ProCard – Goals, Risks and Mitigation Strategies

ProCard

* Goal: Wanted to recast its business, moving from provider of a monolithic credit card services application to service provider offering individual features that would easily integrate with other systems—including those of their competitors.

* Risk: Selling pieces as services—particularly those seen as having competitive advantage—could have reduced ProCard’s chances for selling its entire suite.

* Mitigation strategy: Using a service-oriented architecture (SOA) instead of a one-off connection to Visa allowed ProCard to shop the services to other potential customers more easily, possibly opening up new markets for the company.

CompuCredit

* Goal: Wanted to reduce the complexity and rigidity of its IT infrastructure to decrease costs and improve call center efficiency.

* Risk: Needed to demonstrate value of SOA quickly to assure support from the business side.

* Mitigation strategy: Found a pair of well-defined opportunities that were both high-value and quick-ROI, and would provide plainly visible metrics for success.

1-800-Flowers.com

* Goal: Wanted to increase IT flexibility and scalability while eliminating silos in order to meet the needs of its rapidly growing business.

* Risk: Desire by SOA purists to service-enable everything could have slowed development and prevented the business side from getting what it needed quickly enough.

* Mitigation strategy: Architecture committees and development groups worked together to strike a balance between the flexibility of services and the needs of business.