the application providing the sales functionality with the ordering and provisioning application or applications. Therefore, integration phasing should be aligned with business priorities. The following case studies provide insight into the grouping methods of applications and integrating them in phases to provide incremental business value. INTEGRATION CASE STUDIES In order to better explain some of the concepts and issues presented in this chapter, some examples of integration projects are presented below. These examples look at some real world integration scenarios, the problems certain IICs faced, and the solutions they employed to meet their requirements. Most importantly, these examples look at some of the compromises IICs inevitably face when integrating systems. 18.1 Sales Force Automation to Order Management Company: Data and voice service provider targeting small and medium businesses that have a target customer base in pre-wired buildings (BLEC). Goal: To enable its direct sales force to move a completed sales order from its best-of-breed sales force automation/order entry/customer care system Chapter 6 - Integrating the OSS Platform to its order management application, also a leading off-the-shelf package. Expected benefits include eliminating manual re-keying of data into both systems and reducing the overall order cycle time. Integration Technology: A popular EAI product and related development tools. Challenges: Recognizing a completed order and its component line items, options and parameters. Scenario: Our BLEC had already implemented both applications, each in a stand-alone fashion. It saw the value in integrating them to allow orders to flow from the point of entry to the order management system where orders are decomposed. Product catalog synchronization between the two systems was manual. The identified problem was determining all of the content in an order coming out of the SFA system. This application, like many front-office type applications, was originally designed for manufacturing compa