The following is an excerpt from Chapter 11 of The New Language of Business: SOA and Web 2.0 by Sandy Carter. In this book, Carter shows how, by levering SOA (service-oriented architecture), Web 2.0 and other technologies, business leaders can use innovations in technology to drive process improvements and support change.
Chapter 11: Putting It All TogetherI am on the
In the same way, this final chapter helps companies create a plan for their journey toward innovation. A set of guiding principles and goals is the focus of this chapter as you continue your flex-pon-sive* journey.
GROWTH, BUSINESS FLEXIBILITY, AND INNOVATION ARE THE RESULTS OF A FLEX-PON-SIVE* COMPANY
In some ways, today’s business environment is similar to the Internet era, when in the rush to embrace the Internet and to get a competitive edge, companies became preoccupied with e-commerce. In fact, instead of imagining a hybrid world, everyone said that “clicks would replace bricks” and that retail would be changed forever. Others thought that it
was about more than transactions; they saw the larger vision of e-business. E-business was a new way of doing business. You can see the similarities to where we are today—the rush to adopt emerging technology and the misconceptions that business changes suddenly instead of gradually.
And today there is a bigger world emerging on the horizon. From the work that
And in a follow-up study, our recently released Global
With the growing sophistication about how and where innovation occurs, companies know that business flexibility is the driver. New ideas don’t just come from inside their company, but from wikis, blogs, partners, customers, and even competitors. This world requires collaboration to solicit the ideas and flexibility to respond to those ideas. The insight
is that CEOs now say that more of their
ideas for innovation come from partners and clients than from their own employees.
The interesting commonality here is that all these new ideas come from some sort of collaboration, but to act on those ideas, business flexibility must be a number-one priority.
Among all the
This whole discussion is key because it shows that a few of the top areas we need to tackle are the alignment of business and IT, especially around joint goals, and a focus on those processes that will
allow companies to differentiate themselves.
This book helps address these key questions:
A company cannot continue to succeed if it comes up with some superb ideas through powerful focus and collaboration, but fails to act upon them or is not flexible enough to respond quickly to market
forces. Governance and a focus on the right processes coupled with flexibility to act are all critical for a flex-pon-sive* company.
So the bottom line is that companies must have change to innovate. Given that every business is so tied to technology, this conclusion places a premium on the underlying technology that runs
your company.
Behind every successful service oriented architecture (SOA) is the Business. With its promise of using existing technology to more closely align information technology (IT) with business goals, we have seen that SOAs have proven to help companies realize greater efficiencies, cost savings, and productivity.
Still, as many IT managers have learned, without executive endorsement, an SOA will be relegated to the confines of IT as opposed to being recognized as an organization-wide business strategy. While no two organizations are exactly alike, there are consistent themes that arise when aiming for approval to build an SOA.
For those many IT leaders who are facing the seemingly daunting challenge of presenting the importance and value of an SOA strategy to the executive suite, following are ten tips for selling SOA to the Business Leader. A few tips.
The opportunity to evangelize SOA to company executives is rare. To make the most of your extended elevator pitch, remember to articulate business benefits, reiterate bottom line results, and illustrate the company-wide value of an SOA.
SOA AND WEB 2.0 BECOME THE ENABLERS
A flexible business—a flex-pon-sive* business—requires flexible IT. Innovation requires change and SOA makes it easier for companies to change. Given this focus on business flexibility, growth, and innovation, the technology that most expedites these business goals is service oriented architecture (SOA). According to most of the analyst firms, SOA will
become the de facto standard for business
flexibility and collaboration among companies.
As we discussed in this book, SOA is all about an approach that views a business as linked services and considers the outcomes they bring. Because it is built on open standards, it is a way for businesses to tap into their existing technology investments and flexibly link previously fragmented data and business processes, creating a more complete view
of operations, potential bottlenecks, and areas for growth.
As we learned, advances in open standards and software-development tools have made SOA applications easier to develop. However, this does not mean that everyone is deploying SOA
applications; the market is at the early stages of adoption. Services that join together to support business processes within SOA are designed in such a way that different parts can operate independently of one another. Because of this, any one feature can be changed without breaking other parts of the application. This makes companies that have adopted
principles of SOA much more
responsive to changing business requirements than those that rely on traditional software development, with one feature change potentially derailing an entire application.
The companies that master SOA technology operate more efficiently than their competitors and adapt more quickly to changing business conditions in their industries. And as we discussed earlier, Web 2.0 facilitates the collaboration aspects, and SOA enables the infrastructure for flexibility.
A great example is a retailer deciding whether to issue a credit card to a customer. It could use the technology to tap different sources and pull together information on a customer’s creditworthiness
and buying habits. A bank can use the same computing services to handle account transfer requests, whether they are coming from a teller, an ATM, or a Web application, avoiding the need for multiple applications. A manufacturer could measure more closely what is happening in its production process and then make adjustments that feed back instantly through
its chain of suppliers.
SOA enables profitability through revenue growth and cost cutting. SOA enables innovation through collaboration and flexibility. Your checklist for becoming a flex-pon-sive* business should include the following: