In our last article we told you that the majority of today’s platforms attempting to unify the Procurement application space for you are not Orchestration platforms but ORCestration platforms, integrating your applications in a manner that is forceful, ugly, and impure, to say the least. Definitely not what you need in a modern orchestration platform.

A real Orchestration platform is:

–> Light

They aren’t adding another bulky SaaS platform with its own deep stack requirements, vendor maintenance requirements, data store requirements, and rules engine which must not only be maintained separately, but replicate data and rules across the apps it connects. It’s a truly next gen platform, built up from only the (micro) services necessary to connect the apps and accomplish the tasks. It’s a composable container community, not a 100 room palace with no option in between.

–> Cheap

Next generation platforms, built on modern distributed architectures, and built to work behind the scenes (not in front) to allow the users to access the ecosystems they need to access through the applications they are comfortable with, won’t be million dollar applications. They’ll be a fraction of that as the organizations will be buying just a configurable framework, that they can configure themselves as needed, and not a full, heavy, SaaS application with all of the required support infrastructure just to keep it operational (regardless of whether it integrates any applications or not).

–> Flexible

Workflow can be built up, torn down, and put back together on the fly, as required to support evolving processes. Intake, UI, and integration can all be defined, and redefined, as processes evolve, new applications enter the landscape, and old applications leave. The organization is not restricted to a fixed intake screens with limited configuration, predefined workflows, or limited data formats.

–> Open

Built on composable micro-services, that are fully documented and compatible with modern stacks, they allow anyone to build the necessary integrations, workflows, and data manipulations necessary for true process orchestration. They also support the definition of contexts that allow them to be natively compatible with the data structures of the applications they are integrating. And one definitional mistake won’t bring down the whole platform because it’s not a monolithic megalith built on a house of data cards.

–> Real-Time

Not only are data pushes and pulls accomplished in real time, but the orchestration platform will automatically propagate data updates to all apps that maintain a copy of the data. Moreover, when an input the orchestration platform is an initiator of a process, the entire process will be executed without explicit instructions as each output will trigger the next step and serve as the input for that step.

–> Execution

Real orchestration platforms don’t connect apps in workflows, they execute workflows, and they do so dynamically based upon the inputs and outputs of each step. They adapt, and when transactions occur that cause exceptions that require human intervention, they learn from those interventions and dynamically construct new exception workflows on the fly, ensuring that no specific exception ever has to be manually dealt with twice.

–> Blockchain

It will support blockchain at the core, allowing not only for the integration and processing of arbitrary data records, but for immutable data objects to be input, created, and output — with a full history of what app did which change when. That’s a lot more than you can say about today’s ORCestration platforms.

–> Multi-Protocol

Not only will the orchestration platform be composable from the core up, but the building blocks will be designed in such a way that they can be composed to support all of the standard, obscure, and emerging protocols that might need to be supported. As a result, the platform will be able to integrate not only current apps, but emerging apps as well.

–> Organizational

A true orchestration platform is designed to support organizational processes and applications, not just Procurement, allowing the input (signal) data to come from any organizational system and be pushed to any other organizational system, bridging the gap between sales orders, POS demand signals, and demand planning and supply chain (re)order and logistics systems. True orchestration finally tears down the technology walls holding Procurement back, vs. today’s ORCestration platforms which just strengthen their foundations.

–> Secure

Not only are these platforms built on security at the core, recognizing both security standards AND security policies, including the security policy of each application that is orchestrated by the platform. This means that when a user initiates an action, it only executes if they have the appropriate (data) access in all of the applications on the orchestration platform that are needed to complete the action. No hoping, or praying, that the ORCestration platform encoded the right security checks in its native workflow.

–> Policy (Aware)

As per our last point, modern orchestration platforms will understand the concept of policy at the core, and not just for security — for compliance as well! The orchestration platform will integrate with all of the applications that contain encodings of the organizational compliance requirements, understand those compliance requirements in their native contexts, and ensure that all processes are completed in a compliant process.

–> Collaborative

The core of the orchestration backbone is designed to not only support application collaboration, but user collaboration across the organization, and even with connected parties in the supply chain, through the native support of internet communication protocols as well as all standard application messaging protocols. Collaboration will never be easier than with a true orchestration platform.

–> Resilient

Since it’s not just another megalithic SaaS app, but instead a (micro-)service platform built up from building blocks, one failed integration and even one failed block will not bring down the whole platform, the rest of the platform and apps will still work.

–> Process (Focussed)

Modern orchestration platforms are designed to support organizational enterprise processes end-to-end, not departmental functions end-to-end. They can integrate and orchestrate any application in the organization’s software ecosystem (all 1,000+ in a large enterprise) as well as any partner systems the organization has access to.

–> Exception (Orientation)

Modern orchestration is designed to quickly identify exceptions, invoke exception processes, and ensure humans are only involved for a here-to-forth unforeseen exception. Moreover, it will allow for the human instructions and guided process to be automatically captured and encoded to make sure that humans never have to teach the system twice.

Unlike yesterday’s ORCestration platforms, today’s (and tomorrow’s) true orchestration platforms are built on modern technology stacks, and future-proofed for tomorrow’s applications, not just yesterday’s.