Recovery May Drive SOA

Under the present circumstances, how important a role do you think BPM plays on a CIO's agenda for cost savings

BPM is reasonably important but not critically so. BPM is normally used in situations where there is a lot of human intervention with software applications. A good example is Insurance claims, where the transaction has to be approved by a number of people, etc. For most enterprises today, the pain point is basic integration of systems and not BPM. CIO's in India are still in the early stages of understanding the importance of Integration. BPM follows easily once one has integrated systems, so integration is an important pre-requisite for BPM.

Do you think SOA has really taken off in the Indian context

No, SOA has not 'taken off' in the Indian context. Managers and engineers have heard about SOA, but there are few SOA architects and fewer running SOA projects. The commitment to invest in SOA as a long-term strategy has not really been made by CIOs, CFOs or CEOs because this needs an investment in sharp engineers and architects and also in new SOA infrastructure technology. The uptake has been slow because these investments have not been made quick enough.