Page 551 - Handbook of Modern Telecommunications

4-82 CRC Handbook of Modern Telecommunications, Second Edition

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FIGu RE 4.5.3 Centrifugal CMA governance pattern.
coherent service/product catalogs) will be achieved through harmonization (not homogenization) of
local processes and supporting applications and infrastructures.
The general rule in centrifugal governance patterns will be that anything that can be done effectively
on a local level should be done locally unless it can be established that a centralization or deep homog-
enization can benefit the corporation. Centralized processes will prove beneficial, but they will not be
considered as superior by default to local (or lower granularity) processes (i.e., the burden of proof is on
centralizing forces).
From an IT infrastructure perspective, achieving this goal in practice will require an earnest invest-
ment in cross-organizational integration infrastructures, e.g., enterprise application integration (EAI),
interenterprise integration (IEI) with solid business process automation (BPA) capabilities. Requirements
will extend beyond the mere acquisition of EAI/IEI/BPA toolkit packages to seeking the vendors’ prom-
ise of a quick fix to existing application and business process silos among CMA enterprises.
CIOs should pay attention to the proactive development of planning and development skills in inte-
gration infrastructures. An obvious need for technical proficiency (e.g., networking, middleware, appli-
cations) must be complemented with nontechnical competencies in financial modeling and business
analysis interpersonal communication. Indeed, the most important challenge in strategic integration
infrastructures will be the planning phases, where IT organizations must be able to match business
requirements with nonstandard service-level metrics (e.g., flexibility of processes in time, space, and
scope; ease of integration of existing and future processes, applications and information, sourcing
options) and matching those with appropriate infrastructure development plans.
In Figure 4.5.3, business perspectives are:

• Corporate goals of achieving economies of scale/time and consistency will be achieved through
harmonization (not homogenization) of local processes
• Local autonomy means leanness and agility
• Processes are local (LOB or geographical) by default, unless corporate processes are proven neces-
sary or more efficient
Typical IT mandates are:
• Toleration of local application backbones (e.g., CRM, SCM, BI, production)
• Support of certain processes by corporate apps (regional ERP)