This paper discusses challenges and success factors for service oriented architecture (SOA) implementation in network centric environment. The authors identify 9 fundamental challenges for the SOA approach in order to make the biggest benefit for the NATO NEC (NNEC) and increase the mission effectiveness to the highest extent. They cover the areas of applicability to existing military communications and the ability to reflect military processes. Their range is quite broad, pointing out technological as well as SOA governmental problems. The authors emphasize that any COTS solution available on the market today is able to overcome all of them at once. However, they propose solutions to some of the problems and present quick wins that can speed up the process of achieving capabilities in a heterogeneous multinational NEC environment.