared with the lively scenes abroad, few enterprises in China understand the concept of enterprise portal, and even fewer enterprises plan to establish enterprise portal. However, it should be noted that the development speed of Internet in China is quite fast. According to cnnic statistics, in June1997+February alone, there were 600,000 people surfing the Internet in China. By June 1999, the number of people surfing the Internet reached 9 million, and it will exceed 20 million by the end of this year. Among them, Sina, Yahoo, Sohu and Netease are the first choice websites for most netizens to surf the Internet. The concern of so many netizens certainly means unlimited business opportunities for the above-mentioned websites, but it is a huge loss for other enterprises. Therefore, it goes without saying that enterprises in China should establish their own portals to provide comprehensive services for customers, employees and agents.
Judging from the characteristics of network economy, speed and knowledge are the two pillars of network economy. First of all, it has become the common sense of the industry that only with the help of the network can enterprises get opportunities for development. However, where does the new acceleration come from after large and small enterprises touch the net one after another? It depends on who can contact customers, suppliers and agents with the fastest action to organize production and sales. There is no doubt that the enterprise portal is the driving force of the new acceleration.
Credit Acceptance Corporation (CAC) is a large financial consulting company in the United States. Before the implementation of the enterprise portal, the response time for each customer's inquiry was at least 4 hours, but now it is accepted immediately. The advantage of 4 hours is unimaginable in modern consulting service industry. Secondly, the network economy is a knowledge economy, and enterprises urgently need to make full use of the network, accelerate the accumulation of knowledge and grasp the development trend of technology. On this basis, enterprises can accurately seize market business opportunities and win profits. Enterprise portal can be an effective way for enterprises to acquire knowledge, integrate knowledge and accumulate knowledge. It helps enterprises to collect differentiated information of customers through personalized service, and discover new business opportunities by tightening suppliers, agents and customers.
From the perspective of resource utilization, enterprise portal is the most feasible way to maximize the development and utilization of existing resources at the lowest possible cost. First of all, the enterprise portal integrates applications that need to occupy multiple different hardware systems into fewer system devices, thus saving hardware investment. Computer Technology Corporation (CTA) is a national e-commerce provider in the United States. Through the implementation of enterprise portal, it integrates the existing procurement system into a unique, secure and personalized portal, effectively connecting more than 80,000 government customers and nearly 6,543,800+products from 2,000 manufacturers. Therefore, compared with the traditional solution with multiple processing systems, it greatly improves efficiency and saves equipment investment and operating costs. Of course, this integration also has certain scale restrictions.
Secondly, the overall maintenance cost of various non-integrated application software is reduced. In addition to newly established enterprises, other enterprises that implement enterprise portals, various application systems and information resources are stored in the form of databases and documents. These resources are often fragmented and the cost of decentralized maintenance is high. The new enterprise portal integrates the existing resources, and after some processing, it is finally integrated into a unified platform such as enterprise portal to provide more users. Because of its inheritance and integration, enterprises can realize centralized maintenance, thus reducing maintenance costs.
Thirdly, enterprise portals use efficient Internet as a tool for information transmission, which is cheaper than building or renting lines. The cost savings achieved by cac using enterprise portal instead of the original communication mode is $4,000 per month. Fourth, the manpower input has been reduced. Personalized enterprise portal has been able to meet the needs of customers to a great extent, which can save a lot of personnel investment.
Fourthly, the implementation of enterprise portal can improve the supply chain management of enterprises. Because through the enterprise portal, the distribution enterprise can obtain accurate customer demand information at any time, and it can answer some questions at any time: What products are being sold to where? What kind of delivery schedule is more in line with customer needs? Besides, what is the most effective distribution channel? Therefore, enterprise portal can help enterprises achieve zero inventory in the true sense.
Fourth, the open door has unlimited prospects.
Enterprise portal represents a new wave of it technology application, and will surely become a new idea of enterprise information construction. Open door means that enterprises can get higher efficiency and broader vision and space at lower cost. Therefore, for enterprises, enterprise portal is not only an it technical tool, but also a development strategy.
Informatization needs institutional support, and long-term mechanism is the guarantee.
Like industrialization, informatization will also lead to profound changes in social organizations and mechanisms. China's industrialization began with imitating western instruments, because we first realized the changes brought about by the application of various instruments. However, the deeper changes in industrialization have also led to changes in social organizations and mechanisms.
Problems such as information isolated island and low-level repeated development have long plagued the majority of informatization workers, which is extremely unfavorable to the healthy development of national economic informatization and social informatization. It is important to attach importance to the "number one", but information construction cannot be a one-time "number one project". Informatization construction needs a supporting system including management system, standardization system and research system to form a long-term mechanism suitable for informatization process. Only in this way can information construction develop healthily for a long time.
