Business Process Management, Service-oriented Architecture, Web 2.0: Convergence and Effect on Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

Today's small and medium-sized enterprises have to be more and more flexible than rival companies to compete on the market. Two approaches how to ensure flexibility, re-usability of existing components and increased efficiency are Business Process Management (BPM) and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). Moreover, Web 2.0 and Semantic Web technologies open a wide range of possibilities of how these approaches can be adopted in a company. This thesis gives an overview of Business Process Management, Service- Oriented Architecture and how these approaches can be adopted with new web technologies. Special emphasis is placed on how small and medium-sized enterprises could benefit.