Planning_and_Impleme.. - didier beck weblog
Planning_and_Impleme.. - didier beck weblog
Planning_and_Impleme.. - didier beck weblog
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www.butlergroup.com<br />
<strong>Planning</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Impleme</strong>nting SOA<br />
In 1999, Web services st<strong>and</strong>ards were just emerging. Therefore, to best meet its internal needs, St<strong>and</strong>ard<br />
Life developed internal XML st<strong>and</strong>ards that are analogous to today’s Web services st<strong>and</strong>ards. St<strong>and</strong>ard Life<br />
continually evaluated Web services st<strong>and</strong>ards as they matured, <strong>and</strong> is now beginning to implement these<br />
new st<strong>and</strong>ards as XML-enabled reusable services that are available over a messaging layer to agents <strong>and</strong><br />
business partners.<br />
St<strong>and</strong>ard Life’s service-oriented approach has allowed the company to exploit its existing IT assets <strong>and</strong><br />
applications, <strong>and</strong> to align technology with its key business objectives. Today, St<strong>and</strong>ard Life’s SOA has been<br />
implemented across all of the major UK operations in the St<strong>and</strong>ard Life Group. At the core of the SOA is<br />
IBM WebSphere Message Broker, a st<strong>and</strong>ardised messaging technology that allows St<strong>and</strong>ard Life to<br />
integrate its various hardware, software, <strong>and</strong> platform systems. Web services are enabled by IBM Rational<br />
Application Developer for WebSphere <strong>and</strong> IBM WebSphere Application Server.<br />
Outcomes<br />
St<strong>and</strong>ard Life has seen significant benefits as a result of implementing SOA <strong>and</strong> reusing business services.<br />
Over 300 business services, such as the ability to provide agent details, produce statements, <strong>and</strong> maintain<br />
addresses, are available for reuse by IFAs, agents, <strong>and</strong> customers. The company can easily deploy new<br />
combinations of services, thereby simplifying the process of working across its various business channels,<br />
<strong>and</strong> as Web services employ common st<strong>and</strong>ards, anyone, regardless of technology environment, can make<br />
use of the services available.<br />
St<strong>and</strong>ard Life has also seen a significant decrease in client application development times. To date, the<br />
company has been able to reuse nearly 51% of its services, contributing to savings in excess of UK£10.4<br />
million in development costs. With so many services available for reuse, St<strong>and</strong>ard Life’s IT department can<br />
combine services to develop <strong>and</strong> deploy composite applications more quickly, <strong>and</strong> as the business needs<br />
them. This makes St<strong>and</strong>ard Life more agile <strong>and</strong> able to respond to new business opportunities with greater<br />
speed.<br />
By exploiting its catalogue of reusable services <strong>and</strong> making them available to business partners, St<strong>and</strong>ard<br />
Life has been able to improve customer service. This, in turn, differentiates St<strong>and</strong>ard Life from its<br />
competitors in the eyes of IFAs <strong>and</strong> customers using aggregate sites to evaluate <strong>and</strong> select providers. As a<br />
result St<strong>and</strong>ard Life has been voted ‘company of the year’ by UK IFAs for the past five years.<br />
Since St<strong>and</strong>ard Life has implemented a SOA using Web services, its transaction rates have increased<br />
without the need to increase operations staff, <strong>and</strong> by sharing business functions with key constituents, the<br />
company can ensure the consistency of information that its customers receive, whether that information<br />
comes from an IFA portal, St<strong>and</strong>ard Life’s Web site, or from a conversation with one of the company’s<br />
customer service representatives. This consistency strengthens the St<strong>and</strong>ard Life br<strong>and</strong> across multiple<br />
products <strong>and</strong> channels.<br />
St<strong>and</strong>ard Life’s SOA has evolved over a 10-year period. During that time, the company has learned an<br />
important lesson – an effective SOA combines technology with business processes <strong>and</strong> people. St<strong>and</strong>ard<br />
Life made the important shift from having a technology-centric culture to having a service-oriented one, <strong>and</strong><br />
enhanced the skill sets of its employees, for example, by training them in XML, to support this culture shift.<br />
It also exploited <strong>and</strong> revitalised its existing IT <strong>and</strong> application assets to support its business processes,<br />
enabling St<strong>and</strong>ard Life’s IT function to both support the organisation <strong>and</strong> contribute to the bottom line.<br />
Key outcomes included:<br />
Reuse of nearly 51% of existing services, resulting in savings of more than UK£10.4 million in<br />
development costs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Increased transaction rate by 900% without increasing operations staff.<br />
Improved responsiveness to market change <strong>and</strong> customer needs.<br />
Better customer service.<br />
Ensures consistency of information that customers receive, strengthening company br<strong>and</strong>.<br />
December 2006 Section 2: SOA in Action 33