Enterprise Architecture Helps Managing Change by Connecting Business and IT

Jan. 27, 2011 - PRLog -- Organizations of today must decide how to respond to the multitude of challenges they face. The only permanent things are change and the need to address it. This is best addressed by Enterprise Architecture that creates a holistic view of processes, information, applications, and technology. QPR’s Enterprise Architecture solution offers a coherent method of modeling and needed software.

With the help of Enterprise Architecture, organizations are understood and managed as a whole. With Enterprise Architecture work, organizations can identify and interconnect their objectives, processes, process information, and information systems and their technology platforms.

“Enterprise Architecture is a management discipline for making decisions regarding the organization and its architecture. Once the sum of the organization’s parts is understood, the organization can be strengthened in innovativeness, growth, competitive advantage, and in the ability to produce added value”, says leading Enterprise Architecture expert Jaap Schekkerman.

Schekkerman is the founder and leader of the Dutch Institute for Enterprise Architecture Developments (IFEAD). In addition to this, he lectures about combining Enterprise Architecture and Service-Oriented Architecture in a Master’s Program at Technical University Delft. In January, Schekkerman keynoted an Enterprise Architecture customer event arranged by QPR Software. QPR has strengthened its Enterprise Architecture consultancy business by organizing it as a separate function and hiring talent from outside the company.

As with all management initiatives, there are also several approaches to Enterprise Architecture. According to information technology research and advisory company Gartner, the correct choice is determined by business, the business landscape and matters of preference.

“The chosen approach is always affected by the business landscape, organization members, internal policies, vision, and experience. Regardless of the approach, Enterprise Architecture must always support change. The key to success is to create an architectural model that best supports future demands and not just those of the present moment”, Schekkerman concurs.

“We in QPR believe that systematical and iterative development methods, such as TOGAF, combined with the Archimate notation best serve process and services oriented Enterprise Architecture. With the help of this combination it is possible to build a link between the business and the IT landscape”, says Miika Nurminen, Director of Enterprise Architecture services at QPR Software.

According to Jaap Schekkerman’s findings business centricity strengthens its role as the leading approach to Enterprise Architecture.

“One could say that business is information technology is business. That is to say that business is dependent on information technology, and that without the latter there is no former”, Schekkerman summarizes and continues: “To succeed in Enterprise Architecture, one must understand business requirements and translate them into the language of information technology. The best way to get support for execution is to show the benefits of solving tangible business problems by means of architecture.”

In order for the Enterprise Architecture undertaking to produce added value, its results must be usable and measurable. The architectural process in itself should be productive and pragmatic. To ensure that it is not made obsolete by changes in business, the planning phase should be short, lasting at most a few months.

“Enterprise Architecture services provided by QPR present the opportunity to reach through business processes and services without interfering with business operations”, Nurminen says.

The most commonly achieved benefits of Enterprise Architecture are unified organizational operations, increased systems compatibility, and improvements in change management. In addition to this, it is possible to achieve significant financial gains. This has been studied, among others, in the United States, where all governmental organizations have been obliged since 2001 to define their enterprise architecture. One of the studies that comprised eight undertakings shows that financial gains exceeded costs in eight weeks. Another study of 75 organizations revealed that the achieved benefits rose to US $670 million, while total cost amounted to only US $170 million.

In Finland, the public sector is generally ahead of the private sector in architectural matters. Miika Nurminen provides an explanation by the fact that the public sector operates in longer term using more complex information systems. When visiting Finnish organizations, Schekkerman has observed that enterprises focus mostly on future objectives and neglect the architectural present state. Schekkerman wonders how organizations can reach their goals if they do not know where they are right now.

“The point is not in doing modeling for the sake of modeling. Instead one should choose what needs to be improved during a certain architectural development cycle. Only this way one is able to assess how large a change is needed”, Miika Nurminen confirms.


About QPR Software
QPR Software Plc offers the best services and software for developing business processes and enterprise architecture. QPR has more than 1,500 private and public sector customers across the globe in more than 50 countries. QPR’s shares are listed on the NASDAQOMX Helsinki Ltd.

QPR - Quality. Processes. Results.
http://www.qpr.com

For more information, please contact at QPR Software Plc:  
Miika Nurminen, Director, Enterprise architecture service
Email: firstname.lastname[at]qpr.com
Phone: +358 40 5031 982

More about QPR EA Services at:
http://www.qpr.com/services/qpr-enterprise-architecture-c...

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QPR Software Plc Offers the Best Tools and Services for Developing Business Processes and Enterprise Architecture