What's new with service-oriented architectures and ERP

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

WORKING THESIS: Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) and their impact on ERP and distributed order management systems are resulting in SOAs becoming the catalyst of making entire organizations more customer-centered and agile in responding to unmet customer needs.

SOA architectures are leading to organizations becoming more customer-centric and less inward focused, concentrating on how to serve customers more efficiently as a result.

Majority of early adopter SOA implementations are designed to streamline customer-facing processes including multichannel management

Need for legacy system integration is crucial for multichannel management systems to be effective in responding to customer needs

Process-based change first needs to occur, with early adopters relying on Business Process Management (BPM) and Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) to processes redefined

Many early adopters of SOA architectures rely on the Attract, Sell, Serve set of processes that also serve as the foundation of synchronized multichannel management strategies.

Distributed order management is nurturing a higher inventory velocity on commoditized products, allowing SOA early adopters to concentrate on products with higher profit margins.

SOA architectures serve as the foundation for higher levels of distributed order management velocity by allowing multiple manufacturing locations to be in coordination with each other.

More efficient production planning, manufacturing operations and fulfillment are possible using SOA architectures to keep all manufacturing centers in sync with each other.

The velocity of distributed order management systems for commoditized products is improved to a statistically significant level when SOA architectures are used. There is empirical evidence to support this finding.