Budget cuts, other issues hamper some EAI projects

Computerworld - Enterprise application integration (EAI) was on the to-do lists of many IT organizations heading into this year. But like other capital-intensive projects, EAI efforts are falling victim to tightening budget nooses at some companies.
IT departments have been forced to postpone integration projects aimed at streamlining corporate data workflows and automating ties to customers and suppliers, according to a half-dozen IT managers interviewed this week.
"We went into [2002] with big integration plans, but budget cuts have put this on hold for now," said an IT manager at a large New York-based investment bank who requested anonymity. "We're just starting to explore this now."
The investment bank is evaluating core business systems that might benefit from additional integration, including the synchronization of disparate commercial banking systems that have been added through recent acquisitions, the IT manager said.
The problem for many budget-constrained IT departments is that "investing $2 million to integrate applications without a definable business problem just isn't happening," said Karen Pursch, senior director of strategic marketing at Emeryville, Calif.-based Sybase Inc., which hosted an integration seminar for users in New York last month.
But some companies that have managed to identify clear business needs said they're leveraging EAI initiatives to generate strong financial and productivity gains.
EAI "has been a big radar item for us over the past 12 to 18 months and will continue to be for the next 12 to 18 months," said Charles Irsch, CIO at Centex Homes, an operating unit of Centex Corp., a Dallas-based home builder with annual revenue of about $8 billion.
Centex Homes has found that if it can move information more quickly and efficiently between various systems, "it can make our people more productive," Irsch said.
Earlier this year, Centex used IBM's MQSeries middleware and Sybase's e-Biz Integrator and Adapter tools to help integrate its procurement system with its accounting and general ledger systems. The effort, which took about four months, eliminated much of the manual work once handled by accounts payable staffers, Irsch said. That resulted in a 30% productivity gain for those workers, he said.
Irsch declined to say how much the project cost.
But EAI hasn't come together quite so easily at New York-based Avon Products Inc., a $6 billion maker of beauty products that does business in 143 countries.
"As a business, we have been in a continuous drive to find the sweet spot of being a globally integrated company, but also retaining the entrepreneurialism and localness of a customer-driven organization; and our application portfolio reflects