Evaluating and refining the 'enterprise architecture as strategy' approach and artefacts

Abstract

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a new discipline that has emerged from the need to create a holistic view of an enterprise, and thereby to discover business/IT integration and alignment opportunities across enterprise structures. Previous EA value propositions that merely focus on IT cost reductions will no longer convince management to invest in EA. Today, EA should enable business strategy in the organisation to create value. This resides in the ability to do enterprise optimisation through process standardisation and integration. In order to do this, a new approach is required to integrate EA into the strategy planning process of the organisation. This article explores the use of three key artefacts - operating models, core diagrams, and an operating maturity assessment as defined by Ross, Weill & Robertson [1] - as the basis of this new approach. Action research is applied to a research group to obtain qualitative feedback on the practicality of the artefacts.