Enterprise Architecture as Enabler of Business Transformation – 2009

The need for successful ‘Business and Management Transformation’ has never been greater in the current economical downturn. Increased competition, customer empowerment, technological change and innovation are key drivers behind these transformations. Business leaders cannot afford transformation failure or very long and costly transformation-cycles. Mature Enterprise Architecture not only enables ‘New Business Models’ and ‘New Management Models’, but also reduces the transformation risks by highlighting the impact of planned change on the whole Enterprise.

How many companies could honsetly open their systems for an impartial audit and not be embarrassed by the report that would be generated? The emerging enterprise software vendor’s offerings were still learning the space and fell short of the ‘full and complete’ packaged off-the-shelf purchase. This resulted in overly engineered, integration nightmares, customized complexity leading to an inability to change or in some cases, ever adopt their latest offerings. To keep the appearances of a successful business, firms are deploying thousands of employees to manually transact business, maintain and further customize the existing systems. The truth is that many companies are in this predicament because of their rapid growth, and the fact that there was no Enterprise Architecture during that growth. If companies are to move with the speed that customers are now accustomed, then a path to enable the ‘New Business Models’ and ‘New Management Models’ must be established. It will not longer be possible to sustain existing inefficient, non-scalable, slow, costly, complex, overly customized and now business irrelevant enterprise systems in place if there is a desire to enjoy decent growth.