In efforts to adapt to changing business conditions, many corporations experience significant limitations with their current IT infrastructure. The underlying technologies, platforms and systems are tightly coupled with application functionality. This typically results in frustrating project delays as corporation attempt to alter inflexible and non-reusable applications and systems. What is needed is an Enterprise Architecture that supports, not hinders, business agility.

A Service-Oriented Architecture delivers business agility by exposing discrete business functions through standards-based web service interfaces. This provides loose coupling between business functions and the underlying technology infrastructure. The resulting flexibility and reuse of business services can significantly revitalize the organization, and open the door to new business models.