Web services are software components that employ one or more of the following technologies – SOAP, WSDL and UDDI – to perform distributed computing. They allow applications to access data from one another across different devices, operating systems and locations. They play a major role in realizing the real-time enterprise (RTE) concept. Web services can act as a catalyst for the creation of a service-oriented architecture, in which business functionality is organized as a collection of modules known as services.”]
Source: https://www.csoonline.com/article/2115886/web-services-bring-the-real-time-enterprise-closer.html