Agility and innovation are necessary to acheive global excellence and customer value in twenty-first
century business; yet most approaches to business process engineering in existence today sacrifice
these in favor of operational efficiency and economics. Moreover, the IT systems used to automate
and encapsulate business processes are inflexible and unable to respond to the constantly changing
business environment. Mitra and Gupta provide insight to close this gap – they show how innovation
can be systematized with normalized patterns of information, how business processes and information
systems may be tightly aligned, and how these processes and systems can be designed to automatically
adapt to change by re-configuring shared patterns of knowledge. The authors present a modular
approach to building business systems that parallels that of object oriented software. They describe
how business knowledge can be identified, encapsulated, and shared, as well as how reusable process
modules can be developed to offer the systems flexibility. The book provides practical templates
required for accelerating integration, analysis, and design. Mitra and Gupta lay the foundation of a
new paradigm in which computers manipulate meanings, not blind symbols.
This book will appeal to consultants, analysts, and managers in IT firms looking to develop new,
more flexible products for their clients. It will also be of interest to researchers and graduate students
in business, management, and IT. By deeply integrating business knowledge and processes with IT
systems design, this book is a valuable addition to both communities.