Enterprise Architecture for e-Strategy Standardization and Management: Lessons Learnt from Greece

Abstract

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a dynamically evolved area, suggesting frameworks and methods to indentify and close gaps, and to handle complexity and change in a private or public organization. Major e-Government strategies around the globe have developed and applied various EA frameworks that guide their implementations. EA in e-strategies support Governments by obliging various agencies to design, specify and implement their e-Government projects under common standards and directions, and to guarantee systems' interoperability. In Europe, European States implement their e-Strategies usually according to central political objectives, directives and frameworks, defined and agreed by the European Council. Recent European e-Strategy recognizes standardization's necessity, but it does not suggest a common EA for national or supranational projects. However, some European countries have developed their own EAs, while others have limited their standardization efforts in aligning their strategies to the European ones and in the specification of similar interoperability frameworks. In this paper we present some important EAs followed by major e-Strategies, together with their recent outcomes. On the contrary, we present e-Government implementation in Greece, where no EA was followed. We use some tenders' data in order to present how the absence of an EA leads to similar projects' differentiation on design, costing, implementation and sustainability.