Software architecture that defines the use of loosely coupled software services to support the requirements of the business processes and software users.

IT in itself does not give the business competitive advantage, it is what IT does for the business which creates differentiation.  How can IT best enable this advantage?  By giving the business the capability to adapt and change.  SOA is the method for doing this and is fast becoming the standard way that IT departments evolve existing core business applications so that key functions and information can be grouped around essential business processes.  As these processes change the grouping (services) can be re-configured quickly and in many cases without further development effort.  Compare this with the resistance you currently face modifying legacy applications to enable a new product to be launched,  a customer contract to be added, needing to support remote working and wanting to outsource non-core activities.

A practical example is to package a regularly used credit check function so that it can be called from a browser as a web service as well as by all of the current applications that need to use this function.   This re-usability provides flexibility (the credit check can be incorporated in a different business process with ease) and cost savings (a change to the credit check step can be made once rather than in each application where this function is required).

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