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CEO David Mitchell Adds That Service-Oriented Architecture, Business Process Management and Return-on-Investment Are Poised to Further Expand the Role and Power of IT FAIRFAX, Va., Nov. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- In the wake of the continuing debate around the value of IT, webMethods President and CEO David Mitchell yesterday encouraged Integration World attendees to refine their approach to IT by embracing process-centricity in their operations. According to Mr. Mitchell, process-centricity ensures that IT resources are fully aligned with the real- world requirements of the business, which allows IT to contribute more measurable and significant results. He also argued that service-oriented architecture (SOA), business process management (BPM), and the expanded pursuit of process return-on-investment (ROI) would play a fundamental role in separating leaders from laggards. "A new era for IT is emerging," declared webMethods President and CEO David Mitchell in his keynote address at Integration World. "It's about becoming process-centric in your operations, in your technology and in your approach to the business. Business integration will play a leading role in driving this change. More specifically, IT must strive to fully integrate the totality of their businesses, including their processes and workflows, systems and applications, information and data, and users and trading partners, in order for these enterprises to prosper in this new era. By doing so, IT can help line-of-business overcome the operational disconnects that prevent enterprises from achieving their key corporate objectives." Pointing to research showing that line-of-business expectations of IT were often being unmet, Mr. Mitchell outlined how a process-centric approach would allow IT executives to become more responsive to the business, allowing them to lead the discussion within their businesses around creating positive change. Mr. Mitchell also pointed to three acronyms -- SOA, BPM and ROI -- that he argued would enable and define this shift: * SOA was viewed as fundamental to delivering much-needed speed and agility to the enterprise. By lowering the cost of integration, it was also considered a key driver in minimizing legacy investments, which would allow enterprises to more aggressively invest in their future. * Likewise, he argued that BPM and business activity monitoring were equally critical due to their role in transforming Web services into business processes. By doing so, they deliver significant dividends in their ability to model and automate the key processes that typically define the business as well as in their added ability to produce actionable insight into a variety of critical Key Performance Indicators. * Reflecting on the fact that while many technology investments show a positive ROI despite the failure of the overall undertaking to do so, Mr. Mitchell urged attendees to reevaluate their measure of project success with business metrics becoming even more critical in a process- centric environment. If enterprises simply focused on exploiting opportunities for incremental improvements in the "low-hanging fruit" of "broken" business processes, he noted that they could make substantive positive improvements in the business. webMethods' annual user conference, Integration World, is the premier forum for addressing the future of business integration. Integration World concludes today with highlights including a general session presentation by the 2005 Innovation Award Winners. These Fortune 500 companies will address the steps that they have taken in using business integration to support process-centric approaches for streamlining their operations, enhancing customer service and growing market share. About webMethods, Inc. webMethods (NASDAQ:WEBM) provides business integration software to integrate, assemble and optimize available IT assets to drive business process productivity. webMethods delivers an innovative, enterprise-class business integration platform that incorporates proven integration technology with next generation capabilities into one interoperable set of tools that delivers a unique combination of efficiency, agility and control. webMethods combines industry leadership with a zealous commitment to customers to deliver tangible business value to more than 1,300 global customers. webMethods is headquartered in Fairfax, Va., with offices throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia Pacific and Japan. More information about the company can be found at http://www.webmethods.com/. The webMethods name and logo are registered trademarks of, and webMethods Fabric is a trademark of, webMethods, Inc. All other marks mentioned are trademarks or service marks of their respective companies. DATASOURCE: webMethods, Inc. CONTACT: John Conley, +1-703-980-8259, , or Brianna Boyle, +1-703-460-6034, , both of webMethods, Inc. Web site: http://www.webmethods.com/

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