SOA veteran Helvetia Patria Group, an insurance company in St. Gallen, Switzerland, has seen a 201 percent return on investment since launching its SOA six years ago. Helvetia officials said the SOA project cut IT costs for the company's Internet-based businesses by 59 percent.

Helvetia overcame the "tough exercise" of bringing developers on board by using a change management program from Hewlett-Packard Co., said Didier Beck, director of Helvetia's eBusiness Center.

Beck said the HP tools and services helped developers integrate 15 systems into a centralized SOA platform. "The way we are working today is really very different because before, there wasn't any contact between the different subsidiaries -- they had all their own development processes and tools," Beck said. "The consequences and impact were really quite high."

The new development processes included centralizing change management and software-release schedules, Beck said. In addition, the company now provides all new developers with six to 12 months of training at its eBusiness Center, where it centrally manages the SOA.

"An SOA implementation is really a journey," Beck said, "and you have to invest a lot before you can reach a new agility level."