Today’s economies and commodity markets are swinging rapidly, barriers to global competition are disappearing, and empowered customers are changing preferences and expectations faster than businesses can respond. In such an environment businesses must be able to work smarter, increasing business agility while optimizing their costs. Only too often we find ourselves restrained from meeting these imperatives by siloed processes and rigid IT systems that inhibit collaboration and dramatically slow the process of change.

While BPM and SOA each have value on their own, IBM believes that they are naturally synergistic, and best when done together for business and IT agility, optimization and alignment.

This white paper describes the principles for the convergence of BPM and SOA from a business perspective. The primary audiences are leaders and architects that need to understand how to effectively combine BPM and SOA as a key differentiator for successful enterprises in their drive toward business agility.