At Blue Mesa, this is our motto: Integrate to Simplify. Sounds good, but what does it mean and how can we help you get there? Let’s answer this question by taking a look at an evolution of technology over the past few decades.

The existing corporate technology landscape has evolved and changed over the years. The mainframe systems of old gave way to the UNIX and client/server systems of the 80’s and early 90’s. These systems then gave way to the Internet-based applications that are growing in companies today. So, are we to believe that at each juncture, the previous generation was immediately replaced with the latest and greatest technologies? That every system and application was migrated to the latest and greatest generation?

Not quite. The reality in companies today is that they contain a multitude of systems and technologies. Many companies struggle to integrate and combine these systems into cohesive applications that their users can operate effectively. The applications on mainframes and AS/400 systems written years ago are still in production today. Over the years, companies have been added client/server, web-based, and Microsoft-based applications as well.Often full-scale ERP systems were deployed. Many times, the older applications were not migrated to the ERP because of the time and expense.

The reality is that today, many companies struggle with various generations of applications all with radically different interfaces that require dedicated staff, ongoing maintenance, and extensive training.

Integration

Integration plays an important part of every project we execute. Many times systems are proposed, developed, and deployed with little regard to how it will operate in the rest of the environment. Web systems are not integrated with inventory, or sales systems don’t have the latest pricing information. At Blue Mesa we think an effective solution requires integration with all aspects of your business so that your new solution doesn’t sit in a silo outside of your core business systems.

Integration can be accomplished through various means. In the past, this meant a “batch process” or a “cron job” and then maybe an FTP session, or maybe an ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) project on a database. These integration solutions are workable, but often times error-prone, unreliable, and almost never real-time. The new generation of integration products offer possibilities not available before.

The WebSphere Business Integration package from IBM provides a wealth of features in a bundled package. Moving, synchronizing, extracting, and transforming data can now be done in a dedicated integration environment that provides reliably, stability, and real-time functionality. Errors are handled by roll-backs and compensation, so your integration processes are reliable and up and running. Imagine being able to sync the customer master in multiple databases from different database vendors on different systems. Or getting “up to date” pricing and inventory to all the systems and applications that require it. IBM WebSphere Business Integration provides the technology. and Blue Mesa provides the experience and the means.

Simplification

The other key component of our motto is simplification. This means, simplification of business applications that your employees use on a daily basis. Assuming that your systems have been integrated, the next step is to make them easier to use. If the systems have been integrated, but nothing has been done regarding the applications and their user-interfaces, the value of the integration is diminished.

Once systems are integrated, this opens up the possibility of redesigning and reorganizing applications and the interfaces within them. For example, in the past, the salesman, customer service rep, or manager might have had to access four applications to perform their job function. Once the systems have been integrated, a new unified interface can be deployed that can consolidate these applications and interfaces into only one system. Maintenance and training costs are reduced.

At Blue Mesa we take a great deal of pride in redesigning and reinvigorating applications to suit the needs of the end user. Our interface development is geared towards simple and professional interfaces that can run over the web or via client/server systems. In the end, these redesigned interfaces can reduce training time and make your employees more productive.

Integrate to Simplify

Well integrated information conveyed in a powerful and easy-to-use interface can significantly increase employee productivity. That’s what we mean by “Integrate to Simplify”.