Companies face major challenges as they seek to flourish in competitive global
markets, fuelled by developments in technology, from the Internet to grid
computing and Web services. In this environment, service orientation - aligning
business processes to the changing demands of customers - is emerging as a
highly effective approach to increasing efficiency. In this book, Paul Allen
provides an accessible guide to service orientation, showing how it works and
highlighting the benefits it can deliver. The book provides an integrated
approach: after covering the basics of service orientation, he discusses key
issues such as business agility, designing quality-of-service infrastructure,
implementing service-level agreements, and cultural factors. He provides
roadmaps,