Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is becoming the new operational methodology of choice for business, according to Simon Carpenter, SAP Africa director for strategic initiatives.
Carpenter was speaking on the eve of the Saphila conference, in Cape Town, this week. The event is being presented by SAP, in conjunction with the Africa SAP User Group.
According to Carpenter, businesses today are at a similar point as during the initial take-up of enterprise resource planning (ERP).
"In the early days, customers had to do a lot of work to understand what ERP meant, what it can do, and how to apply it," he says.
"During that period, the technologies were new, there wasn't a lot of implementation experience around, and organisations didn't know quite where to start or, once they'd started, where to go next. It is a steep learning curve."
This time around, however, the trend of note is the movement towards SOA, as new technologies come into their own, says Carpenter.
"We are at a similar junction. The idea of breaking things up into smaller bits is not new, but it is becoming more pervasive."
He says SOA will, therefore, be one of the main focus areas of the Saphila conference. "SOA is still in its infancy. You need a lot of maturity to embark on it. You need to know what is on offer and manage it well, or you could have chaos."
In addition, he says: "There are new technologies emerging, along with the changing business models that they're driving," all of which will be up for discussion at the conference.
"The point of a discussion forum of this sort is that it gives you a chance to learn about new technologies much faster than if you tried to get to grips with them in isolation from your peers," says Carpenter. "It saves you from reinventing the wheel, so your time to benefit is significantly increased."
Key speakers at this year's conference include L'eo Apotheker, global SAP deputy CEO, and Harrods UK IT director David Llamas.
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