Individuality leads to confusion and low level, and information construction needs unified planning and management. The construction and development of information system is not only a matter of a certain department, but also an isolated act of one thing at a time. If there is no unified planning and management in the overall planning, project establishment, business process standardization, development process, acceptance, maintenance and upgrading of information construction, it will easily lead to confusion. For this kind of confusion caused by the lack of unified management and random system development, it is naturally not feasible to rely on computer technology to solve it, and no development team can solve it. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the unified planning and management of informatization construction, and realize the whole process and all-round unified planning and management from project establishment and bidding to development, acceptance and maintenance and upgrading, from qualification certification of development teams to standardization of enterprise business processes. This is the only way to solve the information problem.
The unified planning and management of informatization construction should be based on the standard system. Standards are the result of fully adapting to and reconciling the needs of all parties. Only on the basis of the standard system can the master plan meet the requirements of all aspects. If you don't understand that the master plan should be based on the standard system, the "master plan" compiled only by focusing on a certain project will often become a one-time master expenditure plan, which will not play much role in the development process. Some people call it "nonsense". It is the basic feature of modern management that professional departments implement management according to standards and norms. Information construction has been advocating "the top leader is responsible" for more than 20 years, which is actually a very unscientific management concept. Due to the lack of corresponding standards and professional management institutions with clear responsibilities in all aspects of information construction, many problems in the process of information system are directly decided by leaders under the circumstances of necessity, which leads to the randomness and blindness of information system development and management.
The essence of informatization is standardization, and the essence of standardization is long-term mechanism. Although the informatization construction should be supported by standards, the standardization problem of informatization is difficult to be effectively solved under the existing conditions, and the development of information systems often bypasses the standardization problem and is built without the support of standard system. This is a last resort expedient measure, and it cannot fundamentally solve the problem of informatization. Why is standardization so difficult to solve? Why is the significance of standardization so profound? As we all know, traffic laws and regulations can not be achieved overnight, but should be gradually developed in practice by constantly absorbing the experience and lessons of road traffic. It is not enough to have traffic laws and regulations, but also to have traffic police to enforce them. Informatization standardization involves all walks of life and a variety of technical applications, and it is even more necessary to have an informatization standardization mechanism with knowledge absorption ability, which can absorb the experience and lessons from all aspects of information system construction and the achievements in program design, function realization, information classification and coding in a standard and standardized form, so that new information system construction projects can be carried out at a higher starting point.
In practice, information standardization organizations still lack detailed division of labor. Most of them have set up information standardization committees in a certain industry, which are responsible for information standardization in planning, materials, finance, production, scheduling, maintenance and other professions. Just like a "general practitioner", he can't solve the real problem. What's more, it suddenly organized human resources to formulate standards, trying to solve the problem of informatization standardization in one fell swoop through one-time engineering behavior, and misinterpreting information system standards as informatization standardization. Therefore, for more than 20 years, although the developers of information systems have been calling for a standard system as the basis, although the higher-level units have issued various regulations on the informatization construction of subordinate units, and although most industries have established institutions such as information technology standardization committees, the results have been minimal.
To form a long-term mechanism of informatization standardization, it is necessary to study the development strategy of informatization and the establishment and operation mechanism of standardization institutions, management institutions and research institutions, so as to take measures to gradually improve the standardization mechanism from the organizational structure. This is a problem that the upper information management department should pay special attention to solve. Informatization construction includes information system development, standard system, institutions that formulate and implement standards, and research and evaluation of the responsibilities of standardization institutions. The standardization system, including standards, management and research systems, plays a decisive role in the final results of information systems.
Like industrialization, informatization will also lead to profound changes in social organizations and mechanisms. China's industrialization began with imitating western instruments, because we first realized the changes brought about by the application of various instruments. However, the deeper changes in industrialization have also led to changes in social organizations and mechanisms. Through these changes, the support system for industrialization has gradually formed. The deeper the industrialization, the more complicated its support system. If there is no effective support system, industrialization can not continue to advance. Informatization is the continuation and perfection of industrialization, which will lead to changes in social organizations and mechanisms, not just changes in technology application. The perfection and development of the supporting system of informatization construction will make the division of labor of social organizations more detailed, further improve their coordination and efficiency, and have higher knowledge absorption ability. Practice has proved that it is an "expedient measure" to treat informatization construction as a computer technical problem or a one-off engineering behavior, regardless of the mechanism, no matter how enthusiastic it is and how effective it is to solve a temporary problem. From this point of view, the key to informatization construction is to establish and improve the supporting system of informatization and form a mechanism suitable for informatization process.
Five principles should be followed in enterprise informatization construction
Enterprise informatization is a complex system engineering, which requires a lot of investment in software and hardware equipment, as well as manpower, material resources and intelligence. It is a long-term and arduous task to reorganize the business process and, if necessary, transform the organizational structure of the enterprise.
Choose the breakthrough point of enterprise informatization
In principle, from the choice of the entry point of enterprise informatization, informatization should be from the bottom up and from the inside out, because only in this way can we get data from the source, which is true and effective. But in fact, the development of enterprises is unbalanced, and the distribution of problems at all levels is uneven. Therefore, enterprises should make arrangements for information construction in the process of information planning. The breakthrough of enterprise informatization can start from the bottleneck of enterprise production and operation, and can also start from the unique advantages of enterprises.
