Enterprise Architecture is an essential best practice approach for designing, engineering and managing competitive and effective organizations in the “Information Age” where “technology is no longer just a tool for business, it is a business environment”. Nearly every aspect of modern businesses operations, in organizations large and small, is dependent on some form of technology, most particularly information technology.
In order to remain competitive and viable today’s organizations must maintain a level of predictability and control over their technology environments. Data and information must flow unimpeded, seamlessly and securely both inside and outside organizational boundaries in order to facilitate the business activities and processes needed to accomplish organizational goals and strategies.
This happens only by design and not through happenstance. Without some form of centralized planning most organizations naturally evolve into groupings of disparate operating clusters with heterogeneous technologies that support discrete information “silos” which are not only duplicative and costly to operate but also hinder cross-departmental collaboration and information sharing. Such operating environments tend to be inefficient and lacking in the sort of business flexibility and responsiveness that are necessary for growth and sustainability.
EA takes a holistic approach to sorting out the challenges of modern organizations. It can be simply understood as the development of a strategic information repository which documents everything from an organization’s mission, goals and strategies to the capabilities and resources (people, processes and technology) essential for realizing them.…or in other words EA provides a comprehensive approach for developing a better understanding of the What, How, Where, Who, When and Why of an organization’s being.
The EA process includes a variety of modeling, analytical and simulation techniques for depicting and understanding an organization’s current and desired future architectural states, and for developing a “transition plans” which help describe and manage the incremental processes for implementing new technologies and capabilities in response to the changes in its environment or mission needs.
EA gives architects the tools and methods to decompose an enterprise into its “molecular” or component parts which could include everything from its servers, PCs, networks, databases, applications, data and information, business processes, people, departments, locations, and other assets right up to its services, strategies and objectives, etc. It documents the relationships and dependencies between these components, their configurations and attributes (cost and performance) and how they function both individually and collectively, or as a complete “system”.
Edarat Group consultants deliver Enterprise Architecture services for organizations by working with them to clarify, align and implement their EA function aligned with their strategies.
We provide tools and methodologies for EA talent selection and development, performance management and coaching.
Our team provides expertise in the implementation, transformation, organizational design, staffing models, people, business & IT strategy alignment.
