Joe McKendrick, ebizQ's SOA in Action Blogger, is a nationally published author and consultant
with deep knowledge and insights regarding trends and developments in
the technology industry. He is a contributing editor to a number of
national and international publications and Websites including
Database Trends & Applications, ZDNet, and Webservices.Org. He also
serves as analyst for Evans Data Corp., and is lead analyst for Evans'
Web services and enterprise development management issues surveys.
SOA in Action Blog
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« A New Term I Like: 'Service-Averse Architecture' | Main | Fight SAA (Service Averse Architecture) with Lifestyle Changes » May 16, 2007BT's Big SOA: 'It's All About Customers, Not Operations' I just had the opportunity to stop by InfoWorld's SOA Executive Forum in New York to imbibe in the whirlwind of enterprise case studies, expert panel discussions, and thought-provoking keynotes. What's the buzz this year in the world of SOA? A couple of observations: With the exception of security, there was very little discussion of the technical issues of service development and deployment. That's because, well, there are no technical issues. What was top of mind and top of discussion across all the sessions and panels was the organizational and management aspects of SOA, which are the perplexing and hair-pulling issues that are holding back SOA progress. However, while ZapThink's Ron Schmelzer has been kicking up lots of dust as of late with his recent missive that SOA is being hobbled by IT departments themselves, I got the sense at the conference that IT -- at least among the enterprises presenting -- was leading the charge to business transformation. In fact, the conference kicked off with a major IT-led transformation of what was a government organizations a decade ago to a lean, mean fighting company. W. George Glass, Chief Architect for BT, described his organization's SOA efforts, which began in earnest about three years ago. As a result of the SOA, the company has been able to close down close to 800 systems, and plans to close down another 700 to 900 systems over the coming 12 months, Glass said. BT's SOA proponents have been able to evolve the company's focus from maintaining operations to concentrating on the customer experience, he explained. Now, even BT's CEO is talking about services such as order to cash. "The language of the IT department has now percolated right up through the business," he said. BT intends to be fully SOA enabled by 2009, Glass said. BT's SOA deployment now covers up to 3,500 core systems, built on 14 platforms. BT has identified 63 capabilities that includes various functions, with another 22 on the way. New capabilities go into the test cycle every three months, Glass said. To keep IT on track, BT also has tied carrots and sticks to the use of standards and shareable services in new applications, Glass added. If members of the IT department pass the implementation test in line with SOA, they earn a bonus in advance. However, "every time IT deviates against the architecture, they lose a quarter of their annual bonus," he said. When fully complete, the transition will make it much easier for BT to build and introduce new products and services for customers by reusing common components – say, customer identification and revenue collection – allowing BT to focus development resources just on new functionality, Glass said. Glass emphasized that to build acceptance for SOA, proponents need to "show the benefits to business partners in dollars and cents." We established a "completely new way of working at BT -- always start with the customer experience. "We're using SOA to build a customer oriented architecture." Posted by joemckendrick in SOA | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us Trackback Pings TrackBack URL for this entry:
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