In 2011, Gartner predicted that within 10 years, the majority of global enterprises would support enterprise architecture as a distinct discipline that is integral to business planning. Now, in 2021, it is in many companies growing from a support function into a highly strategic one, responsible for designing an intelligent information architecture that supports digitalisation and innovation.
I found that today’s enterprise architects are often focused on technical (read: IT) architecture and that this is no longer enough to meet the needs of today’s enterprises. Enterprise architects need to work at the enterprise level. An IT architect typically thinks in terms of IT standards and platforms to-be-used and will police against these ‘company standards’. An enterprise architect, however, thinks in terms of corporate capabilities. A capability is what a company differentiates from competitors in terms of efficient processes supported by the right mix of technologies, staff and culture.
A modern enterprise architect adopts design thinking and acts like an internal management consultancy. To ensure that corporate capabilities can be supported by technologies, they also track and evaluate emerging technologies and map them back to the existing or future business model. By doing so, they’ll identify how these can create business opportunities.
The emergence of data, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping organisations’ core business models. To address this trend, enterprise architects will recognise the importance of information architecture. In fact, information architecture will probably becoming key to all digitalisation initiatives. The ability to effectively model a wide range of information sources will enable adaptive and information-driven business models.
The ongoing shift toward an internal management consultancy role uniquely positions the enterprise architect as innovation leader for the organisation. Successful enterprise architects understand business and IT capabilities and improve communication and collaboration across silos. Gartner expects that by 2023, 60% of organisations will depend on enterprise architecture to lead the business approach to digital innovation.
Enterprise architectures can also bridge innovation and operations. Successful enterprise architects drive and operationalise innovation, help plan, design and orchestrate the move of an innovation into the operating model.
Finally, successful enterprise architects identify ways to balance stakeholder perspectives so that everyone stays laser-focused on achieving the targeted business outcomes. This places them at the heart of innovation, providing key services and ensuring that it is successfully executed.
See my post here for an application of enterprise architecture in security.
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