The Next Phase Of Business Services Specification

SAP and a group of vendor and user companies such as Microsoft and Standard Bank are currently building a new initiative, working on a business services ecosystem for banking called Banking Industry Architecture Network. The idea is to create an SAP-independent "open" specification (and potentially, standardization) body while leveraging deliverables of SAP's Industry Value Network for Banks. While this could be the beginning of the next phase of business services specifications and business services ecosystems, key challenges and uncertainties remain. Depending on their environments, enterprise architects in banks need to pursue different courses of action to get the most out of business services ecosystems for banking.