Driving Innovation In Retail With SOA

You'd be forgiven for thinking that service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a buzzword that represents all that's cynical about the IT industry – old ideas rebadged as new ones, over-inflated stories of amazing customer transformations, and a focus on cool technology rather than practical advice. However, survey after survey shows that the topic of SOA is high on CIO agendas; that organizations are actively embarking on SOA initiatives; and those early adopters are seeing real results.

The two decades since electronic data communication became widely available to businesses has transformed retail – from a constellation of independently owned one-off shops and small chains to an industry dominated by multinational corporations which are shaping consumer demand and emerging economies. As that same electronic communication has become cheaper and easier to consume over the past 10 years, e-commerce and POS technologies are transforming much of the retail industry again.

Only now, though, are the changes wrought by those technology enablers coming together to impact the way that retailers work across the supply chain from the supplier's supplier to the end consumer. The very technology that has enabled retailers to flourish and grow has also made competition much more diverse and distributed. When buying opportunities for consumers are pervasive, retailers have to continually drive down costs, introduce a steady stream of new products and more effectively manage suppliers.

Supply chain relationships have moved from being primarily adversarial in nature, to being collaborative partnerships. The new reality for retailers, their partners and their suppliers is founded on the ability to effectively manage complexity and uncertainty – and do it better than everyone else.