Business architect: A critical role in enterprise transformation

Abstract

The recent wave of innovations forces organizations to transform. Current business models easily become irrelevant, unresponsive, and unready. However, successful change is difficult. In the literature, failure rates of change efforts of over 70% have been shown. This article addresses the issue of connecting strategy and implementation from an architecture perspective by taking a holistic view on the business through a controlled language, modeling, and implementation. I contend that business architecture practice can contribute substantially to increase the success rate of enterprise transformations through alignment of the need, the approach, and internal context. I also argue that a controlled language is a key asset, since it provides rigor in defining and communicating what the right work/right way is when transforming the enterprise; thus, it resolves one of the big challenges caused by technological developments. By setting direction and communicating business needs with rigor, the business architect profession enables executive leaders to better supervise and monitor transformations.