SOA Makes The Modern Consumer Economy Possible
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) illustrates how Information Technology (IT) challenges are being met with new and innovative solutions. The problem is that many companies are constrained by their current IT infrastructure which is incapable of supporting the level of flexibility needed in rapidly changing business environments. Much of the intellectual capital and other corporate resources are tied up in these older inflexible systems. There is also a huge amount of IT resources (manpower) used to shuffle data around in these older systems rather than on newer Web-based technologies.
The concept of SOA is to reuse and reconnect existing IT assets and make resources available to participants via a network. The network links the Web service consumer to the Web service provider through a service broker. One advantage is that organizations can offer independent services in a standardized way using SOA. Another benefit is that implementation of new products and services can be accomplished quickly and at a lower cost than older technologies.
Web-based credit service companies operate in a very competitive environment. Opportunities to create competitive advantage are often linked to its ability to immediately respond to market demands as well as meet existing customers’ expectations. It is easy to understand the implications of SOA when viewed in relation to a successful Web-based company.
TrueCredit is one of those companies. It is a subsidiary of TransUnion, an international credit bureau (http://www.transunion.com/corporate/aboutUs/aboutUs.page). The company was founded in 1968, is headquartered in Chicago, provides solutions to more than 50,000 businesses worldwide, reaches businesses and consumers in 25 countries on 5 continents and maintains secure credit histories on an estimated 500 million consumers around the globe.
TransUnion solutions comprise four distinct areas of expertise. Those are information services, real estate services, international services and consumer services.
It provides information services with enterprise-wide decisioning technologies, advanced analytics and specialized market expertise, leveraged data capabilities to help clients meet their objectives and make better decisions. Services offered are marketing, fraud and identity management, risk management and collections management. Key markets include automotive, collections, communications, financial services, healthcare, insurance and retail.
Real Estate Services are offered to mortgage lenders to simplify each step of the residential lending process by working with them to understand their operations and integrate automated Web solutions allowing them to acquire more qualified applicants and reduce processing delays.
International Services focuses on domestic companies expanding overseas and international companies in need of powerful information resources. Consulting services for developing credit reporting infrastructures, debt collection and direct marketing analysis are its key components.
The consumer services division develops and markets interactive credit-based products and services to consumers and the nation's largest financial institutions. It offers credit monitoring and identity theft protection products for consumers, private-label, online and offline credit management solutions for financial institutions, marketing analysis and comprehensive direct marketing agency services.
The existence of an individual's updated credit file makes it possible for businesses to make nearly instantaneous, objective credit and insurance decisions. Processes that formerly took days or weeks may now be completed in minutes without question of personal prejudice or subjective judgment. The credit database also makes it possible for credit card issuers and other businesses to target their offers to consumers.
SOA allows TransUnion to provide timely information to its 50,000 business customers while operating various other services focused on different market segments using essentially the same data. It is important to be able to serve all of these users simultaneously since the subscribers to this service, primarily banks and lending institutions, require instantaneous credit reporting. The global information system required by TransUnion would be costly and virtually impossible to implement without SOA. SOA gives TransUnion a definite competitive advantage.
Immediate access to current credit information makes the modern consumer economy possible.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I think most of the biz guys who don't use IT are intimidated by the technology. I use it, but am very unsophisticated. Most all of my access is internet based and therefore, I have very little need for 'in-house' IT and service, since the web-based IT services keep themselves upgraded continually (or they fall behind). My biggest expense is connection and a new laptop every couple of years. I find it easier and MUCH more economical. I think the future heads this way.
I recently sold a service business where the most of the work was preparing paper reports for customers. The new owners have done a great job putting their information on the web, for both their service engineers who input the data, but also for their customers who are able to access the data on-line in addition to the official "paper" reports. Just an example of a small company making the internet an exponentially greater resource for their business.
i tried leaving a comment but got frustrated because my username and password were wrong and i couldnt go back to retrieve my comment, so thats annoying.
i said that our modern economy is collapsing! aaahh! and that we use network system at work daily. and that i am fixing pork chops tonight and it reminds me of you.
Post a Comment