This paper describes some of the business and IT issues that enterprises must address to become more agile and to improve their responses to challenges and opportunities. We will explore how a service oriented architecture (SOA) can help an enterprise align its IT infrastructure with business needs, and the role of connectivity and integration as part of an SOA in that process. We also address the IBM SMART SOA™ approach to solving the connectivity problem and how solutions featuring IBM WebSphere® offerings can help deliver the desired business benefits.