Breakthrough from the bottleneck of enterprise production and operation. According to the principle of barrel theory, choosing the weakest link and the link that needs to be solved most in enterprise management as the breakthrough of information construction can drive the overall management level of enterprises to rise. For enterprises with strategic vision, strong support for enterprise informatization construction and high overall quality, enterprise informatization construction can choose to break through the bottleneck.
Starting with the unique advantages of enterprises. Every enterprise must have its own unique advantages if it wants to survive in the market and adapt to competition. Starting from the unique advantages of enterprises, we can improve the success rate of informatization construction and get quick results, and also lay a good foundation for the next enterprise informatization construction and enhance the confidence of the whole enterprise in informatization construction. For enterprises with strategic vision, strong support for enterprise informatization and low overall quality, they can choose to start with enterprise advantages.
Staff training should be carried out before informatization.
At present, the quality of most enterprise managers and employees can not meet the requirements of information construction. Training is the basic work to improve the overall quality of enterprises and promote enterprise informatization. Training has two purposes. First, let employees accept the concept of information management and lay the conceptual foundation for enterprise information construction; The other is to let employees know how to use computers and lay an application foundation for information construction. In this way, enterprise informatization can embark on the road of benign development. So training should be divided into two steps. For the training of ideas, training should be carried out before the implementation of informatization, and for the application part, training should be carried out in time during the informatization construction.
Enterprise informatization construction and business process reengineering should promote each other.
Mature software represents an advanced or standard process, which is bound to be different from the existing business process of an enterprise in one way or another, which involves business process reengineering. Whether to reorganize the business process or implement informatization first has always been a difficult problem that puzzles the informatization construction of enterprises. Ideally, a thorough business process reengineering is carried out first, and then the enterprise informatization construction can make the enterprise informatization construction cycle short and get quick results. However, because thorough business process reengineering involves all aspects of the enterprise, it is difficult and risky to implement, and enterprise operators often flinch. First, carry out local information construction. In the process of informatization construction, we should reorganize local business processes and gradually promote them, so that enterprises can see results as soon as possible, create an optimistic and positive atmosphere within enterprises, reduce people's fears, and promote the promotion of erp in enterprises and the informatization construction of enterprises. Therefore, it is suggested that enterprises choose the latter in the process of informatization construction and gradually carry out business process reengineering. That is, in the process of applying advanced computer information technology to implement management, according to their own management level and technical level, starting from solving the bottleneck problem in production, on the one hand, enterprises begin to integrate and upgrade management and technical basic work to meet the requirements of advanced management software, which is the core work of implementing enterprise informatization; On the other hand, for the working conditions and environment required by the software, enterprises should, according to their own situation, redevelop some management software that is difficult to realize at the moment, and modify some parts that are difficult to apply, so as to better combine it with the current situation of enterprises. The imported software and hardware are not regarded as "dead" things, but as an effective tool to improve the management level and technical level of enterprises, which is the key to the success of enterprise information construction.
Open up talent and network channels
The talent source of enterprise informatization, like other talent sources in enterprises, has two channels: internal training and external introduction. Whether cultivating talents or introducing talents, enterprises are required to first establish an employment mechanism suitable for enterprise information construction, form a good atmosphere of respecting knowledge and talents, and solve the problem that enterprise talents cannot stay.
With the continuous expansion of enterprise scale, the geographical dispersion of enterprises is increasing, and the scope of network channels for enterprise information construction will also increase. If the enterprise lays its own network, it will inevitably involve a lot of manpower, material resources and financial resources. Using the channel resources of network channel providers such as China Telecom, renting or outsourcing construction is a win-win choice for enterprises and China Telecom and other departments.
The choice of software is very important.
The choice of software for enterprise informatization construction is not only the choice of products, but also the choice of long-term partners in the future. From this perspective, software selection, especially erp software selection, can follow the following steps: (1) Select companies with outstanding goodwill, good business performance and rich experience. (2) The selected products can not only meet the long-term development needs of enterprises, but also meet the diversified needs in the future, with stable quality and easy maintenance. (3) The selected company has a perfect after-sales service mechanism and can provide services that meet its own needs. (4) The selected company has a wide range of satisfied customers, and it is better to have its peer case customers. (5) Try to choose the scheme that can go online in a short time. (6) All things being equal, choose the scheme with lower cost. There is no exactly the same model for enterprise informatization construction, because information technology is only a means to realize enterprise management and must be combined with enterprise management. There is no definite formula for enterprise management, and the informatization construction mode of different enterprises is bound to be different in one way or another. However, the construction of enterprise informatization is not irregular. Enterprise management informatization must be carried out according to the actual needs of enterprises, objective laws and certain principles in order to achieve good economic benefits.