When a telecommunications company renews a calling card, the process has historically involved knowledge workers in billing, customer service and several other departments within the company each updating their records, a cumbersome process for a renewal that might be very small in revenue and therefore in profitability.

Other companies have been similarly "siloed" in their processes. Some companies have tried to solve this challenge by developing Web services that use XML technology to share information. While that eliminates much of the redundancy for new customers and new services, Web services alone do not solve the problem of information that is contained in older legacy systems, such as mainframe computers.

The solution that companies are increasingly turning to in order to meet the challenge is service-oriented architecture (SOA), which connects knowledge not only to Web services, but also to an increasing number of legacy systems as it continues to evolve, says Hemant Ramachandra, managing director of BearingPoint's (bearingpoint.com) SOA solutions group.