Chapter 1 describes the fundamental changes occurring in business, from how the business interacts with customers, manufactures goods, to business organization and management. All of these changes are driving a need to manage the business in real-time, rather than through period reports based on historical trends. These changes make enterprise integration crucial to the success and future agility of the business. Business and IT managers seeking to justify integration projects will be especially interested in this chapter as it defines the areas where enterprise integration can deliver a high return on investment.

Chapter 2 defines the major business initiatives that require enterprise integration. It also includes the Business Drivers and Requirements Specification (full template in Appendix A), which guides companies through the process of creating a requirements specification to be used both on integration projects and when creating the Enterprise Integration Architecture. The template includes a Statement of Purpose, which is a succinct document defining the scope, goals, and organizational impact of the business initiative. It also defines metrics for measuring the business success of the initiative. The chapter includes a section on best practices.

Enterprise integration is an inherently complex undertaking. It doesn't come in a box, or in a single product, and can't be accomplished with a single project. The Enterprise Integration Strategy focuses on creating an agile enterprise infrastructure that will deliver value on current and future projects. The chapter focuses on how to succeed in creating an enterprise strategy and key integration architecture concepts. Chapter 3 includes the Enterprise Integration Strategy Specification (full template in Appendix B). The template provides guidelines for creating a team responsible for the integration strategy, templates for mapping business strategies to integration strategies, defining enterprise standards, and business-based metrics.