Understanding the Service-Oriented Enterprise
To compete in the global “intelligent economy,” enterprises must make a fundamental shift to a future built on innovative service-oriented business processes and new approaches around the use of technology.
Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a new approach for organizing and isolating application functionality, built on a flexible and reusable foundation of services. It has the capacity to expand the reach of the enterprise by enabling services to define and transform relationships and, in so doing, expand the scope of what Information Technology (IT) can make possible. In short, SOA means the end of business as usual.
Above all, service orientation focuses on the business imperative and offers opportunities to approach business issues in a different way. By becoming an SOE, your business can reorganize and execute to become faster and more responsive to changes in the marketplace.
However, this can only be achieved if leaders possess the knowledge, the imagination and the roadmap to make optimal use of it. Services are not drivers of business change. The transformations promised by service orientation will not happen without the adoption of a new culture and innovative business models.
Collaboration and a willingness to establish your organization as “open for business” are the keys to success with SOA. In recognition, Capgemini, one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, and Intel, the world leader in technology platform and silicon innovation, have combined their intellectual powers to create the Rain environment.
Short for RApid INnovation, Rain is a series of global, service-oriented environments uniquely designed to help organizations envision and embrace the future. Its goal is to help companies unleash business value from the constraints of traditional IT, transforming the business model for customers, employees and shareholders.
Further Reading
Rain: Where innovation lives website
Next Generation Insights website
Service-Oriented Enterprise: How to Make Your Business fast, Flexible and More Responsive by Andy Mulholland
Enterprise SOA Adoption Strategies by Steve Jones
Many more whitepapers available via Capgemini’s website
