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Figure 7-13 Q7-4 How Do CRM, ERP, and EAI Support Enterprise Processes? 303
Sales Dashboard
Source: © Access 2013, Microsoft
Corporation

As you can imagine, many other questions must be answered as well. Because of its importance
to organizations today, we will discuss ERP in further detail in Q7-5. Before we do so, however, con-
sider the third type of enterprise system: EAI.

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)

ERP systems are not for every organization. For example, some nonmanufacturing companies find
the manufacturing orientation of ERP inappropriate. Even for manufacturing companies, some find
the process of converting from their current system to an ERP system too daunting. Others are quite
satisfied with their manufacturing application systems and do not wish to change them.
Companies for which ERP is inappropriate still have the problems associated with information
silos, however, and some choose to use enterprise application integration (EAI) to solve those
problems. EAI is a suite of software applications that integrates existing systems by providing layers
of software that connect applications together. EAI does the following:

• It connects system “islands” via a new layer of software/system.
• It enables existing applications to communicate and share data.
• It provides integrated information.
• It leverages existing systems—leaving functional applications as is but providing an inte-
gration layer over the top.
• It enables a gradual move to ERP.

The layers of EAI software shown in Figure 7-14 enable existing applications to communicate
with each other and to share data. For example, EAI software can be configured to automatically
carry out the data conversion required to make data compatible among different systems. When
the CRM applications send data to the manufacturing application system, for example, the CRM
system sends its data to an EAI software program. That EAI program makes the conversion and