Business Innovation and Service Oriented Architecture: An Empirical Investigation

Recent research suggests that a strong link exists between business innovation and service oriented IT architectures: modern IT architecture enables business to quickly create new services. However, the relationship between IT capabilities and business performance is not always straightforward. How does SOA support fast innovation in practice, and under which conditions is it effective? In this paper, the authors investigate these issues and ask: How can a SOA architecture like the Enterprise Service Bus support business innovation? This paper investigates this question through a case study at an airline company. Analyzing the relationship between innovation and IT architecture in the company over time, the authors offer the following conclusion: ESB gives strong support to business innovation, under two conditions. First, the implementation of ESB has to be comprehensive, that is, it should include the core processes of the business. Second, the top management (and partners) need to understand the principles of ESB.