For the last 16 years I have been working as management consult in the intersection of Technology, business processes and change management. (https://www.dr-glennhole.org/the-tips-model/)
If organizations are to make a successful digital transformation, up-to-date and reliable enterprise architecture is essential for this success. (https://www.dr-glennhole.org/how-we-used-kotters-eight-step-model-for-change-and-succeed-within-a-turnaround-case-of-a-nordic-bpo-suppliers/).
It is surprising how many organizations fail to maintain this.
Some of the key barriers to change for enterprises include siloed businesses, disparate IT systems and the use of many generations of technologies. Only up-to-date enterprise architecture can be an effective navigator in this complex environment and help companies to reach their business priorities.
Enterprise architecture combines the processes, organization and information systems, in the following link I the used the TIPS model (https://www.dr-glennhole.org/the-tips-model/) to anchor it with the overall strategy process. As a change management tool, it highlights how elements depend on each other and what impact changes may have.
By linking the enterprise`s strategic plan and performance plan, the business architecture with its enterprise data architecture, enterprise service component, applications and systems, architecture and enterprise technical architecture results in enterprise architecture. A well-documented architecture is a logical organization of information pertaining to the following corporate-level, enterprise-wide elements:
- Strategic goals, objectives, and strategies
- Business rules and measures
- Information requirements
- Processes, systems and applications
- Relationships architecture elements
- Technology infrastructure
Enterprise architecture also establish guidelines, standards, and operational services that define the enterprise`s software engineering environment. When an enterprise`s architecture is documented, it can be used to accomplish the following:
- Facilitate change management by linking strategic requirement to system that support them and by linking the business model to applications designs.
- Enable strategic information’s to be consistently and accurately derived from operational data
- Promote data sharing, thus reducing data redundancy and reducing maintenance cost
- Improve productivity through component development, management and reuse
- Reduce software development cycle time
- Evaluate commercial products and services
- Integrate enterprise applications
- Re-engineer applications
Above all, enterprise architecture ensures organizations can deal proactively with change, instead of just trying to cope after the event.
This helps enterprises:
– Understand dependencies and implications of change
– Make better and quicker decisions
– React faster to disruption
– Align IT and business strategies to boost business performance