Towards Value from Enterprise Architecture

Architecture at the level of an entire organization is referred to as Enterprise Architecture. It comprises of principles, methods and models that are engulfed and used in the design of the enterprise’s organizational structure, business processes, information systems, and infrastructure. Enterprise architecture is the system in which an institution plans and organizes its IT infrastructure, taking into account its business processes and strategies. Enterprise Architecture depicts the “blueprint” for systematically defining an organization’s current or future environment and objectives, coupled with a process for development and maintenance with maximal flexibility and adaptability. Enterprise architecture provides an important means for informed governance and for conducting enterprise analysis, planning and evaluation of enterprise transformations. As an organizational role, Enterprise Architecture is positioned between IT and business strategy formulation along with project-focused solution architecting.

Adapt or Perish

Enterprises face many changes, such as mergers, acquisitions, innovations, novel technologies, new business models. These changes are fueled even more by the advances of ecommerce, Networked Business, Virtual Enterprises, Mashups Corporations, the availability of resourcing on a global scale. These factors all contribute toward an increasingly dynamic environment in which enterprises want to thrive. To improve their chances of survival, enterprises need to be agile. They need the ability to quickly adapt themselves to changes in their environment, and seize opportunities as they avail themselves. Such agility has become a business requirement in many lines of business. Highly successful agile transformations delivers significant performance improvement. Enterprise agility is the answer to continuous change. Organizational redesign is a core component all agile enterprises share. Technology can be an enabler for the agile enterprises: using new collaboration tools to connect dispersed teams, rapidly evolving HR, purchasing, marketing functions, and a complete reimagining of customer services, are all components of an agile enterprise. The value networks company builds today are the foundations through which agile enterprise will flourish.

Shifting Powers in Value Chain

Clients of enterprises have become more demanding. Clients have grown more powerful and demand customized, integrated, and full life-cycle products and services. Customers have a tendency to ask for integrated service offerings. The creation and delivery of such complex products and services requires additional competencies which may not be readily available within a single (preexisting) enterprise. Agility across a whole enterprise combines speed and stability; helps role clarity, innovation, and operational discipline; and can produce positive outcomes for organizational performance. To ensure enterprise are more responsive to the demands of customer and modern markets: Develop and empower cross-functional teams by fostering effective communication strategies, where ideas are easily shared and develop the right digital infrastructure to decrease time to market. Allocate resources properly to improve decision-making and invest in right technology. Boosting agility is about empowering teams with the right infrastructure and allowing them to upskill, create and communicate on their own terms with the customer demands.

Gain Competitive Advantage

In the networked economy, governance of enterprises becomes increasingly complex. One sees a shift in governance from individual departments within an organization, to the entire organization, and lately to the organization’s value web. Enterprises try to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage. They need to choose an optimal strategic position to meet industry standards. Enterprise agility is not only necessary for organizations to be competitive but simply required to stay in business. Enterprise Agility always balances technology and the people it enables that helps organization find the equilibrium. Enterprises focus on the metrics: 1. Product leadership: These enterprises aim to provide the best and/or most innovative products. 2. Operational excellence: These are typically enterprises, which strive to provide a basic level of service in the most efficient way. 3. Customer intimacy: Enterprises, which are customer focused and aim to provide (complete) solutions for these customers.

Making Technology The Business Differentiator

Change, and our need to adapt, is indeed relentless. The evolution of information technology brings an abundance of new opportunities to enterprises. Technology becomes part of almost everything and most processes have become IT reliant, if not fully automated. For organizations, the pace of change due in large part to advances in digital technology was already so disruptive that long-established companies were struggling to survive, forcing enterprises across the globe to evolve. The past year, however, has accelerated this evolution to unprecedented levels. Enterprise agility is the answer to continuous change. Autonomy, engagement, purpose, collaboration and speed are the pillars onto which organization can build an agile business, able to thrive in the disruptive environment we face today. Technology can be used to connect and support the workforce, who will be instrumental in implementing the changes needed to move to a flexible working ecosystem. With the development in technology, the increase in data accessibility, and the way people connect, there is just so much untapped potential. Agile organizations can unlock this potential and turn it into a value-creating activity.

Excel or Outsource

Increasingly enterprises outsource business processes. Outsourcing of business processes requires organizations to precisely understand and describe what needs to be outsourced, as well as the implementation of measures to ensure the quality of the outsourced processes. In deciding on what to outsource and how to safeguard its quality, management needs insight into the extent to which processes can be outsourced, the risks that may need to be managed when doing so, as well as the interdependencies within the outsourced processes and between the outsourced processes and the retained organization. Enterprise Architects add value in three specific areas: enabling growth, ensuring compliance, and reducing complexity. Companies need to innovate rapidly to stay competitive. Many organizations struggle to adopt key IT trends that carry the potential to increase their market share, including options like micro-services, IOT, and cloud migration. These trends can bring considerable value by speeding up times to market, creating new streams of revenue, cutting hardware costs, and reducing costly complexity. Enterprise Architects are in the best position to help their companies navigate digital transformation – which, if done correctly, could enable their organizations to reduce cost and realize immense profits. Enterprise Architects can place their companies on track to ensure compliance.

The article has been co-authored with Syeda Iman Owais