Many organizations experience constant difficulties and are constantly looking for synchronization of business goals and objectives and the development processes of their information systems. It is for this purpose that enterprise architecture is used. What it is?
Definition and interpretation
Enterprise architecture is a process with specific practice for performing collective review, design, planning with the aim of effectively developing a strategy and its subsequent implementation. She applies the principles and methods to guide the organization through changes in business, information, processes and technologies necessary to implement her strategies. Enterprise architecture is precisely the practice that uses various aspects of each organization to identify, motivate and achieve change.
Specialists are responsible for analyzing the structure and processes of the business, and they often have to draw conclusions from the information collected to achieve the goals of the enterprise: efficiency, effectiveness, flexibility and durability.
Overview
In the literature and the community, according to the architecture of the company, there are various points of view regarding the meaning of this term. As of 2018, there is no official definition. There are only various organizations (public and private) that understand and use this term in practice. Consequently, the literature on corporate architecture offers many definitions. Some of them complement each other, while others explain the nuances.
Informative Concepts Learning Authority
This organization believes that the architecture of the enterprise is a regularity of the company, entrepreneurship and IT infrastructure, reflecting the requirements of integration and, of course, standardization of the operating model of the company. This is the desired state of the process of inserting parts of business processes to deliver goods and services to customers.
Enterprise architecture is a body of knowledge that analyzes areas of common activity within or between organizations where information and other resources are exchanged to guide the future state from an integrated perspective of strategy, business and technology.
Gartner IT analytics company defines the term as a subject in which any organization is guided by changes. So, according to their glossary ...
The enterprise architecture model is a discipline for the projective and holistic management of the organization’s actions in response to the destructive impact by identifying and analyzing the implementation of changes in the direction of the desired vision and results of the business.
Thus, EA (Electronic Arts) provides value by providing executives of large enterprises and IT professionals with signature-ready recommendations for setting policies and projects to achieve targeted results that are based on corresponding violations of the front office.
EA is used to guide the decision-making process towards the development of the architecture of the future state.
Brief conclusion
Each of the above definitions reflects:
- historical reality in which corporate architecture emerged from the methods of documenting and planning information systems;
- current realities that most professionals report to the IT director or other front office manager.
In the modern organizational structure of the business, the enterprise architecture team performs a continuous business function that helps managers find the best strategies to support and ensure the development of the business and its changes in relation to business information systems. The future of the enterprise depends on them.
Terms
According to Zachman’s model, an “enterprise” can be defined as a description of an organizational unit or population that shares a number of common goals and collaborates in providing specific products or services to customers.
In this sense, the term “enterprise” encompasses various types of organizations regardless of their size, ownership model, operating system or geographical distribution. It includes complete social and technical resources, including people, information, processes, and, of course, technology.
And the term “architecture”, according to the Zahman model, refers to the fundamental concepts or properties of a system in its sphere, expressed in its elements, views and principles of its design and development.
Areas of use
Prospects or beliefs supported by corporate architecture practitioners and scholars regarding the meaning of the term tend to gravitate toward one of three schools of thought.
Enterprise IT Design - EA’s goal is to achieve greater consistency between the front office and business objectives. The main objective of enterprise architecture is to guide the planning process and design the organization's capabilities to achieve the desired professional goals.
Social integration
In accordance with this point of view, the task of EA is to achieve greater consistency between the various tasks of the enterprise (HR, IT, operations and the front office itself). Including the relationship between formulating a strategy and its implementation. As a rule, architectural proposals and solutions cover all aspects of the enterprise.
Adaptation of the corporate ecosystem
The purpose of EA is to develop and support the learning opportunities of enterprises so that they can be sustainable. Therefore, much attention is paid to improving the ability of any organization to improve, introduce innovations and develop together with the environment. As a rule, proposals and solutions cover both the production area and its components.
Results regarding enterprise architecture design will influence how people see the purpose and scope of this development. And also the means of achieving it, the skills necessary for its implementation, and the responsibility for its implementation.
Description of enterprise architecture
In practice, it can contain many lists, tables, and diagrams. In the case of enterprise architecture, these models outline the logical business function or capabilities, processes, human roles and physical structure of the organization, data flows and their storage, communications equipment and infrastructure.
The Best Practices Guide EA of the UK National Computing Center states: usually the adviser acquires the configuration of a limitless set of conjugate modifications that describe the structure and functions of the company. The individual systems in the adviser are located in a logical manner, which provides an ever-increasing level of detail of the organization.
Sponsor mission
Elements of enterprise architecture are described with the goal of improving the manageability, efficiency, effectiveness or flexibility of a business. As well as ensuring the justification of the costs spent on information technology.
Of paramount importance for changing architecture in business is the definition of a sponsor. His mission, vision and strategy, as well as the management structure, designate all the roles, responsibilities and relationships associated with the expected transformation. Changes considered by corporate architects typically include:
- Innovation in the structure or processes of an organization.
- Integration and typification of entrepreneurship.
- Innovation in the use of information systems or technologies.
- Improving the quality and timeliness of business mail.
The methodology for the development and use of architecture to guide the transformation of a business from a base state to a target state, sometimes through several transitional provisions, is usually called the architecture structure of an enterprise. The platform provides a structured collection of processes, methods, artifact images, reference models and guides for creating and using architecture descriptions for a particular enterprise.
Benefits
The advantages of enterprise architecture are its direct and indirect contribution to organizational goals. It has been found that the most notable benefits can be observed in the following areas:
- Organizational design. Corporate architecture provides support in areas related to the design and redesign of structures during mergers, acquisitions, or general changes.
- All processes and their standards. Enterprise architecture helps ensure discipline and standardization of business processes, as well as organizes the consolidation, reuse and integration of systems.
- Project Portfolio Management. Enterprise architecture supports investment decision-making and work prioritization.
- Project management. The enterprise architecture expands the possibilities of cooperation and interaction between participants in the entire enterprise or its individual structures. It also contributes to the effective planning of tasks and the definition of more complete and consistent results.
- Develop requirements. Enterprise architecture increases the speed of identifying all kinds of tasks and the accuracy of the definitions of various processes by publishing documentation.
- System development. The architecture of the enterprise contributes to the optimal design of the enterprise and the efficient allocation of resources in the development and testing of certain points.
- IT management and decision making. It has been found that corporate architecture helps discipline and standardize IT planning activities and helps reduce the time it takes to make technology-related decisions.
- IT value. Enterprise architecture helps reduce the cost of implementing and operating the system, as well as minimize the replication of infrastructure services between departments.
- IT complexity. Enterprise architecture helps reduce various problems, consolidate data and applications, as well as better systems connectivity.
- IT openness. The architecture of the enterprise contributes to the creation of a more open and operational form, which is reflected in an increase in the availability of data to meet regulatory requirements and increase the transparency of infrastructure changes.
- IT risk management. Enterprise architecture helps reduce business risks from system failures and security breaches. It also helps to reduce the various dangers of the project.