When you look at the processes and systems across your business it soon becomes apparent that many of them share common activities and are dependent on common data. However, we often find that for various reasons systems have grown up separately and are doing the same tasks and using the same data independently.
For example, dispatching an order to a customer and sending them a bill both require checking the customers address but the dispatch systems and billing systems may be separate applications that rely on some form of integration to transfer dispatched order information to the billing system. As a consequence both systems may independently maintain customer address information. It is easy to see the duplication of IT resource and the inherent risk of address information being updated in one system and not in another. Not to mention that the companies marketing database or CRM system may contain a third address instance!
By breaking down applications and systems into “services” and using standards and protocols to connect them it becomes easy to:
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