Each
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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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