Implications of SOA on Business Strategy

This is an article that you can find in SOA Magazine, 3rd edition (Jan/2007). Thomas Erl is the site editor of this excellent source of information about Service-oriented Architecture.

Below some excepts from the article "Implications of SOA on Business Strategy and Organization Design", written by William Murray.

1. From Business Tasks to Business Services
In 1994 Hammer & Champy's “Manifesto for Business Revolution” argued that technology could be applied at the process-level to significantly improve organizational efficiencies through streamlining organizational processes, structures and governance, thereby bringing to the mainstream the discipline of business process reengineering, and the concept that business processes are the fundamental building blocks of the corporation. This is the beginning.

2. The IT Utility Curve
From this manifesto, we see that, regarding technology adoption in a company, there are three phases, mode and planning posture to this adoption:

Phases: Enabling, Disruptive, Enabling
Modes: Experimentation, Innovation, Commoditization
Planning Posture: Tactical, Strategic, Tactical

The graphic that shows the investment along these phases or modes is a "S" curve: