Fenton Online: An Instructional Case for Enterprise Application Integration

Abstract

Organisations launching enterprise-wide initiatives such as e-business, customer relationship management and supply chain management face a challenge of integrating multiple information system (IS) applications. In response, many organisations are turning to Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) and the associated EAI tools marketed by an increasing number of technology vendors to facilitate their integration efforts. This instructional case describes an authentic EAI project to integrate the IS applications at the mortgages division of Fenton Online, a provider of online financial services. The case first provides students with a brief introduction to EAI concepts. The case details, the main part of the paper, brings out several important issues in EAI, including the rationale for EAI, EAI project planning, EAI tool and vendor selection, business process analysis and EAI roll-out.

Keywords: Enterprise Application Integration, Project management, Fenton Financial Services, Case study