Reworking of business processes key in SOA adoption
ConvergenceAsia staff
05/06/2007

A major focus in organisations rolling out a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is the reworking of business processes and the adoption of a common set of internal processes to optimise efficiencies.

These were the findings of a recent IDC survey of 100 organisations in the Asia Pacific that have adopted SOA.
SOA has been leveraged across a wide range of industries including banking, brokerage, insurance, and government sectors in Asia Pacific, says IDC.

In the brokerage and investment banking service industry, it has been found to be strategic in aiding straight-through-processing (STP) for trade order execution and settlement and enabling the shift from transaction-based to exception-based processing.

In the insurance sector, SOA is considered a key pillar in the provision of better customer service through the simplification of business interfaces and effective service-level tracking, thereby facilitating tracking of key performance indicators.

Early SOA adopters in the banking industries have mostly adopted middleware and application integration approaches.

IDC finds that banks typically embark on a formal framework for service integration, standardising on an enterprise-messaging platform as a foundation for all new service developments. Banking services are then routed through this integration layer for governance and control.

Key performance indicators like reusability of core components, the number of transactions that flow through the platform and the accrued cost savings have now been used as internal measurements.

In the government sector, SOA has been adopted in some countries such as Singapore and Australia where the focus is currently on reduction of redundant e-government services and simplifying the inter-operating service interfaces among the various public service departments.

Improving self-servicing capabilities and access to government services still form the bulk of the business transformation focus for governments. However there is an increasing trend towards a holistic end-to-end service management workflow that increases the depth and overall effectiveness of services through an integrated one-stop government service portal for mature economies.

Most corporate board approvals for industry-specific SOA projects factor in cost justification; security and regulatory compliance needs, and detail the improvement of project execution and assessment.

SOA approach has been regarded favourably by Asia Pacific organisations as a key enabler for increasing business process transparency and as a change agent for reforming existing business processes and practices.

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