Challenges/barriers for jumping on to SOA bandwagon for IT firms
Gartner predicts that by 2010, 80% of software revenue growth will come from SOA enabled applications. With such enormous potential, IT firms are constantly trying to ramp up their potential to deliver SOA as per their clients' need. SOA is a hard sell as it involves an intimate understanding of both the client's business and their IT landscape.
From an IT firm's perspective, success in selling SOA is dependent on the ability to show customers value, both in terms of the benefits they can realize through SOA, and the value that the IT firm delivers when deploying SOA. To understand it better let us look it from both customers' and IT firm perspective-
a. Customers - better visibility on their business, more control over their IT systems, automation, newer opportunities, best sourcing options, quick reaction to market trends, extracting more value out of existing applications
b. IT firms - Agility to assemble solutions, productivity improvement due to reuse, modular delivery, lesser cost of development, Less time for building due to standards, The key challenge in front of IT firms when they have to sell -
Be able to hook on initially and make sure the initial traction on SOA is not lost amidst various transformation initiatives
Translating the promises into credible instances (like quick proposition or proof of concepts) so that SOA is not interpreted as 'snake oil applied'
Identify immediate and long term benefits which shows either direct or indirect value in service enabling
Advising or providing prescriptions for client's SOA program by appropriately positioning the technology and products
Identify the entry points for SOA adoption and defining appropriate pragmatic approaches
Understand the disparity amongst the aging systems and provide guidance on appropriate infrastructure
Channelizing the direction of SOA adoption through governance with organizational involvement
Common barriers to adoption of SOA that are currently being cited are
Lack of clarity of the value of SOA investments by business owners
No clear understanding of how to plan for and execute a SOA adoption strategy
Sense of frustration with the current state of IT architectures
A strong realization that architectural limitations are often a major hindrance to strategic business innovation.
McKinsey reports that “Today’s IT architectures, arcane as they may be, are the biggest roadblocks most companies face when making strategic moves.” The same could be the biggest challenge for IT firms as well to jump on to clients' SOA bandwagon...
