Database Reference
In-Depth Information
act business process. Sometimes, the business adopts the general business pro-
cess from the COTS product. In such a scenario, there is no need to create the ap-
plication from scratch, simply start using with default configurations and templates or
customize the configurations and templates to perform business function(s) for the
organization.
A particular business should use a COTS product if it meets the requirements in-
steadofcreatingit. However,COTS productsmaynotbesuitable forallthebusiness
functions, usually core business functions. Some companies believe that using the
COTS product will reduce the business advantage as compared to their competitors.
One of the mistakes companies make is that they heavily customize the COTS
product to suit their own custom business processing. Companies adopting COTS
products should adopt the COTS product business process instead of trying to cus-
tomize the COTS product. Heavy customization of a COTS product is not a good
idea. The COTS vendors usually do not provide the source code. Any upgrade re-
quires major changes and sometimes you may end up with extended support con-
tracts to continue using the older versions of the COTS product due to significant
upgrade costs and timelines.
In future, there will be more COTS products available to satisfy many of the business
process requirements for the companies and more organizations will adopt COTS
products instead of creating custom programs, One way to model and automate the
business process is by using the
Business Process Management
(
BPM
) software.
That can also manage and optimize the business processes across organizational
divisions, systems, and applications.
