What's in a name? In the case of service-driven enterprises, everything.

In the ebizQ webinar The Service-Driven Enterprise: Increasing Business Adaptability , ebizQ Vice President for Strategic Services Beth Gold-Bernstein laid out the crux of the matter: Service-driven enterprises, she said, are optimized around service, around efficiently servicing customers, employees, partners, all the stakeholders; responding rapidly to their needs, and adapting rapidly to new requirements, to changes in the industry, to changes in the market.

"Now, we know no one likes change. A service-driven enterprise embraces change, and adapts to it, and delivers better service. This needs to be an ongoing business culture. So it's not only the infrastructure that needs to deliver, it's the organization as well, committed to delivering better service."

During the presentation, part of the series The Service-Driven Enterprise: The Evolution of Business, sponsored by BEA, Gold-Bernstein explained that service-driven enterprises address critical business drivers in both the business and IT domains. Among those drivers:

Efficiency-- "Knowledge workers have the information they need readily available. They can respond to the customer's request immediately. Now this requires a whole lot of infrastructure on the back-end to deliver this real-time information, but to have it is absolutely critical. It empowers them to solve the customer's needs." This, as IT leverages the reuse of existing resources.

Responsiveness-- Employees respond quickly to customer requests, and have the incentive to do so in the corporate culture, and IT rapidly deploys new business solutions.

Adaptability-- The business adapts quickly to new opportunities and competitive threats, while IT can quickly change existing systems.

Profitability-- Higher customer satisfaction leads to beefier bottom lines, as IT decreases operational costs through reuse and self-service applications.

Gold-Bernstein said essential components of the service-driven enterprise include a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and comprehensive integration services, along with a business culture of efficient processes and empowered employees who get excellent training and who benefit from rewards and other incentives.