The Open Group Service Integration Maturity Model (OSIMM) Version 2 – Benefits of Moving to Higher Maturity Levels

 

From Silo to Integrated

Organizations transforming from a Silo maturity level to an Integrated maturity level will significantly reduce operational and maintenance cost. These cost reductions are realized by reducing redundant and laborious data entry processes, reducing batch cycles to transform and transfer the data from one system to another. From this transition the data is available on a real-time basis, with reliable delivery of data, and automated data format conversion for the integrating systems. The transformation from structured programming to object-oriented programming would also leverage re-usability of the code and help in re-usability and reduction of the software maintenance complexities since the software is more modular. The modular code increases readability of the code, thus reducing maintenance time.

From Integrated to Componentized

Organizations transforming from an Integrated maturity level to a Componentized maturity level would benefit in preparing themselves to expose the business functionality at a more granular level; such exposure is required at more advanced maturity levels. The re-usability also matures to be at a business function level as compared to application level, and enhancements and new functionality are achieved through refactoring of the existing applications into smaller, re-useable components. The disaggregation of the business in itself helps in reducing the complexities and facilitates the analysis of the impact of the componentized organization on new business models and business transformations. This componentization also helps the organization in reducing the time-to-market and increases IT response to business changes.

From Componentized to Services

The transformation from a Componentized maturity level to a Service maturity level causes the organization to be viewed more as a service provider to other organizations within the enterprise or external to the enterprise participating in the value chain. Business services now become re-usable. This maturity level reduces the need for (and hence the cost of) redeveloping the same functionality for multiple systems by the provision of re-useable services called through standardized interfaces, irrespective of the technology platform on which the application is running. These services can also offer access to data in a controlled and timely manner, which reduces inconsistencies in the data within systems that access and update it. The investment of effort in identification, specification, development, testing, and deployment of a service is paid back when new systems require the same service from the providing organization, since the cost of infrastructure and maintenance of common functionality is reduced.

From Services to Composite Services

Organizations transforming from a Service maturity to a Composite Service maturity level have structured their business and IT support so that new business processes may be more rapidly constructed out of services, and provision of new business functionality to different parts of the organization may be achieved more easily. This also reduces the time-to-market of a new business model due to a change in business strategy and or business transformation. At this level of transformation it is primarily a re-composition of the services provided by different organizations within an enterprise of the value chain of the enterprise.

From Composite Services to Virtualized Services

Organizations transforming from a Composite Service maturity to a Virtualized Service maturity level benefit from a significant degree of flexibility in the design of integrated systems, in that different types of service (in terms of protocol, data models, etc.) that would otherwise not be interoperable can be more easily integrated. In addition, a system may be reconfigured to achieve higher reliability, without the consumers having to modify their code. Virtualized services will enable organizations to better align business requirements with IT capabilities by building robust services that are highly flexible, manageable, and scalable consistently.

From Virtualized Services to Dynamically Re-Configurable Services

Organizations achieving this level of maturity would have completely decomposed services with service configuration information stored in a database for the service to be dynamically configured based on the dynamic nature of service requests. This provides a superior flexibility for business transformation and provides a complete business and IT alignment. This provides autonomic features for the infrastructure to sense and respond to service requests within the organization and enterprise with high resiliency.

Organizations at this level of maturity would have services that provide an agile capability to meet SLAs by allocating capacity dynamically with increased flexibility, which makes the organization highly competitive. This capability would also enable the organization to optimize services for high availability and scalability without impacting service levels and reduce the complexity of deploying services.