What are the Differences Between BPM and SOA?

The differences between SOA and BPM are not always obvious to the average business user. This article explains the differences between these two concepts – and how they work together to help streamline business processes. Do a search of service oriented architecture or business process management, and you’re bound to see the other referenced in the search results. Further research and reading will reveal even more confusion: improving business processes is often referenced in articles explaining service-oriented architecture. Conversely, BPM often talks about SOA. How is one supposed to make sense of these two terms, how they work together, and how they differ? The best place to begin in differentiating between BPM and SOA is to first understand what they have in common. Simply put, both of these disciples work toward improving integration of business processes. Much like the industrial revolution ushered in new methods of mass production and quality control, thus turning the page on handmade, “cottage industry” production, so too have SOA and BPM led businesses to better understand how disparate technology systems with their organisations lead to waste and inefficiency. As a result, both BPM and SOA seek to integrate all of the systems within an organisation so that they can share data more easily and provide fresh, accurate means for servicing customers and clients. BPM Considering that both BPM and SOA seek to deliver streamlined integration to business processes, then one might wonder “what is BPM?” BPM is a holistic management process that seeks to align business processes so that they are optimised for the needs of an organisation’s clients and industry challenges. While the IT perspective of BPM is concerned mainly with the technological considerations behind the middleware of a company’s business solution, BPM actually transcends even this restrictive view of what a business process means to a business. Bound up in BPM is not just the technological implementation of new middleware systems, but also a managerial roadmap that integrates human-driven processes in which human interaction takes place in series or parallel with the use of technology. This isn’t to say that BPM is an intangible approach to integration; it is commonly implemented by a series of design tools, as well as detailed, time-proven methodologies, such as Lean Six Sigma. But all in all, BPM ushers in a complete management of how all operational processes are structured and implemented, all toward the one goal of efficiency and implementation. SOA Unlike BPM, which provides organisations with a specific management approach to implementing and maintaining efficient, integrated business processes, SOA instead provides a flexible set of design principles for developers, which are used during the systems development and integration phases of BPM projects. In this way, SOA helps to forge the blueprint and technological means for implementing the goals defined by BPM. As stated earlier, at the heart of SOA is the integration of disparate systems within a company’s business solution. This is achieved by orchestrating software functionalities in a highly flexible, non-hierarchical arrangement. This is usually accomplished by using effective SOA software tools that allow existing software systems to communicate and interact. In this way, SOA gives developers the means of restructuring existing technological assets of companies so that they work more efficiently. SOA and BPM Work Together Because SOA and BPM overlap each other in terms of what they seek to accomplish, both concepts are in many ways inseparable. While one could imagine BPM as a more philosophical design approach, its principles are firmly rooted in optimising business technologies – there is little need for business process management outside the realm of technology these days. Because this is the case, SOA functions as a key component of achieving the objectives that BPM seeks to accomplish