The Nexus Connected Enterprise Roadmap is a tactical approach to the development of modern business solutions with the aim of developing extensible business applications and services that connect people and processes to systems internally and externally. The main driver to leverage the greatest competitive advantage from software systems.

The roadmap is comprised of 6 elements; from redeveloping legacy systems and connecting systems together, to abstracting management information and creating plans to maintain and go on developing systems to eliminate legacy risk in the future and to protect software investment. Use the tabs below to view a summary of each step.

Unlocking data and processes in legacy systems

Connecting internal systems to provide over-arching functionality

Developing custom business application to serve the specific needs of the organisation

Leveraging data from systems to provide meaningful views on performance

Integrating with stakeholder systems to provide process and market opportunities

Setting plans to continually improve systems and eliminate legacy risk in the future

Roadmap overview

The Connected Enterprise Roadmap illustrates how Nexus technology can meet the modern technology challenges facing organisations.

Download the connected enterprise roadmap here: Connected_Enterprise_RoadmapV1-0-0.pdf.

The Nexus Connected Enterprise Roadmap is a 6 stage service proposition each identifying common stages of technological capability. Each stage describes the condition of an organisations technology infrastructure. In reality organisations are likely to experience a combination of the stages. In general though, moving all systems along the roadmap will result in a highly integrated software infrastructure that enables the maximum return from software investment.

The roadmap helps inform a future software capability strategy by diagnosing current status of systems and their drawbacks whilst prescribing a tactical remedy.

The 6 stages of the roadmap are;

The Nexus Migrate service aims to unlock legacy systems (old software applications) by either transitioning them to new platforms enabling further improvements in the roadmap, or migrating and connecting to data to extend functionality into other systems.

The Nexus Integrate service connects systems together to produce over-arching functionality usually involving workflow improvement of between departments.

The Nexus Improve service analyses business activities and processes in order to define specifications for custom business applications. Custom business applications can dramatically increase process capacity and provide previously unavailable views of process efficiency, especially when compared to traditional ERP style applications.

The Nexus Abstract service isolates existing and required data and builds detailed views of an organisation from the outputs (usually tied to KPI's) on which to make decisions. These systems are also known as Management Information Systems (MIS), or management dashboards.

The Nexus Externalise service connects an organisations systems to external applications and services, usually up and down the supply chain or with trading partners.

The Nexus Iterate service provides Agile software development strategies that assist organisations in building capability over the long term. Agile development works by deploying basic solutions in the short term while providing long term redevelopment services to ensure systems go on improving over time. The approach eliminates legacy risk and ensures that systems go on adding value over the long term.

Migrate: Redeveloping and accessing legacy systems

Old legacy systems provide all manner of challenges for organisations not least the benefits of a connected enterprise cannot be obtained with old systems that will not integrate.

A legacy system is based on either old hardware or old software standards. The most obvious image to spring to mind is of an ageing mainframes and tape reels, however in reality there is no specific timeline to determine when a system has come of age. Some of the most complex legacy migrations to new platforms involve relatively recent Microsoft Access® and network distributed ‘fat client’ programs. A system is usually defined as legacy when supportability and extensibility of the system become frustrated.

The motivations to migrate legacy systems to new platforms vary but are usually based on a need to provide support and/or extend and build onto the systems. Conversely the reasons not to migrate usually come down to:

Risk – Older systems tend to be difficult to impossible to find support for meaning that systems which are mission critical and required to have 100% availability pose a serious threat to the day to day operation of organisations. If the owner of the system is lucky the vendor will provide support in ‘legacy mode’, at some stage it would be expected that the vendor will reduce or remove support based on support cost becoming unviable.
Opportunity/Cost – As a rule of thumb the older a legacy system becomes and the more data and users it accumulates the more expensive it becomes to transition.
Improvement – Developing new features for legacy systems or integrating them into other systems is often purely economically unviable in relation to rebuilding the system on contemporary architectures and platforms.

Although the reasons to transition legacy system to new platforms are powerful so too are the perceived resistance to change by owners of the system. If there is no requirement to develop the system and the system currently works satisfactorily then the short term cost can seem high for little immediate benefit. Additionally these costs get higher for complex or monolithic applications, especially if they are undocumented or the understanding of the workings of the system has been lost in time.

The single most powerful determinate for a legacy transition can be derived from the specific benefits a new system can bring. Legacy risks aside, if capacity can be increased or costs reduced by developing new features of a system at the time of migration then there is probably an immediate business case for doing so.

