Web services, enterprise digital dashboards and shared data services: a proposed framework

Enterprise digital dashboard (EDD) is an effective tool for executives to get a top level view of their enterprise as well as closely linked partners. Decision makers need to have easy access to data such as total sales per month, inventory status and a number of other key performance indicators (KPI). These business needs are not in sync with the technological challenges such as the presence of disparate enterprise systems (e.g. ERP, SCM, CRM, etc.). Web service is an effective technology to link disparate systems. This paper discusses a solution based on Web services in the context of EDD. We explain the solution with respect to a business scenario and propose a reference architecture for the same.