May the Force be with digitalization

Successfully designing middleware projects

The Millennium Falcon from Lego consists of around 7,500 individual parts. Elaborate details, such as two quad laser cannons, a concealed blaster cannon, the lowerable boarding ramp, the cockpit with removable canopy, interchangeable sensor dishes, the engine room with hyperdrive and control console, a storage compartment hidden in the floor, two hatches to the escape pod, a technical console and an access ladder to the gunnery station, make the heart of every Star Wars fan beat faster. On its own, each component is just a small Lego brick. But when you put the 7,500 pieces together, you get something completely new, something really big. The same applies to the introduction of middleware that allows medium-sized companies to manage billions of pieces of data from different source systems.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is Managing Director of the company Starfight. As a visionary, he is aware that he needs to initiate numerous change processes in his company in order to make it future-proof. For this reason, he calls together all the relevant department heads: IT manager C-3PO, sales manager Luke Skywalker and marketing manager Leia Organa. Also at the table is investor Darth Vader, who is rather skeptical about far-reaching changes. The reason for the meeting is probably familiar to many medium-sized companies: Starfight's IT landscape is highly heterogeneous. Each business unit operates its own systems that are not linked to each other. It is therefore not possible to exchange data between the systems - provided that business-relevant information is stored in the systems at all and not on computers or in employees' mailboxes. Keeping data in silos has a negative impact on process efficiency: Even simple processes, such as entering an order, cost the employees at Starfight an enormous amount of time. This is why Obi-Wan Kenobi wants to improve the flow of information between systems and consolidate the existing database in order to efficiently supply the target systems with the required information.

Connecting systems seamlessly

To achieve this, IT manager C-3PO is taking the approach of networking the existing inventory systems: the merchandise management system, the product information management solution (PIM), the customer relationship management tool (CRM) and the e-commerce solution. There are generally two approaches to this: Linking all systems directly with each other is very time-consuming, complex and error-prone due to the large number of 1:1 connections. C-3PO therefore decided to introduce middleware to ensure a smooth flow of data between the systems. The solution from Starfight consists of two components: a data integration tool and a database. While the data integration tool ensures a seamless data flow between the systems, business-relevant data from specific source systems can be modeled, prepared and managed in a structured manner for individual requirements using ETL processes (extract - transform - load). In turn, the data is consolidated and stored in the connected database. It serves both as a source for other systems and reporting and as security in the event that the other IT systems fail. In addition to this type of architecture, other approaches are also conceivable. Which approach a medium-sized company prefers depends on the respective processes, the individual requirements and the existing IT landscape. The only prerequisite is that the middleware is flexible enough to map and support different solution approaches. It is also important that the solution can grow dynamically with the respective company. This is the only way to ensure that, after the initial implementation and integration, it is possible to connect and network additional systems or replace existing systems that are no longer required.

Convincing stakeholders and employees

As IT manager C-3PO is fully occupied with day-to-day business and cannot manage the project alone, he enlists external support: Master Yoda is an experienced digitalization service provider who is very familiar with SMEs. It not only implements complex technical projects, but also offers advice and support. But technical expertise is not everything. Obi-Wan Kenobi and C-3PO know that many other factors are crucial to the success of projects that affect the entire company and involve a far-reaching change in corporate culture. On the one hand, established processes have to be optimized and new decisions made - even those that have nothing to do with the actual solution, for example with regard to the housekeeping of existing data and inventory systems. Secondly, several stakeholders need to be brought on board - not least because the innovations not only affect IT itself, but also specialist areas such as marketing, sales and production. C-3PO and Master Yoda are therefore required to deal with the demands and wishes, but also the reservations of sales manager Luke Skywalker, marketing manager Leia Organa and investor Darth Vader, and to mediate between the parties in order to prevent or resolve any conflicts.

Professional change management is crucial

As an IT service provider, Master Yoda must not only be a reliable consulting and implementation partner at eye level, but also accompany the change management and promote dialog with the employees of Starfight: Why does the project make sense? What methodology is being used? And why? What goals are being pursued? How will the changes affect day-to-day business? It is essential to take individual sensitivities into account: while some employees are open to change, others tend to be skeptical and take a defensive stance. All change management efforts should be geared towards one goal: The aim is to unleash creativity among employees and create space for new approaches and ways of thinking. Involving and involving employees is very important for the success of a forward-looking project of this kind. As it is almost impossible to convince all doubters in advance despite the best efforts, an agile, iterative and flexible approach is recommended. Implementing small steps and demonstrating initial partial successes will even convince Darth Vader.

Simplified IT operations and new insights

The middleware brings the company Starfight a big step forward in strategic and operational terms. For the first time, IT manager C-3PO can get an overview of how much data there is across all systems and departments and what the quality of this data is like. How good is the data quality in the respective source system? Which data is missing or available multiple times? He now also knows how the various data models of the individual source systems differ from one another or whether new data models even need to be defined. They can also mix and match the required data as needed in order to import it into the respective target system. The middleware creates the necessary transparency to be able to modernize or adapt the existing data models accordingly.

Consolidate data to improve data quality

Due to historically grown databases and systems, many medium-sized companies struggle with poor data quality. Customer numbers and product IDs in particular are often not unique - not to mention the necessary data consistency. Starfight, for example, also had difficulties standardizing customer numbers. Before the middleware was introduced, it worked in some source systems on the basis of the "account" entity. This included information such as name and address. The "company" entity did not exist - which turned out to be quite problematic when the medium-sized company introduced a CRM solution that operated on the basis of the "company" entity. This problem was only revealed by the middleware because there were previously few points of contact between the respective departments. Using the middleware, it is now possible to aggregate the data in the source systems in such a way that they meet the requirements of the target CRM system for the "company" entity.

Digitalization is an ongoing project

Even if the partial successes achieved are quite impressive, Obi-Wan Kenobi, C-3PO and Master Yoda are aware that dealing with middleware is an ongoing project. The same applies to Lego's Millennium Falcon. Even if the ambitious Star Wars fan has put together thousands of Lego bricks to create a complete spaceship, there are still kits for the Death Star, the Starfighter, the Sandcrawler, the Tantive IV blockade runner and many other Lego models. May the Force be with digitalization.

Author: Dario Waechter