Despite high initial start-up costs, service-oriented architecture (SOA) centres of excellence can save organisations a significant amount of money in the longer term and are crucial to ensure service quality, consistency and reuse.

According to analyst Gartner, creating such centres enables enterprises to save an average of 30% in time and expenditure on application integration and data interface development, and cut maintenance outlay by 20%. It can also help them to ensure component reuse levels of about 25%.

But although about 60% of medium-sized and large companies with a turnover of more than £25m have set up some form of centre of excellence, they may not necessarily call it that. Other terms include competency centre, SOA steering committee, central architecture team or project management office.