Information always has and always will be the lifeblood of a company. But globalization has profoundly changed how a business collects and exchanges data, and with whom an organization shares that information. In today's sprawling digital enterprise, operations are no longer contained to a single floor, building, or even one campus, country, or continent. Additionally, the outsourcing and offshoring of many basic operations mean the accounts payable office that used to be down the hall may now be in Poland. This complicates transaction processing as more third-parties need to access corporate data stores to support operational functions.

While the pressure to get to market faster with more competitive products is certainly nothing new, globalization and the technology driving it are accelerating the rate of change. The pressure is constantly increasing with greater demand for faster overall product cycle times coupled with even shorter corporate lifecycles.