Why do we need Enterprise Architecture?
As this book is focused on the enterprise level, it is expected to provide a few core points to understand enterprise architecture easily.
In my personal experience, it was confusing to understand the role of an enterprise architect because people used to refer to so many architectural roles and terms, such as architect, solution architect, enterprise architect, data architect, blueprint, system diagram, and so on. My work experience clarified the underlying concepts and motivated me to write this section.
In general, the industry perception is that an IT architect role is to draw a few boxes with a few suggestions; the rest is with the development community. They feel that the architect role is quite easy, just drawing a diagram and not doing anything else. As said earlier, it is completely a perception of a few associates in the industry. This perception leads me to a different view about the architecture role:
However, my enterprise architect job has cleared this perception and I understand the true value of an enterprise architect.
Definition of Enterprise Architecture
In simple terms, an enterprise is nothing but human endeavor. The objective of an enterprise is where people are collaborating for a particular purpose supported by a platform. Let me explain with an example of an online e-commerce company. Employees of that company are people who work together to produce the firm's profits using their various platforms, such as infrastructure, software, equipment, building, and so on.
Enterprise has the structure/arrangements of all these pieces/components to build the complete organization. This is the exact place where enterprise architecture plays its key role. Every enterprise has an enterprise architect.
EA is a process of architecting that applies the discipline to produce the prescribed output components. This process needs experience, skill, discipline, and descriptions. Consider the following image, where EA anticipates the system in two key states:
Every enterprise needs an enterprise architect, this is not optional. Let me give a simple example. When you need a car for business activities, you have two choices, either drive yourself or rent a driver. Still, you will need the driving capability to operate the car. EA is pretty similar to this.
As depicted in the preceding diagram, EA anticipates the system in two key states, which are as follows:
- How it currently is
- How it will be in the future
Basically, they work on options/alternatives to move from the current to a future state of an enterprise system. In this process, Enterprise Architecture does the following:
- Creates the frameworks to manage the architecture
- Details the descriptions of the architecture
- Road maps to lay the best way to change/improve the architecture
- Defines constraints/opportunities
- Anticipates the costs and benefits
- Evaluates the risks and values
In this process of architecting, the system applies the discipline to produce the prescribed output components.
Stakeholders of Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise Architecture is so special because of its holistic view of management and evolution of an enterprise holistically. It has a unique combination of specialist technologies, such as architecture frameworks and design pattern practices.
Such a special EA has the following key stakeholders/users in its ecosystem:
S.No. | Stakeholders | Organizational actions |
1 | Strategic planner |
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2 | Decision makers |
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3 | Analyst |
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4 | Project managers |
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Business benefits
Though many organizations intervened without EAs, every firm has the strong belief that it is better to architect before creating any system. It is integrated in a coherent fashion with a proactively designed system instead of a random ad hoc and inconsistent mode.
In terms of business benefits, cost is the key factor in the meaning of Return on Investment (RoI). That is how the industry business is driven in this highly competitive IT world. EA has the opportunity to prove its value for its own stakeholders with three major benefits, ranging from tactical to strategic positions. They are as follows:
- Cost reduction by technology standardization
- Business Process Improvement (BPI)
- Strategic differentiation
Note
Gartner's research paper on TCO: The First Justification for Enterprise IT Architecture by Colleen Young is a good reference to justify the business benefits of an Enterprise Architecture. Check out https://www.gartner.com/doc/388268/enterprise-architecture-benefits-justification for more information.
In the grand scheme of cost saving strategy, technology standardization adds a lot of efficiency to create indirect benefits. Let me share my experience in this space. In one of my earlier legacy organizations, it was noticed that the variety of technologies and products were built to serve the business purpose due to historical acquisitions and mergers.
All businesses have processes; a few life examples are credit card processing, employee on-boarding, student enrollment, and so on. In this methodology, there are people involved with few steps for the particular system to get things done. During rapid business growth, the processes become chaotic, which leads to duplicate efforts across departments. In turn, stakeholders do not leverage the collaboration and cross learning.
BPI is an industry approach that is designed to support the enterprise for the realignment of the existing business operational process into the significantly improved process. It helps the enterprise to identify and adopt in a better way using industry tools and techniques.
BPI was originally designed to induce a drastic, game-changing effect on enterprise performance instead of bringing changes in incremental steps.
In the current, highly competitive market, Strategic Differentiation efforts make a firm create the perception in customers minds of receiving something of greater value than is offered by the competition. An effective differentiation strategy is the best tool to highlight a business's unique features and make it stand out from the crowd.
As the outcome of strategic differentiation, the business should realize the benefits of Enterprise Architecture investment. Also, it makes the business institute new ways of thinking to add new customer segments along with new major competitive strategies.
