News and Views
 

- May 9, 2007-

 

From RetailWire: Is Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Technology the Wave of the Future?

 
  Will new approach to supply chain application development be a magic bullet, or is it just another overhyped technology?  
 

 

This content from RetailWire is made possible through a partnership between RetailWire and Supply Chain Digest to share content relevant to each other's readers.

 
       
   
     
 

Each business morning on RetailWire.com, retailing execs get plugged in to the latest industry news and issues with key insights from a "BrainTrust" of retail industry experts. Here are excerpts from one of these unique RetailWire online Discussions, along with results from RetailWire.com's Instant Polls.

By Ron Margulis, Managing Director, RAM Communications

Enterprise service-oriented architecture (SOA), which enables companies to rapidly respond to changing business requirements and competitive market dynamics, while maximizing existing IT resources, was one of the key tech trends discussed at the recent SAPPHIRE '07, SAP's international customer conference.

Points stressed at the conference were that enterprise SOA translates to rapid deployment of new product and service offerings, tighter integration with partner networks, streamlined common processes, a collaborative work environment to leverage knowledge across the organization and the ability to empower a mobile workforce.

"In the 1990s, companies combined business process re-engineering with ERP systems to achieve new levels of operational efficiency," said Henning Kagermann, CEO of SAP. "Today, companies are seeking to combine business network transformation with enterprise SOA to achieve new levels of competitive differentiation. As we observe business network transformation happening globally, we predict it will elevate IT to a more strategic role for the business in the future."

Mr. Kagermann added that the combination of business network transformation and the advent of enterprise SOA form a powerful foundation for creating an even greater competitive advantage for companies.

Discussion Question for the BrainTrust panel: What impact will service-oriented architecture have on retail and manufacturing operations? Are there current examples of retailers or suppliers using SOA with a positive impact?

(Author's commentary) SOA is a highly technical issue, but so were enterprise resource planning, CRM and inventory management systems when they first appeared in the market. Retailers and manufacturers need to be aware of developments in this area because innovative companies on both sides of the supply chain will be looking to partner with others making the investment to integrate processes and it is these relationships that will have competitive advantage.

 

 

RetailWire Instant Poll Results:

 

RetailWire BrainTrust Comments:

Relational Solutions' Janet Dorenkott Says:
Companies who understand the business values of SOA are already achieving competitive advantages that their competitors will be blind sided with. SOA is really the next generation of Business Intelligence.

What do you say? Send us your comments here

ABSOLUTELY! Companies who understand the business values of SOA are already achieving competitive advantages that their competitors will be blind sided with. SOA is really the next generation of Business Intelligence. Companies understanding the value of Business Intelligence, will also get the value in SOA.

Are companies doing it now? Yes, a few. But we are seeing increased interest. Those of us that understand the value, still feel like missionaries, but we were also missionaries in data warehousing and business intelligence many years ago. By allowing faster access to information both internally and with related partners, you will improve business performance. In addition, when SOA is coupled with a sound architecture that streamlines the data integration process, you are improving business efficiencies as well as internal knowledge and response time. It may sound like more technical jargon, but understanding the business value is what is most important.

- Janet Dorenkott, VP & Co-owner, Relational Solutions, Inc.

SOA has a lot of potential--but so did EAI. And there are still a lot of retailers out there doing point-to-point integration. Interestingly, you may find that retailers, whether knowingly or not, already have some SOA in their portfolio--through their purchases of packaged applications. A lot of vendors have or are converting their apps to SOA or a web services architecture. The problem is that this approach, even in the packaged app realm, is still really immature--the user interface for defining process flow, for example, has a long way to go for most apps out there, and the underlying workflow in almost all cases is proprietary, so it's not like these apps are designed to fit into an enterprise workflow or BPM implementation.

- Nikki Baird, Executive Director of Research, Retail Systems Alert Group

There is almost no one really embracing SOA in any meaningful way yet, though certainly there are a number of companies somewhere on the journey.

SOA really does have the potential to drive many benefits, including: easier integration and collaboration across the supply chain; ability to more quickly develop new technology systems and processes that react to market or other opportunities; and (perhaps) more flexibility to select software systems that meet specific needs and more easily plug them into enterprise systems, like SAP.

It is possible the SOA and "web services" will fall on the "false hope" ash heap that we've seen before with "object oriented" programming, EAI, etc, etc. But I don't think so. It's real, but takes a long time to get there, as early research is showing.

- Dan Gilmore, Editor, SupplyChainDigest

The challenge with SOA is that it makes the technology so flexible that integration is no longer the barrier to collaboration. If the business has not carefully decided where they're going and provided the guidance to the technology developers the result will be services that look like pieces of different puzzles cut from the same image. There is no way to recreate the whole picture.

For SOA, industry organizations have to get together and define the business services that are needed and how they want to collaborate with other members of the supply chain. Then the technologists can develop the solutions. The closest effort in this area for retail operations has been VICS. The CPFR effort sponsored by VICS provides a clear image of the retail supply channel for technology developers. Other industries such as the electronics industry have done a pretty good job with efforts like Rosetta Net to establish back end standards for parts supply, etc. So the answer for right now is that more businesses must dedicate the resources necessary to reach a consensus on how business processes should be defined. Only then will SOA reach its full potential.

- Bill Bittner, President, BWH Consulting

Author Paul C. Brown begins his just released book "Succeeding with SOA" with this observation: "Business processes and information systems have become so tightly intertwined that it is no longer possible to design one without designing the other. Business processes do not simply depend on information systems--they define the services required."

Ron has properly framed his questions regarding adoption of SOA by pointing back to the early days of ERP...SOA is indeed in a relatively nascent stage of development, but significant investment in SOA tools, frameworks, and enabling technologies has already taken place and real results are being are being achieved.At this point, it may be appropriate for my "full disclosure" statement: Earlier today I attended the TIBCO User Conference (TUCON) in San Francisco where I listened to very positive 'firsthand reports' from SOA's early adopters, including a leading west coast retailer and a major food/beverage company...while I'm at it, I should also disclose that the aforementioned author, Paul C. Brown, is a colleague of mine in the Global Business Architecture group at TIBCO. Personal biases aside, I can assure you that SOA is very real, and its positive impacts on business processes will be felt for many years to come.

- Ken Kubat, Director, Industry Solutions, TIBCO Software, Inc.

Read the entire story and RetailWire discussion at:

http://www.retailwire.com/Discussions/Sngl_Discussion.cfm/12030

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