Proof of concept

For many IT departments, web-services adoption and service-oriented architectures play a crucial role in their future strategies. But with research showing that 31 per cent of IT projects meet resistance from the finance department, IT professionals must be ready to step up and prove return on investment declares John Dillon, EMEA marketing director at webMethods.

The traditional number-cruncher role of the finance department has clearly evolved into a more strategic business role, with much greater emphasis on contributing to the overall commercial development and success of the business. In this day and age, the finance department demands objective confirmation of the potential success of an IT project, as opposed to relying on gut feeling, which once would have sufficed. And with PricewaterhouseCooper’s second annual survey of techMARK-listed firms concluding that IT spend is set to improve with a big return to savvy buying, it is crucial that IT departments start putting their case forward.

For many IT departments, a move towards adoption of web services and service-oriented architectures (SOAs) forms the basis of their forward-thinking strategies. The idea is that embracing such concepts will allow them to create applications rapidly by assembling and reconfiguring standards-based reusable software building blocks. In short, they will be able to create composite applications by combining a number of web services to perform business tasks or processes. Such an approach should allow the IT department to respond more quickly to the needs of the business, while dramatically reducing project cycle times and development costs.

It should be noted, however, that the finance department is sceptical about exposing their business to what they view as just another IT fad. Technical jargon has no place in the boardroom when it comes to putting your case forward for web services and SOAs. Instead, what is needed is answers to questions like: How can it make a business more responsive to improving customer needs and business conditions? How can it help to reduce development costs while increasing the shelf-life of IT investments? How can it leverage and protect the IT investments already made?

The challenge of the IT professional, therefore, is to prove to the finance department that the adoption of these emerging concepts can actively serve to automate and manage business processes, and have a positive impact on the overall effectiveness of a business. Yet common opinion has it that this is easier said than done.

A recent survey commissioned by webMethods reveals that only five per cent of senior IT decision makers within UK enterprises are able to explain easily what web services actually are. With so few able to articulate web services in business terms, their ability to add real competitive value will continue to be overlooked.

The technology is now taking its first real steps outside of the intranet environment and into the internet and extranet domains, with over 25 per cent of businesses adopting web services to better serve their customers and partners. Yet of the UK enterprises still to take the web-services route, the primary concern seems to be an inability to quantify the return on investment (ROI).

In simple terms, through web services, applications can work automatically, talking to each other across the internet. The business benefits of this are undeniable:

Streamlining and automating disjointed systems reduces the need for labour-intensive tasks that would normally be carried out by IT staff;
Business processes within the enterprise are simplified, resulting in increased levels of efficiency and improved relationships with customers and suppliers;
Best of all, there is no need to conduct major surgery on existing systems, taking much of the pain out of enterprise-integration projects.

Most organisations have large numbers of legacy platforms in their environment and cannot afford to discard them and start again. Web services and SOAs can play a key role in extending the shelf life of these applications. Furthermore, web-services standards can be used to provide a services interface to existing applications, making their functions available as building blocks for new applications to use.

Yet many of you will be asking what SOAs can offer over conventional application-development concepts. Software architectures have evolved from mainframe through client-server and web-based systems to where we are today, but the objective always seems to have been the same – to build a framework within which individual functions can be created and made accessible to anyone, anywhere and at any time. The answer to what is different this time round lies in ‘standardised interoperability’ – the universal acceptance and adoption of web-services standards for interoperability.

Interoperability means that a system or product is able to work with other systems or products without the need for additional integration efforts. It is the ability of information systems to operate in conjunction with each other, encompassing communication protocols, hardware/ software, application and data compatibility layers. In today’s market, the idea that the network is a computer is fast becoming a reality, so interoperability between distributed systems is of the essence.

Ultimately, to thrive in today’s web-fuelled economy, organisations have no choice but to be forward thinking, continuously exploiting the internet to help them fulfil and exceed their business objectives. This is where web services excel, giving businesses real tangible value and making them totally reassess the way they’ve done business, in an enterprising and radical way.

John Dillon is EMEA marketing director at webMethods. He can be contacted at jdillon@webmethods.com.