SOA and the business

There are voices in our IT world saying that we have to go for low cost countries, we will earn money. Well it is not a matter of subtraction, that is for sure.

Cultural differences in the ways of working is making the profit not as profitable as it seems from the start. Note that there seldom - but it could be as well - lack of knowledgeable people in other parts of the world, it is just that the ways of working differ.
That gap has to be acknowledged and adressed.

If you have a business where you want to outsource some part of your internal business. That decision will put several requirements upon your inner process structure and documentation. It essentially say "you have to define them". That is the first obstacle. Are there heroes out there making the business run and you do not know it? Yes, probably. There is always a "phone Mr FixIt and he will take care of you" or "send a fax to Mrs IgoFigure and the order will be in place when you want it".

So you go document.

Then you go standardise the inner it landscape. That is the next step, of course every single person has to agree upon the technical road taken. Actually, we all sort of just accept the fact that we shall use Word as a word processing tool. Thou shalt use Word. OK, we say, we do not go in our chamber and make up a new word proceessing software. Do we? No, if we do anything we look for open source alternatives. That is a good thing. Or we look for software on the shelf solutions.

A SOA concept for your company could be the soulution and lift everyone. But it is a cumbersome task to achieve tru outsourcing capability. And it starts with Your company, not the outsourcing company.