Enterprise Architecture strategies cover the overarching plans, methodologies, and approaches that organizations adopt to align their business objectives with their IT infrastructure and technology solutions.
These strategies involve defining the structure, processes, and standards for the Enterprise Architecture management of an organization and the evolution of that architecture over time. They often include governance frameworks, technology roadmaps, portfolio management approaches, and collaboration mechanisms to ensure that the enterprise architecture effectively supports the organization's goals and objectives.
Ardoq's strategy includes an Enterprise Architecture outcomes framework of three principles: Govern, Identify, and Change.
Govern:
Identify:
Change:
Let’s take a look now at some of the most common Enterprise Architecture strategies.
The connection between Enterprise Architecture as a strategy and business strategy is fundamental, as EA serves as a bridge between an organization's business goals and its IT capabilities. Here are five ways they are interconnected:
By integrating Enterprise Architecture into their strategic planning processes, organizations can ensure that their IT investments deliver maximum value and support long-term business success.
Aligning business and IT is crucial for the success of any organization. Here's why:
Business Architecture Strategy ensures that the organization's business goals and objectives align closely with its IT capabilities and initiatives. This alignment allows the organization to execute its strategic plans effectively and achieve its desired outcomes.
When business and IT are aligned, processes become more streamlined, and resources are used more efficiently. This alignment reduces duplication of efforts, eliminates silos, and promotes collaboration across different departments and functions.
A strong alignment between business and IT provides decision-makers with accurate and timely information to make informed choices. This means organizations can prioritize projects and investments based on their strategic importance and potential impact on business outcomes.
Aligning business and IT allows organizations to respond quickly to changes in the market, technology landscape, or regulatory environment. It means companies can adapt their strategies, processes, and systems to meet evolving business needs and stay competitive.
By aligning business and IT, organizations can better understand and meet the needs of their customers. This alignment enables the delivery of innovative products and services that address customer pain points and deliver exceptional experiences.
A robust Business Architecture Strategy plays a key role in facilitating this alignment and driving the success of the organization.
Ardoq wanted to understand what has held companies back from accessing EA’s full potential, so we put together a global survey. We asked nearly 300 EA professionals and related stakeholders worldwide about what obstacles they believe stand between their organizations and successful change.
Read on for a glance at the five steps, or simply jump straight to the full survey report with all the actionable tips.
All change plans require knowledge of where a business currently stands, especially when dealing with the IT landscape. Traditionally, Enterprise Architects could map a solid information overview using centralized documentation. However, EAs quickly find that the centralized method becomes a full-time job when they try to achieve a complete company overview.
In our survey, 24% of organizations noted they prioritize detailed and formalized architecture documentation over democratized and mass-consumable knowledge capture.
Democratized data provides the key to having a full organization-wide overview while saving everyone’s time by delegating the data collection to those with the most knowledge about their IT usage: the employees who use it.
Ardoq saves time for everyone. Instead of having to go into one-hour meetings three times a year with multiple employees to discuss what applications they use, own, or are knowledgeable about, you can literally do this in just 10 minutes with Ardoq Enterprise Architecture tools.
Start by using Ardoq’s configurable platform. Surveys involves everyone in data collection while doing the work for you. It comes with prepared templates and allows you to send survey invitations and reminders. Employees with platform ownership can inform you of processes, strategies, and other vital details. As a result, you have more time to spend on tasks that generate value for the organization.
Organizations of all sizes and ages need a well-maintained overview of the organization’s governance to manage risk proactively. In reality, though, just one-fourth (26%) of organizations believe they have complete visibility and control of risk within their IT portfolio.
Comprehensive insight into the application experience helps you identify potential risks and provide confidence to stakeholders that tools are being handled correctly.
Some IT areas may require some additional outsourced expertise. For example, many companies outsource cloud migration to a commodity operator. With all systems in the cloud, EAs can quickly provide access to them. In addition, the cloud further reduces operating risks; there is little downtime in the cloud.
Cohesive management of IT organizations requires having a complete overview of Enterprise Architecture governance. However, nearly half of the survey respondents (42%) admitted to their organization using significant amounts of shadow IT. In their organization, they have to deal with higher risk exposure because some IT infrastructures hide in the shadows.
Application Portfolio Management (APM) provides a complete overview of what’s happening in your organization. With it, you can compare systems and programs and weed out low-value systems, putting strategic enterprise architecture into action.
A growing business is always changing, yet ironically, not many businesses plan for change. Only 20% of organizations model how future states will affect their business.
Conversely, 80% of organizations that don’t model are potentially caught in a cycle of reacting. They’re forced to put out the fires burning hottest without a solid plan. For them, there is no time for long-term strategic business planning while they are in a permanent state of fire-fighting.
To escape the state of reacting, you can use Ardoq’s Scenarios . Scenarios models an organization’s future state, which reveals the potential risks, outcomes, and challenges of potential change. With Scenarios, you can automatically track branches of the enterprise data, showing the As-Is situation while defining the To-Be changes.
Using Scenario modeling, you have a window into the future states. Looking through that window, you can isolate the areas that need attention or focus while moving towards reaching their target.
Ardoq This article is written by Ardoq as it has multiple contributors, including subject matter experts.
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