J. on Architecture

In the physical world the process of a customer transaction can be flexible because there is direct interaction between customer and an employee of your company. In the information exchange between the two people one can ask for additional information or ask for clarification. Because of the interaction the process can take up any amount of time, until both parties have asked for and acquired the information they need from the other to complete the transaction.

In the digital world (i.e. on a website) this process is atomic and rigid, because there is no interaction. The customer has to provide all the information in the predefined format of the customer (web) application and has to do so in one go. Of course the information exchange can be broken down into logical steps, but the transaction as a whole has to be done in one take. If the customer doesn’t provide all the information; no transaction. If the customer has questions; no transaction.

So how can you unify these two dynamics in a multi channel environment? This is a question that is especially relevant for government organizations that are bound by law to provide their services over multiple channels. The answer is services.

If you brake the process down into logical steps and form separate services for each of these steps, you can use these in the predefined way that the customer application is designed, or you can let the employee use them at their own discretion in a flexible employee application. That is the essence of service oriented architecture.