SOA & BPM – Which is one up, What is emerging, and How does one execute?

Today's fast pace industry is causing companies to evolve into business optimization entities. The survival of the fittest is being played out in a different arena, with business optimization being one of the main themes. For many years, business services and IT infrastructures have continued along different and difficult roads of progress, resulting in a huge gap in how these assets can be collectively optimized and synergized for the business. The disintegrated nature of IT assets alongside segmented workflow and business processes form the barriers that are blocking progress.

What role does SOA play in improving business processes?

In recent years, service oriented architecture (SOA) software and platforms look set to deliver on promises of "refreshing" IT infrastructures, with reduced effort in integration and system interfacing, as well as an overall aim of improving business process visibility and control. Business processes that are hard to stitch together in the past are re-engineered with agility and flexibility to help cope with rapid changing business requirements.

In short, SOA has evolved into the business process management (BPM) area and is helping to reform enterprise software with a newfound flexibility for change. BPM is the convergence of a number of existing technologies and approaches. Its primary roots are in the process management capabilities of workflow tools but it also includes capabilities that derive from document management, process modelling, analytics, rules management, collaboration applications and application integration. It brings together all these technology elements into a single platform that manages the lifecycle of a process starting from business goals, definition, through deployment, execution, measurement, change and re-deployment.

What do enterprises want? What offerings are considered “winners”?

It is pertinent and important for all IT infrastructure architects and CIOs to have a firm understanding of the roles SOA and BPM play, and how their business can be optimized in all areas from application services, networks, data, down to the channels and devices. These layers do not operate in silos but have increasing interactions and collaborations shaping up in the near future. Demands are high now for the winners:

• To provide visibility and confidence over business processes segmented across different geographical boundaries and have best governance and practices in place
• To focus on compliance and satisfying legal regulations without high costs and manual efforts
• To develop the agility to roll out innovative services faster

In addition to these management and senior executives' requirements, other ecosystem players (customers, suppliers, partners etc.) want to know how to control and improve their business further.

Understanding the interplay of SOA and BPM in your business

Together, SOA and BPM provide a perfect fusion for enterprise computing. BPM gives a high-level abstraction for defining business processes, as well as the capabilities of monitoring and managing those processes. SOA provides the capabilities for services that support those processes to be combined together, to support and create an agile, flexible enterprise. BPM without SOA is useful for building applications, but difficult to extend to the enterprise. SOA without BPM is useful for creating reusable and consistent services, but lacks the ability to turn those services into an agile, competitive enterprise.

Hot topics to be discussed:

At IDC’s Asia/Pacific Business Optimization: SOA and BPM Conference 2007 , IDC and our partners will help educate and inform a targeted audience on topics such as:

• SOA and BPM emerging standards, software and platforms.
• How will the evolving network and data technologies complement enterprise SOA strategies?
• How SOA and BPM can bring out the best of business optimization?
• Market Scan: SOA and BPM readiness of stakeholders and early adopters in key markets in Asia/Pacific
• Status Check: Enterprises’ current and planned adoption of SOA and BPM in Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan)
• Key issues surrounding SOA and BPM: Striking the right note to deliver value

Who should attend

Our event attracts CxO's, MDs, Directors, VPs and Senior Managers from Information Security/Internet Security, Business Strategy, Research & Development, Finance, and IT & Operations. Other practicing professionals include IT Engineers, Security Administrators, Systems Architects/Designers, Consultants, and Project Managers.

You should attend if you are from these industries:

• Pharmaceuticals & Chemicals
• Medical & Healthcare
• Banking & Finance
• Insurance and Investment houses
• Energy & Utilities
• Government bodies and Associations
• Travel & Transportation services
• Warehousing & Logistics
• Energy & Utilities
• Engineering
• FMCG
• Services
• Information & Communication Technology
• Telecommunications & Media

We look forward to seeing you there!