Bridging the gap between business and technical infrastructures of enterprise information systems: addressing the “vertical fit” problems

Abstract

Enterprise Information Systems supporting business processes are to be characterized by integrity, flexibility, and interoperability. Nevertheless, the “three fit” problems (considered in the current paper) obstruct the achievement of those desired features both at the business-infrastructure and technical-infrastructure EIS levels: “vertical fit” problems – concerning the business infrastructure; “horizontal fit” problems and “transversal fit” problems – concerning the technical infrastructure. We argue that for overcoming those problems, it is necessary to: (a) narrow the gap between the business infrastructure and the technical infrastructure; (b) facilitate the integration, communication and coordination between components in each of the infrastructures. Featuring our approach directed towards dealing with the “three fit” problems, we present in this paper our contribution related to the “vertical fit” problems. This concerns in particular our proposal featuring the challenge of addressing integrity, flexibility, and interoperability with regard to EIS business infrastructures. Moreover, we define solutions for guaranteeing interoperability between EIS business infrastructures and EIS technical infrastructures. We apply this to organize the BPIS (Bid Process Information System).