A2-2 TrueCredit Minicase

1. What were the major reasons the company had to use Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)?

The major reason that TrueCredit had to utilize SOA was to retain its competitive advantage. TrueCredit attempts to maintain competitive advantage over the credit industry by creating applications that will support over 50,000 simultaneous users, reduce response time to less than a second, and reduced the application development period from 180 days to 90 days. TrueCredit were early adaptors of SOA and as a result retained competitive advantage over the rest of the industry.

2. In what ways did they gain competitive advantage by using SOA?

TrueCredit gained competitive advantage by being the pioneer of SOA technology in the industry. While simultaneously restructuring IT infrastructure, business practices, and software development methods TrueCredit has become the superior service provider in the industry.

3. What specific “services” can you identify in a business like this?

The services that are provided by related companies in the credit industry, as well as those provided by TrueCredit include: the ability to reveal a customer credit score, credit reporting, a medium in which to reach credit card companies, and the accumulation of data from customers for credit agencies.

4. Why is it so important to serve 50,000 simultaneous users?

A companies ability to support the amount of demand for a service is very important. Also, if a company fails to be able to adequately provide proficient support, then customers of the business become frustrated. After prolonged or even initial frustration a customer will switch companies to one that will satisfy their need.

5. Classify this application using the material in Section 2.2?

True Credit’s application of SOA can be classified under two levels of information systems. First, the SOA system can be classified as a Transaction Processing System (TPS) because of the monitoring, collecting, storage, processing and dissemination of basic business transactions. Next, the SOA system can be classified as an Interorganizational system because it connects two organizations, TrueCredit and credit card companies.