How Web Services Can Help a Business Open New Markets

Our lead example in this chapter is the open-a-new-market approach being developed by InterPro Global Partners. InterPro views itself as an IT consulting firm that specializes in providing advice to its clients on how to globalize products (translations, packaging, cultural modifications); how to perform application integration; and how to develop Web-based applications. The company has about 160 consultants located in the United States and Europe and has revenues of over $20 million annually. InterPro has its own application development framework and methodology that helps the company to understand business process flow (how work flows within organizations) and to develop corresponding technical solutions to improve flow efficiency.

Recent advances in Web technologies specifically the maturation of certain Web standards now enable InterPro to create applications that perform "Web services" for ad hoc communities of users in healthcare, insurance, financial services, real estate, and dozens of other industries. The company's self-image may be changing from that of an IT consulting firm to that of "a creator and builder of global communities."

Sidebar 6-1
InterPro (and Business Partners) in the Healthcare Field: Opening New Markets

In partnership with Portarius Inc. and IBM, InterPro is developing a Web services-based healthcare community. The physician is at the center of the supply-chain model. Physicians, as members of local Independent Physicians Associations (IPAs), represent the core of local healthcare communities and are at the basis of almost every healthcare transaction. Each healthcare community is comprised of service providers that offer general and highly specialized healthcare services and products. These providers often work in loose association with each other. They have different billing systems, different mail and other collaborative systems, different policies and procedures, and in most cases have patient records that are in paper format all of which must be streamlined and automated in order to improve overall healthcare efficiency.

InterPro, Portarius, and IBM recognize that inefficiencies exist in the current model. They are working together to aggregate the infrastructure, services, and business model so that healthcare business partners can quickly streamline their interactions with each other and their patients. Portarius brings together the industry expertise and relationships; InterPro is providing the technical and software solutions; and IBM is providing the core infrastructure and national services organization, necessary to deliver on a new vision of healthcare that of true healthcare process integration. The resulting solution will make it possible for healthcare providers to more easily establish effective and efficient interenterprise business relationships while streamlining business process interactions for all of the participants, lowering transaction costs, and creating new sources of revenue.

The Use of Web Services Standards

InterPro is making use of all three Web services standards to build its "global communities":

Core to the success of InterPro's global communities is the use of UDDI directories. The company enlists "subscribers" in private directories that are hosted by IBM (IBM has its own UDDI registry). This subscriber approach funds the success of each community that InterPro builds enticing doctors to use the systems and providing subscribers with additional sales opportunities for their products and services. Using UDDI has enabled InterPro to build a new business model.

WSDL is key to enabling applications to work cooperatively together, InterPro recognizes that mastering WSDL is very important as it seeks to build new Web communities, and the company has invested in training its staff as well as its customers in the design and development of WSDL descriptions according to the standard.

When queried about the use of the SOAP standard, InterPro indicated that the company was integrating SOAP within its own InterProcess Application Development Framework along with other important standards and protocols such as JSP, ASP, EJB, and COM/DCOM technologies (these are programming languages and conventions).

The beauty (from a business perspective) of what InterPro has done for the healthcare community is that its model is replicable. InterPro understands how business processes work, how the Web service technologies work, and how to go about building ad hoc Web communities. Because InterPro and its partners have been able to identify a willing community of doctors who desire access to streamlined interactions with their business partners, and because the company understands business processes and the new Web services technologies, InterPro has been able to develop an approach that attracts laboratories and pharmacies as subscribers who underwrite the cost of running the ad hoc healthcare Web community. In essence, InterPro has birthed a new business model and this model is fully replicable to other professional communities.

By using its core skills in process flow, technology deployment, and application integration, the company believes that it is ideally positioned for success across these multiple markets.

Not So Fast…

This InterPro example illustrates how a company can create new services and bring those services to market using Web services technologies.

As pointed out in previous chapters, strict adherence to Web services standards is not required in order to build Web services applications. InterPro makes use of some Web services standards such as a private UDDI directory to help its business partners find out about each other, and the company uses SOAP to bind sessions. But notice how the company uses Microsoft's COM/DCOM APIs for program-to-program communications instead of WSDL (the reason could be the comparative immaturity of WSDL at this juncture or the fact that the company already had COM/DCOM code available, and using it was the quicker path to market). At most early-adopter sites this kind of mix-and-match approach to building Web services is common, but over time, as Web services directories and other protocols mature, expect Web services standards to dominate as the preferred method of building Web services enabled applications.

Note also how the company has focused on streamlining not only the communications among various business partners but on streamlining the business process itself. This streamlined workflow is where the biggest payback is delivered by this Web service customers ultimately buy into InterPro's service because it enables them to run their businesses more efficiently.