Some work, some don't and with many, no-one has any idea what they do.

However, one thing is clear. If all these systems could talk to each other, share data and open up to internal and external systems, companies could generate significant productivity gains through minimal investment.

Today's successful businesses are expanding to include markets and business partners from all over the world. As companies grow and business becomes more sophisticated, the need to connect and optimize integrated systems and information increases – inside and outside the organization.

Integration of information or enterprise application integration gives a vital competitive advantage. Mergers, acquisitions and global markets require an EAI solution from all systems and business partners to provide a competitive edge. And it has to be quick - when business terms have been agreed, the last thing anyone wants is to wait for respective business systems to be able to speak to each other.

There are now many EAI solutions available in the market, but to be effective they have to be affordable, fast to deploy, platform-independent and easy to use, customize or change. To put it simply, an IT integration solution should make it easier to do business and gain a fast ROI on IT investment.

More importantly, it needs to be unobtrusive, allowing business partners to keep preferred routines and systems, rather than forcing them to adapt. Integration solutions allow companies to maximize existing investment while also helping to implement new systems and technologies faster and more effectively. The application of integration has no boundaries, with hundreds of companies around the world already using them to deliver seamless solutions to specific business problems.

The power of integration can be seen in the depth and variety of applications for which it can be exploited. For example:

• Creating seamless links between bill of materials and supply to ensure minimal stock wastage and efficient manufacture/assembly

• An enabling tool for companies wishing to migrate to new enterprise wide systems in stages

• Allows modification to be made to core systems that can be transferred to new version, ensuring companies remain eligible for standard upgrades.

• Improve customer service by allowing orders to be received in customers' preferred format and automatically converting and delivering these into core systems.

The list is potentially endless, with the only restriction being imagination. The effect of this capability for rapid change to the automation of business critical processes is very much a cultural one. It is now fairly straightforward to enable connections and utilize functionality across multiple and cross business systems and this means companies are able to offer services that they couldn't before. This alone impacts other areas of the business and so the whole ethos of company operations comes under scrutiny.

This is why IT systems must be flexible, and remain flexible throughout their lifespan. Integration between applications and trading partners opens companies up and systems must be ready and able to adapt to ensure maximum benefit is achieved. There is little point in allowing customers to check stock levels prior to ordering if this information is inaccurate; it would cause more damage than good.

The proliferation of integration ERP solutions has been the most significant development in IT in recent years. Properly implemented within the business management supply chain solution, it has already reaped massive efficiency and profitability benefits for companies all over the world. It is only going to get bigger and companies should look closely at this technology.