Nexus can help determine what this business case might be by analysing the current systems and creating a functional scope for the next iteration of the system built on new a platform. The performance and benefits gap between the old system and the new system provides the necessary insight to provide a cost/benefit analysis of the transition.

Nexus builds applications based on cutting edge methodologies and technologies. Systems transitioned by Nexus will also benefit from open architecture that will support continual development and integration so the risk of the system becoming a legacy in itself is minimised. The Nexus Architectural Model (NAM) incorporates the best development practice that recent IT history has to offer.

Using such architectures not only allows Nexus custom applications to be integrated fully into other systems in an organisation, but also provides a platform on which to enhance and expand the functionality of those systems. See the rest of the steps in the connected enterprise roadmap for more information.

Integrate: Internal system integration

System integration is the process of connecting separate systems within an organisation in order to create opportunities for over arching functionality and visibility.

This process of aligning systems is becoming ever more important commercially for businesses to realise additional competitive advantage and in the public sector where visibility of information (connected government) is becoming a necessity.

Specific examples vary wildly depending on the specific form of the organisation integrating. For example, in business a common integration is from a sales system into a stock ordering system, reducing the onerous data entry needs of purchasing functions.

In the public sector criminal databases can be connected in order provide greater granularity, and the NHS is creating the Electronic Patient Record which can make patient details available through many systems throughout the health service.

A major source of system integration stems from the web. Most companies now see the economic and customer service benefits of providing sales and support through web-portals and web-enabled applications.

In many companies the web portal has become a major central role in integrating systems and replacing legacy systems. Web architecture has partly by design and partly through its natural evolution provided interfaces and standards for applications to work together and provide interfaces to these applications in the office (intranets), stakeholders outside the office (extranets), whilst also providing dynamic data to the public and customers (internet portal).

The interfaces, logic, and databases of this architecture can link into virtually any system designed around extensible standards. Most of Nexus’ own development methodology is based on this open architecture.

Nexus can realise value in existing systems by integrating with them and creating over-arching functionality. For example an intranet system built for the London Borough of Southwark has been successfully drawing on financial data from systems across the borough in order to provide visibility of expenditure to decision makers, and data to external stakeholders (potential vendors).

Also our ongoing work with H Tempest has integrated systems that manage total business processes from initial order placement (around 12 million orders per year) through to manufacturing control processes to final dispatch and billing. Providing a single system that controls the entire business process and provides visibility to management to track the entire process.

Improve: Custom business solutions

Custom applications provide organisations with systems that meet their exact requirements. Enabling the greatest potential for productivity which in turn usually creates much stronger competitive advantage.

All organisations are unique. Even if it is a company in a saturated market with many competitors, the particulars of the individual business processes have evolved to work in the way that best fits the culture and preferences of the people that form the company. Nexus aims to build applications that meet the processes of organisations in ways that seamlessly integrate people with processes. Systems that support, enable, and encourage productivity.

The best software for any task is software that has been designed specifically to do the job. That is the Nexus opinion and it may sound like common sense but the other option is to use proprietary solutions (out-of-the-box solutions) to fill the need.

The virtues of proprietary software houses have been well rehearsed by the organisations that create them, at least as often as they have installed the software for their clients. Their arguments for buying it sometimes seem compelling. It is our opinion that except for the smallest most standard of processes, proprietary software offers a one-size-fits-all approach that in reality fits no-one. The merits of custom solutions are clear and lucid:

You get functionality that you expressly ask for, that to works in the way that you define to the software analyst that designs your systems.
You do not have to buy functionality that you will probably will not use. Functionality that more often then not confuses users and detracts from the core business processes they need to focus on.
Proprietary solutions almost always require development work anyway to customise them in ways that make them usable.
Custom software empowers and further enables existing processes and often removes bottle necks rather then forcing large numbers of staff to operate in new ways, causing cultural upheaval.
Importantly custom software should be built with open architecture that supports the specific future development goals of the organisation, rather then relying on the future update from the vendor. The enhancement strategy of the vendor is unlikely to align well with the unique future user requirements. Indeed the ongoing support and development opportunities available from custom software house can be tailored to the needs of the specific organisation or application.
Custom software can be built around the existing software and hardware assets of an organisation.
Training, support, and system documentation can be tailored to the specific requirements of the organisation, additionally there is no reliance on the software house to continue providing support.
Custom software can take advantage of cutting edge technologies as and when they arise and are not tied to the legacy iterations of previous versions of proprietary software.

