| | APRIL 201819CIOReviewTECHNOLOGY KEYS TO BUILDING A DISRUPTIVE NETWORKED BUSINESSBy Robert Crudup, EVP and CIO, SEI Investment CompanyIndustry after industry are being disrupted by new business models supported by technology platforms. The rate of an industry's disruption can be dramatic as exampled by firms like Uber which has redefined the for-hire personal transportation business. Networked business models supported by Information Technology are driving disruption. Should your firm become a networked business?The purpose of this article is too put a frame around the technology needed to support business models aimed at disrupting markets. One way to think about this is to consider, perhaps, the most disruptive platform ever. When Apple introduced the iPhone most assumed it was a phone with a camera. We soon found that it is a platform. The elements of Apple's business model (a networked business) are -·A technology platform (the phone) ·An app construction tool kit for developers.·A network of developers.·A network of iPhone users ·An online store to make those apps available to anyone.The change to our world has been dramatic.So, what is the technology needed to support a networked business model? Start with a cloud based Platform as a Service (PaaS) deployed with Services Oriented Architecture (SOA). The two allowing easy access to the development platform. Brief Introduction to Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) Service orientation is a software design paradigm that stresses the separation of processing elements, which results in software being built as autonomous components. Each component has its own operational capabilities (service). The service is expressed with a service contract (inter-operability) for use by other components. Originated prior to the dot-com boom by software firms like Microsoft and Oracle, SOA has been embraced by the software industry as the most efficient way to build large, complex system platforms.As the development framework for a technology platform, and booted in object oriented programming, SOA allows developer to use a `construction kit' to design and build services above the core platforms data and business logic. SOA was proven during the mobile computing revolution. Companies with SOA platforms were able to pivot and support mobile apps by quickly building SOA services. Today, SOA is a pre-requisite thereby allowing the advent of Platform as a Service (PaaS); many firms are in the process of modernizing or building new platforms to take advantage of SOA. This SOA framework allows speed and simplicity when building new user experiences (UX's) based on web-services.Platform as a Service (PaaS) PaaS is a category of cloud computing that delivers a platform allowing programmers to build applications and services accessed over the world-wide-web. PaaS services are hosted in the cloud and accessed by users simply via their web browser. Robert Crudup
< Page 9 | Page 11 >