In a recent survey conducted by IBM, CEOs indicated that the need to innovate is the top priority. To be truly innovative, companies must be more than simply responsive and flexible: they must be proactive and able to adapt on the fly. This paper coins a new word to describe this ability: flex-pon-sive.

Flex-pon-sive companies respond with speed and agility to changing business needs to recognize increased business flexibility and revenue growth. The main IT enabler of the flex-pon-sive company is service-oriented architecture (SOA). SOA enables organizations to collaborate internally and externally in as frictionless a way as possible. SOA can create innovative processes that can be combined or leveraged to generate new and innovative products, services, and business models.

The keys to successful SOA implementation include:

• Getting organizational buy-in. CIOs should communicate with the business in non-technical terms about specific business benefits.
• Focusing on a specific business problem. Rather than applying SOA to an IT issue, focus on solving a specific business problem.
• Identifying entry point projects. The IT organization can find entry points to create services:
• People-oriented services to promote collaboration and interaction
• Process-oriented services to treat tasks as modular services
• Information-oriented services to enable better decision-making
• Applying SOA to people, process, and information simultaneously. If people, process, and information can be addressed simultaneously, organizations can create a multiplier effect – enabling the organization to shift dramatically to changing conditions and recognize revenue growth opportunities as they arise.