The EA strategy begins with building a core foundation

The EA strategy is the process of translating the business’s vision and strategy into effective enterprise change by creating, communicating, and improving the key requirements, principles, and models that describe the enterprise’s future state and enable its evolution. If we compare EA with its strategy, we can identify EA as a discipline for proactively and holistically leading enterprise responses to disruptive forces. It does this by identifying and analyzing the execution of change toward desired business vision and outcomes.

We live in a digitalized world where everything is automated. The need for an up-to-date IT infrastructure is more crucial than ever. Each aspect of modern life is in some way directly or indirectly associated with the use of technology. To keep technology running smoothly, being able to execute the core operations reliably is the top priority.

Business architecture is fundamentally about configuring IT resources in support of a company’s business strategy. It brings together certain aspects, such as a company’s strategic goals, its workflow, and the information it creates, as well as the infrastructure that underpins it. As part of its technology blueprint, EA determines not only what technology it currently possesses, but how future technology upgrades can be used to complement or enhance its current technology.

EA helps companies structure IT projects and policies to achieve the desired outcome. It employs architectural principles to keep up with industry practices, often known as EA planning.

However, apart from providing a strategic and business context to systems, the EA strategy provides an improved approach to looking at them holistically. It has been described as more of a management process that helps businesses with organization, resource allocation, and implementation. Organizations benefit from EA strategies in many ways. It allows them to review their IT status and IT goals in a comprehensive manner:

• Stability is improved as a result of standardizing processes and applications. Simplifying processes allows businesses to be more efficient and reduce the risk of problems. 
• As an organization expects from EA, it reduces the complexity of systems. The right tools simplify system administration and management.
• By allowing the causes of problems to be identified quickly, organizations have been able to prevent bigger issues. 
• Organizations are more agile thanks to EA. This allows them to analyze changes in the industry and respond to them promptly.
• Keeping an eye out for weak points in the system can prevent threats from entering the system. Cyber security breaches today are being addressed using systematized measures determined by EA.

In today’s competitive marketplace, innovation rules the day, and opportunities to innovate are virtually endless, especially when it comes to applying technology to modernize processes, products, and services. Global market leaders, such as Dell, Capital One, and Walmart, have taken over their industries at a massive scale. While this development seems encouraging for the global economy, other companies with comparatively slower growth ratios must reconsider their plans of action.

In a survey of 103 US and European companies, 34% have a digitized core infrastructure and leverage modern technologies for a higher profit, faster time to market, and a better value from their IT investments. Such a core infrastructure ultimately leads to a 25% lower operational cost, better customer experience, lower risk of system failure and data loss, and higher satisfaction among stakeholders regarding technological advancements.

This chapter is based on insights into the stats, tools, strategies, and fundamentals applied by 500 US, European, and Asian companies for an effective foundation for execution. These elements provide the right substratum for large, medium, and small businesses to set their operations in the right direction by digitizing them. We will deep dive into their strategies and learn how they exploit their foundation for execution to achieve business agility, which leads to noticeable growth.

Automating routine tasks in an organization from top to bottom is the way to move forward in the coming years. This means minimizing or even eliminating human involvement in repetitive, manual work, such as food processing, supply and delivery operations, invoice generation, and payment processing. Building an effective core foundation for execution requires a capable infrastructure to handle this automated and digitized workflow without any chances of errors occurring. Organizations that maintain a reliable network and predictability in routine operations set organizations apart from their competitors.

We like information to be at our fingertips, just a click away from execution. In light of that, the food processing industry requires a transparent flow of information across the board, from customer orders to shipping, maintaining inventory, and delivering products and services.

7-ELEVEN Japan is the eighth largest retailer in the world. Climbing this ladder of success, the company’s team leveraged the foundation of execution for their 10,000 stores to capably manage all of their inventory. The company’s digitized process of collecting data at the point of sale using 70,000 computers allows users to place orders online and connect with the manufacturers for direct and effective communication. This automated and centralized mode of conducting business makes it possible for companies to develop new products each year.

A common misconception about the digitization of core business operations is that organizations must focus their energy on competitive capabilities. However, success lies in the strategy, where, every day, mundane processes are combined with complex tasks. This begins the digitization process with common services such as recruiting, investments, and telecommunication and then moves toward more bespoke components. With a smooth and seamless workflow for employees who use these systems every day, management has the freedom to let go of low-value tasks and focus on revenue, innovation, and growth.

The elements of the core foundation

Whether the goal is cloud computing, robotic process automation (RPA), or machine learning (ML), organizations must constantly evaluate new technologies and the ways they can or should be incorporated into their business strategies. Continuous innovation requires an EA that is well designed and documented, with clear processes for achieving the desired business outcomes. By definition, a well-designed EA is an architecture model that draws a big picture of the entire organization, with a long-term view. This blueprint explains the business processes, hierarchical structure, information systems, and technologies. It also allows modern innovations to be adopted. Let’s take a look:

• Architecture management

Setting up and implementing a single model is one thing while ensuring productivity across the board is another. A team must keep track of every move within the organization to ensure the business goals align with the IT infrastructure.

• Architecture framework

The framework provides the foundation for the architectural model, along with basic guidelines and principles. These practices are defined for all stakeholders under this framework so that they can align their work ethics with the system.

• Implementation of the development methodology

There are ways to implement methodology smoothly across the board while making sure that critical business operations are not disrupted. However, ensuring there’s a seamless and effective implementation may take longer than expected.

• Effective governance

This ensures that an EA program is managed properly to produce artifacts and plans that are truly representative of the organization’s goals and needs. EA governance also ensures that business and technical decisions become aligned with the EA from initiation to implementation.

• Documentation artifacts

One of the core elements of business models is to document every move for future reference. In an EA, plans, strategies, implementations, and workflows are documented and consistently maintained.

• Architecture repository

The repository defines and documents the resourcefulness of the organization during the implementation process. It also contains the tools that are essential for accomplishing the goals defined by the framework.

• Best practices

A set of best practices and guidelines are used to guide a sturdy workflow and review the existing architecture. These practices ensure transparency and productivity. This can have a trickle-down effect that can help establish a better understanding of the drivers of growth and innovation.