Nexus builds custom applications by providing 3 core services:

Business analysis

Nexus consults with their clients at a high level to properly understand the specific needs. This process involves investigating the specific uses of the software in the light of the users that will be using it. Once the user profile is properly understood the clients requirements are explored internally with architects and analysts to ensure that the solution suggested is the best possible for the client. Only after this processes do Nexus offer a proposal which usually (depending in the type of project) offers a fixed price for development.

Software Analysis

Once the scope of the project and budgets are agreed with the client Nexus uses analysts to provide specific blueprints about the system setting out the business requirements and the functional specification. This process engages the client at every stage ensuring that the system to be developed meets the exact requirements of the users.

Software Development

Our team of highly skilled developers take the system plans and build the application from scratch. During this process any grey areas that may arise about functionality or use are fed back to the client to ensure that the development maintains the exact goals of the client. The software is then released in phases alpha and beta which give the client plenty of time to use the software raise any issues during an extended warranty period where nexus will fix and bugs for free, and provide adjustments. Nexus also offer a documented change control programme to ensure that current future modifications to the specification are managed in the development.

Abstract: Management Information Systems (MIS)

Modern organisations have a wealth of information latent in their systems. MIS techniques provide ways to access that information into reports (usually related to KPI's in some way) that enable better decision making.

In recent times organisations have had enviable amounts of data on which to manage their processes and make strategic decisions. Data is captured from all points internally in the business processes from sales to dispatch and also vertically through the sector supply chain.

The shear deluge of data from such disparate sources can often make managing or basing decision on it tricky. Custom MIS systems reach deep into the data assets of an organisation and provide rich reports and tracking systems by aggregating data and applying business rules to the interpretation.

These reports can take many forms. A popular interface is the traffic signal based indicators that provide real time data on KPI's like margins and accounting ratios. KPI thresholds are set to return signals; green amber and red. Most MIS systems if this type (frequently called management dashboards) also provide granular information when the systems signal warnings from pre-identified situations.

Nexus Balanced Scorecard Application

Other MIS systems are business process based and can track the performance of manufacturing processes or workflows with organisations. These might show progress of manufacturing from parts deliveries to finished products and highlight bottlenecks along the way, or track orders from placement through to dispatch.

MIS systems assist management in ensuring the smooth operation of companies and regular use can give valuable feedback on which to base strategic decisions about the company.

Nexus can look at the systems currently employed by a company and isolate the data sources needed to reconcile into the MIS. We can then interfacing with a broad spectrum of software languages, systems and architectures and combine the data in them with real time business rules to create powerful dashboards.

Our systems are embedded deeply into organisations’ data infrastructure in within the organisations like the MoD (performance tracking of the Typhoon Eurofighter) and The London Borough of Southwark (spending tracking across the borough). Many of our MIS system are built into existing intranet systems.

Externalise: External system integration

Are you taking advantage of the systems of your supply chain partners to add value to your organisation?

Powerful over-arching value can be created by linking systems at various points in the supply chain in a similar way to integrating systems internally within organisations' functions.

The most obvious functions for this are for buying and selling functions. For example sales orders can be translated into direct purchasing orders to fill inventory. Conversely, the inventory of a supplier can be offered to customers through e-commerce channels. One of the most remarkable consumer applications of this in the last 10 years has been in the travel industry.

Tour operators, airlines, even car hire suppliers offer their services via various electronic feeds. These feeds can be connected to the systems of travel agents both online through their web portals or offline through booking applications based in high street stores.

Internet enabled applications provide many opportunities to consolidate and rationalise supply chains to maximise market share and reduce the administrative expense of doing so.

Iterate: Ongoing development and improvement

The Nexus managed service and support arrangement are designed to ensure business continuity and continuous improvement throughout the system lifecycle.

The Nexus Agile methodology is an approach to maintaining and redeveloping systems to ensure that the functional requirements of systems always reflect the needs of an organisation and eliminate the risk of systems falling back into legacy mode.

Nexus service level agreements are structured to provide explicit levels of service support when needed, detailing support times and actions. Nexus service level agreements provide good value by making unused support available as a credit against further system development. This enables Nexus clients to continue to improve their systems indefinitely over the lifecycle of the systems.