Technology has evolved to a point where, for the first time it’s the business principles and the needs of an organisation that can drive the way in which technology can execute on those needs. It is through service-oriented architecture (SOA) that this relationship comes alive.

“SOA works behind the scenes and also at the front-end to help give users simplified interaction with people and information in the context of their business processes,” explains Gerald Naidoo, CEO of Logikal Consulting.

“However, businesses no longer want to invest the time and resources in two ¬or three ¬year initiatives. Business is changing so fast these days that we can’t afford to roll something into production that represents the thinking of three years ago.”

The solution is a flexible, highly integrated IT platform that will not only streamline internal operations, but will also help businesses expand their offerings to better serve their customers. As the alignment between business and IT is strengthened to deliver higher value, business process management (BPM) helps tie together people, processes, and information.

“Combining software capabilities and business expertise to accelerate process improvement and facilitate business innovation, BPM provides a common vocabulary for both business and IT to address projects and ultimately help your company better realise its strategic intent,” says Naidoo.

“IBM software provides the face of technology to help your organisation pinpoint and build the right kind of infrastructure to support your IT and end user needs,” he adds.

“In today’s competitive business environment, the flexibility to respond with speed to any customer demand, market opportunity or external threat is more important than ever. Rigid IT infrastructures have been responsible for restricting business agility time and time again.”

For years, business has sought ways to support ever-changing business models by rapidly and cost-effectively modifying their IT infrastructures. Leading companies are making IT decisions that support the goals and processes of the business itself, turning IT into a strategic enabler rather than an inhibitor of business agility.

“Bridging the gap between business goals and IT is not easy. Business success is achieved through deliberate and informed alignment of business and IT goals and processes. If the business needs are not driving the IT decisions, then the IT investment is not necessarily serving the business model and may not be improving business returns,” Naidoo explains.

“IBM provides a strategic enabler, enabling businesses with dynamic solutions that are driven by business goals, processes and requirements.”

Using integration solutions from WebSphere, for example, companies can model business processes and evaluate them to ensure they are meeting business needs. This allows them to really understand the interaction between all of the components of the business. And with the information that is produced, the business can look at these processes in new ways.

Similarly, IBM’s Lotus notes and ECM/BPM offerings provide support in the integration of business solutions to accelerate deployment of new business processes.

“Leveraging deep industry expertise, benchmarking best practices, methods, tools, and reference materials, these solutions provide roadmap of execution points to connect overall business strategy with required process capabilities and the relevant BPM software needed to deliver process performance. If achieving on-demand business is your goal, then IBM is the answer to the question ‘How do I get there?’,” Naidoo concludes.