European firms that have adopted service-oriented architecture (SOA) technologies did so mainly to save money, rather than to improve business operations, according to a new report commissioned by BEA.

The survey, carried out by GCR Customer Research, found that while European companies were primarily focused on cost-cutting, their US counterparts were more likely to deploy SOAs to improve revenues and enterprise agility.

Martin Percival, chief technology evangelist at BEA, said, “We now have a very good understanding of the benefits of an SOA. What is clear is that firms expect it to have a dramatic effect on their economics.”

Most firms expected cost savings of up to 20 percent in their first SOA year. The report also revealed that money invested in SOAs is not necessarily an addition to IT budgets, but is often taken from existing business budgets.

BEA said SOA has come to the attention of senior execs because of the large potential cost savings. Although many implementations are piloted by IT departments, investment typically runs into millions, so SOA progress tends to be monitored by senior staff.

More than half of a typical $1m-plus SOA budget is taken up by training costs, BEA said. Infrastructure costs such as software, enterprise service buses, security and data services account for 40 percent. BEA said the figures are an indication of firms’ desire to keep skills and control in-house.