However, Web services is promising to make the process of connecting best-of-breed applications simpler and less costly than it has been in the past, when complicated interfaces were required to integrate solutions from different vendors. In fact, some say Web services may lead to the Holy Grail, allowing companies to link best-of-breed apps for a seamless and much more flexible enterprise wide system. Even enterprise application suite vendors such as OracleOracle, SAPSAP and Siebel are making their modules compatible with a Web services infrastructure. Alles zu Oracle auf CIO.de Alles zu SAP auf CIO.de

"There's a strong backlash emerging against these large enterprise application suites, particularly in these tough economic times," says John Hagel, a Burlingame, Calif.-based management consultant and author of the recently published book Out of the Box: Strategies for Achieving Profits Today and Growth Tomorrow Through Web Services. "Today, CIOs are looking for low costs, short lead times and near-term business impact, which is the polar opposite of the enterprise application suite proposition."

The Case Against Enterprise Suites

Neil A. Hastie, CIO of TruServ, the Chicago-based parent company of the True Value hardware chain, was never a big believer in enterprise application packages. "I was the anti-one-size-fits-all ERP guy before it was in vogue," boasts Hastie. "I still don't know of any ERP system that's totally integrated. There's no one suite that will solve everything for everyone."

Hastie got religion after spending $10 million on a 1998 Oracle ERP implementation at Fel-Pro, the gasket manufacturing company acquired by Southfield, Mich.-based Federal Mogul. Hastie found that Oracle's order management system couldn't efficiently handle the heavy transaction volume at Fel-Pro. "It wasn't vast or flexible enough," says Hastie. Then he found that Oracle's warehouse management system wasn't specialized enough to handle Fel-Pro's distribution function; it didn't integrate well with Fel-Pro's materials handling equipment or scanners. Hastie used several different distribution packages, one of which he built in-house and another that was a bolt-on to Oracle.

"What Oracle was really good at was the manufacturing shop floor and financials," Hastie says. "They were just OK at order management. So we had to find another application to bolt on." (Oracle says that since that time it has introduced a completely new order fulfillment solution, 11i, that includes configuration, advanced pricing, order management, transportation and warehouse management capabilities.)