The FInES Paradigm Shift: From Resource Management and Planning to Enterprise Innovation Driver

In this paper we address one of the key issues reported in the FInES (Future Internet Enterprise Systems) Research Roadmap, namely, the paradigm shift that the architectures of enterprise systems (ES) need to undergo in the next decade. Such paradigm shift is primarily motivated by a repositioning of the aims of enterprise systems that, the since their inception, have been conceived to support the management and planning of enterprise resources. Payroll, inventory management, and accounting have been the first application areas. Then, ES progressively expanded their functions and aims, but the underlying philosophy remained the same: supporting the value production in the day by day business, optimising operations and the use of resources, with look ahead capabilities (i.e., planning). In the recent period there has been a clear movement towards a progressive commoditization of such traditional ES functions. This movement is further facilitated by the evolution of infrastructures and technologies, starting from Cloud Computing and Future Internet, and, on top of those, the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) paradigm that is progressively providing new ways for enterprises to conceive and realise their automation systems. In essence, while the automation of enterprise management and planning functions will be increasingly easy to acquire, the business challenge in the future will be progressively shifted towards the support to enterprise innovation. But also innovation cannot remain as it has been: Future Internet, Web 2.0, Social Networking, and similar emerging forms of distributed, open computing will push forward new forms of innovation such as, and in particular, Open Innovation [Ches03]. The achievement of systematic innovation requires to orientate the research towards new, cross-domain fields, in particular promoting renewed synergies between business and ICT experts. Hence, on the ICT side, architectures and implementation technologies need to continue evolving along the lines already shown in the last period, having three grand challenges in mind. The first grand research challenge (GRC) aims at surrendering the mastership of ES development, shifting it from ICT to business experts; this implies a step back for the former, accepting their ancillary role in the area of enterprise applications. But to do that, the ICT domain needs to push forward the release of ES development environments (ESDE) specifically conceived to be used by business experts. Such ESDEs will be able to separate the specification and implementation of (i) business logic from the (ii) specific business functions and, finally, their (iii) implementation. A central role will be played by Business Process Engineering, for the above point (i), and a new vision in the implementation of enterprise resources automation, for the last two points. The second great research challenge concerns the architecture of the Future Enterprise Systems (FES) that need to deeply change with respect to the way the majority of enterprise software architectures appear today. A new paradigm is somehow already emerging nowadays, e.g., with the different articulations that Future Internet Systems (FIS) are assuming. In particular, we may mention, among others: the Internet of Services (IoS), Internet of Things (IoT), Internet of Knowledge (IoK), Internet of People (IoP). But these solutions need to further evolve towards a better characterisation in the business direction, allowing different aspects of the business reality (functions, objects, players, etc.) to acquire their networked identity, together with a clear and precise definition (i.e., science based) of their capabilities and mutual relationships. Furthermore, what is missing today is a unifying vision of the disparate business aspects and entities, supported by an adequate theory and then befitting technological paradigms. All possible entities composing an enterprise will have a digital image (a sort of ‘avatar’) that will be referred to