Is it beneficial to match reusable services earlier?

[Context and motivation] Achieving a tight fit between requirements and reusable assets is not the usual case in practice, even if especially SOA makes such promises. The very early consideration of existing services and their alignment with requirements have therefore been recommended by several references, as otherwise the fit will rather depend on luck. [Question / problem] However, empirical evidence about the benefits of such "match early" approaches is rare, at least with regard to SOA. [Principle ideas / results] This paper therefore describes two empirical studies done to investigate possible benefits. [Contribution] The results of a controlled experiment performed in this regard have not confirmed any claimed benefits from a statistical point of view. However, the application "match early" in an industrial case study indicates benefits especially with regard to effectiveness.