This scenario provides a blueprint for building an organization that is truly able to integrate its processes and information systems. Business operations are one of the three strategic scenarios of the digital nervous system. When combined with the other two--e-commerce and knowledge management-it provides the framework for building a technology infrastructure that allows employees to call on knowledge that resides within

The business operations scenario has its roots in the "business process reengineering" movement of the 1980s, which saw the introduction of packaged software applications designed to make narrowly focused processes run more smoothly. Business process reengineering significantly changed the way companies performed day-to-day tasks, but it failed to address an important problem: how can a company link a wide range of disparate tasks and software solutions into a single, smoothly operating whole? That concern led to "enterprise resource planning," which grouped business functions into categories: sales, manufacturing, purchasing, material, finance and so forth.

The business operations scenario takes enterprise resource planning to the next stage. It enables all of the departments and divisions in an enterprise not only to share information, but also to work seamlessly with mobile salespeople, executive on the road and supplier and communicate easily with customers through Smart Message Service (SMS). It allows companies to take information from one business function and combine it with the information from another and then use that knowledge to offer better products, develop more efficient processes, and create more valuable services.