Due to changing business requirements, silo-based applications are no longer sufficient to cover business needs. New requirements and new demanded functionality cross-cuts existing systems and applications. Lots of time and money has been put in theseexisting silo-based applications which makes them an investment that cannot be thrown away like that. Furthermore, the business knowledge about those systems often is incomplete due to a lack of documentation, obsolete documentation and key people who have left the company. Completely re-implementing them in a "Big Bang" scenario with a new technology for these reasons, is unwanted and even more unachievable, the business has to go on. Nevertheless the enterprise has to improve, certainly in this Internet society. "How" is the question we would like to answer by proposing a framework that marshals the necessary business and technical elements to integrate old and new applications in an enterprise application integration architecture. The chosen approach starts with (he analysis of the strategy and the business processes, which have to attain the strategic objectives. We evaluate then the underlying applications. Finally, the results of the evaluation are discussed in an interdisciplinary forum with business people and technology (resources) managers. Thus, this framework places the investments in ICT, like any other resource, in a holistic (business) context, so that the investments are aligned on the strategy of the enterprise. This paper is basedon the empirical method developed by the Department of Evaluation of the Belgian Ministry of Defence and its target public is strategic and ICT-management.
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