Enterprise infrastructure software company BEA Systems has announced, according to Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) latest survey of public sector shared services SOA program that demand is rapidly increasing, more than half (54%) of the public sector surveysaid they use a shared services model, 16% expect to introduce shared services within three years.
SOA is clearly the public sector shared services strategies.Nearly 30% of respondents said they use multiple vendors for front-and back-office applications; nearly 17% of respondents have installed a number of suppliers of business intelligence software; 21% of respondents used moresuppliers to provide the middleware platform.The introduction of shared services, agencies complete replacement of the system, while others are connected to the body of the corresponding system.Survey, the public sector is willing to share services and more cost-effective combination of SOA model, rather than out of existing IT assets, that is, not a "rip and replace" strategy.
In August 2006, EIU government departments on shared services opportunities and challenges of the contents of the 127 public sector executives in the survey.Survey include: government agencies / departments and deputy director in charge, Chief Financial Officer, accountants and auditors, technical director, legal department head and project manager and officials.Survey of the public sector: public administration, social services, medical services, enterprise support, resource management and infrastructure sectors.
BEA Vice President, Kelly Collins, general manager of the public sector, said: "This survey provides hard data that our customers are giving up first-generation portal, as these portals often simply a separate system with athin layer of something. Today, customers committed to trading services and unstructured data sets together, so that they can effectively deliver cross-organizational services that end users or the public, are transparent. publicsector is increasingly recognized, SOA provides a flexible infrastructure, which is built in the traditional environment systems, flexible response to changing needs. "
The survey highlights that building a technology infrastructure for the successful implementation of shared services is essential, nearly half (48%) of respondents believe that a single portal interface to improve the quality of shared services is important because this gateway toaccess to all the applications and services; survey also can be from a single software platform to share data across the organization and expressed interest in sharing applications, representing the proportion of survey were 40% and 30%.
Up to 67% of respondents believe that the greatest benefit from shared services will be the IT processes.The survey results not only show technologies can help the government complete the transformation, but also shows can be erected in the traditional environment and flexible IT infrastructure to quickly and easily to change.The report also found that 75% of respondents said that shared services model to improve business processes will bring the most far-reaching implications; shared services improve efficiency and reduce costs - nearly 82% of respondents believe that reducingmultiple departments to use shared services cost the most compelling reason; while 42% of respondents believe that shared services is to improve the public / customer satisfaction a way.
However, the findings also reflect the cautious attitude of the public sector.Survey, the lack of high-level technical support to allow the implementation of shared services off track, can not be senior decision makers is to implement a major obstacle to shared services, because such support is crucial for resource allocation.The reason why care about how the senior management team to accept the concept of shared services, one is worried about the internal skills (49%), the other is suspected to end user can not or do not want to use these new services (42%).These problems make it difficult to invest in shared services business case and technical reasons to distinguish.
Business and government is promoting the implementation of shared services.According to the survey 52% claimed that the need to adopt shared services model depends on high-level government executives or board members, therefore, in order to promote the adoption of shared services, business and politicians seem to need the joint support of supervisors.More than two thirds of the respondents believe that government agencies in charge or a higher level of leadership will be responsible for funding and implementation of shared services to make important decisions.
Collins continued: "Shared Services on the impact of public sector institutions is a bottom-up, the deployment of shared services organizations can drive the overall transformation. BEA platform can help government agencies to implement SOA, but the SOA platform can be extended to existingThe new platform, to meet the needs for integration across multiple government departments needs. re-design of the IT infrastructure is like the city planners of urban planning and design, it is necessary modernization, taking utmost commitment must pass a few hundred years history of development.Here, the 'rip and replace' strategy is unrealistic, but the need to build a modern infrastructure for the protection of critical processes and significant prior investments. by redesigning the infrastructure, adoption of service-centric approach todesign of IT assets, it is possible the value of legacy applications. "