CRM - May 2008 - (Page 36)

SEVEN STEPS TO SOA SUCCESS too small; it has to be just right for your company’s needs. An SOA initiative should be created with clear goals in mind. If these goals are not explicitly defined, you risk losing time and money investing in technologies you do not need and creating unnecessary infrastructures. But there’s an equally dangerous pitfall: “One mistake some companies make is that they try to design everything up front,” Finley says. “The big-bang [SOA] project is a mistake.” An effective approach to SOA is to seek out a single business area where creating a Web services–based initiative will have obvious gains. Thinking of SOA in a phase-based way will make the project easier to swallow. To locate that first business area, you must ask: What can SOA do for my company? This will differ Because SOA helps facilitate the seamless sharing of data, an initiative will only be as promising as the quality of the underlying data. depending on the age and complexity of your organization, your company culture, your priorities, and systems landscapes. STEP 4: GET YOUR DATA DUCKS IN A ROW Because SOA helps facilitate the seamless sharing of data, an SOA initiative is only as promising as the data fueling the services. Why Are People Opting for SOA? AMR Research asked SOA users to name the primary driver for their current and planned investments 1% 18% 16% In other words, insufficient data quality can hurt your business.“In SOA, you want to maximize the sharing and reuse of resources such as customer data,” says James Kobielus, senior analyst at Forrester Research. “One of the things companies tend to do wrong is that they don’t consolidate their customer data down to a core corporate repository.” To create a customer data integration (CDI) repository, companies often need to invest in a master data management (MDM) tool before attempting SOA. (See “The Master Piece,” January 2008, page 39, for a look at MDM.) Although many companies choose to pick up the MDM tool from their CRM vendor, Kobielus recommends considering a wide array of MDM vendors before implementing. Nearly all data-cleansing vendors have implemented Web services standards, so the ease of integration will be high regardless of software brand. 12% 17% 14% 22% Build IT skills in an important new technology area Respond to customer mandate(s) for SOA-based integration Modernize systems architecture based on SOA principles Respond to NEED to change systems faster/cheaper/less risk Reduce IT costs through re-use Best technology to meet requirements of individual project Not sure / Don't know SOURCE: AMR RESEARCH STEP 5: BUILD OR BUY It’s important to consider the nuts and bolts of your SOA initiative during the education-and-planning phase. As the number of SOA-compliant vendors increases, your options multiply. In the past, any company wishing to apply SOA principles to its business needed to do much of the IT grunt work itself. Today, however, more and more vendors offer a complete architecture, a prebuilt tool around which you can construct your SOA. To decide the best approach for your company, the SOA team must consider your business priorities and discuss options with potential vendors. A prebuilt tool can act as a lubricant in easing deployment, and can take much of the pressure off of your IT team. Oracle, IBM, and SAP have all been leaders in the creation of these tool sets. Prebuilt SOA is of the most advantage to companies that have a history of investing in packaged applications as a means to create IT systems. On the other hand, companies for which a more-advanced SOA can spell increased revenue should look to management tools to help them create their own infrastructure. “In bid-intensive markets where milliseconds matter, building it www.destinationCRM.com 36 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MAY 2008 http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - May 2008

CRM - May 2008 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Is CRM Too Hard for Microsoft Vendors Go Virtual For Feedback Sense-sational Marketing How UGC Can Benefit CRM DestinationCRM Dashboard Price Check, Aisle 5 Required Reading The Moving Target The Excellence Myth Seven Steps to SOA Success And They're Off! Are You Ready to Party? Skin in the Game The Right Numbers Secret of My Success Re: Tooling Connect Pint of View

CRM - May 2008

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