BPM and SOA for business agility

Translating business needs into software outcomes has long been an Achilles heel for the IT industry. Whether the approach has been to write bespoke applications or find a best-fit package, the result is normally an imperfect reflection of what was required. More seriously, the resulting systems are a static reflection of the needs of a particular moment in time. The weakness of this approach comes when a business needs to radically alter the way it operates, whether in response to changing market conditions or simply a desire to reinvent itself. When the systems that supposedly support the business can't be changed in a timely or cost-effective enough way to make that change happen, the business finds itself set in electronic concrete.