Suffering high costs and deep frustration used to be a rite of passage when growing companies decided it was time to integrate data systems to improve enterprise operations. But things have changed. Nowadays, it neither costs as much nor hurts so badly to take advantage of enterprise tools that previously only the biggest companies could swing.

Better hardware and software, higher Internet bandwidth and greater interoperability are helping, but the biggest contribution may be innovative thinking. Vendors are coming up with new ways to connect the islands of information typically scattered throughout firms and satellite offices. In the process, they are sidestepping some of the pain associated with deploying the classic, consolidated database, Enterprise Resource Planning data management systems.