Using a service oriented architecture does not reduce costs
in the IT department, according to John Worth, chief information
officer at financial services firm Prudential.
The main advantage of SOAs, which focus on application integration,
is to reduce operational costs for the business as a whole, rather
than cut the cost of running and supporting IT systems.
"SOA does not necessarily bring costs down on the systems estate,"
said Worth.
The Prudential used an SOA based on BEA Weblogic in its 4Front
project, which joined 20 different systems to allow customer
service agents to view a customer's entire portfolio.
Using an SOA reduced training costs for customer service staff,
since they now use fewer interfaces, said Worth.
The system has led to fewer customer complaints. It has also
allowed customer data, such as changes in address, to be captured
once and disseminated to other products in the portfolio.
The Prudential is looking to extend this approach to build a single
valuation engine that will allow call centre staff to give
customers the value of different kinds of investment without
switching application.