ROLE OF

ENTERPRISE
ARCHITECTURE
AS A CAPABILITY IN TODAYS WORLD
A whitepaper on Enterprise Architecture in the 21st century

Copyright 20092015 Simplilearn Solutions.

www.simplilearn.com

ROLE OF

ENTERPRISE
ARCHITECTURE
AS A CAPABILITY IN TODAYS WORLD

Contents
Introduction ..............................................................................................................................................

What is Enterprise Architecture Capability? .................................................

Learning Strategy ....................................................................................................................

A DDD Process ..........................................................................................................................

Model Leverage & Innovation ....................................................................................

Experience Sharing Mechanism ..............................................................................

A Structured Team ..................................................................................................................

Enabled Partner Ecosystem .........................................................................................

The drivers of change ..................................................................................................................

The Benefits of Enterprise Architecture ..............................................................

Summary ...................................................................................................................................................

Copyright 20092015 Simplilearn Solutions.

www.simplilearn.com

ROLE OF

ENTERPRISE
ARCHITECTURE
AS A CAPABILITY IN TODAYS WORLD

1. Introduction
The practice of Enterprise Architecture has been around for a long time. In recent
years, the focus has increasingly shifted to establishing it as a dedicated practice,
and emphasis upon garnering concomitant resources & skills has gained traction.
Business drivers have changed, operating models have become more nimble,
consumer touch points have increased, and maturity of the consumer when
interacting with the firm has increased multi-fold. As a result, information-sharing
and processing across the enterprise that delivers real business outcomes is in
greater demand. This requires better understanding of the business ecosystem,
the trends in using information technology to drive business services among
partners, and the capability that exists with an enterprise.
This article focuses on the capability components that define an EA practice, the
drivers for such capability, and the benefits realised by leveraging them as a
business capability.

2. What is Enterprise
Architecture Capability?
Enterprise Architecture is a practice that enables an organization to define,
develop, and deliver successful business outcomes sustainably by leveraging
business, information, application, and technology resources.
The sustainability is driven by bringing effectiveness, efficiency, alignment, and
agility into the capability across People, Process and Technology components.

Copyright 20092015 Simplilearn Solutions.

www.simplilearn.com

ROLE OF

ENTERPRISE
ARCHITECTURE
AS A CAPABILITY IN TODAYS WORLD

The key components to achieve the above

characteristics are:

A learning strategy (EA listener,

if you will) that leverages EA as
an external facing tool while
describing the internal
capabilities

A well-developed
experience-sharing
mechanism within
an enterprise

An EA process for DDD

(define, develop & deliver)

COMPONENTS
OF ENTERPRISE
ARCHITECTURE
CAPABILITY

A structured team to
establish capability
components across the

Reference models
for developing
roadmaps along
the maturity
trajectory

An enabled partner ecosystem

to participate and get involved
in establishing the practice

enterprise

Copyright 20092015 Simplilearn Solutions.

www.simplilearn.com

ROLE OF

ENTERPRISE
ARCHITECTURE
AS A CAPABILITY IN TODAYS WORLD

Learning Strategy
Every enterprise must possess the listening capability to look at the
business environment outside in order to be proactive in embracing
change to help achieve business outcomes. While business strategy exists
to steer the enterprise, an approach that takes into account EA would help
achieve better outcomes.

A DDD Process
A fully defined process to define, develop, and deliver the capability
across the enterprise.

Model Leverage & Innovation

While patterns of application exist as reference models, enterprises must
keep looking for new and additional patterns that are well-suited to their
industry or functionality.

Experience Sharing Mechanism

A mechanism and method to share across the enterprise is needed to
communicate and publish the capabilities and their achievements.

A Structured Team
A strong team whose members can complement each other on business,
technology, leadership skills, domain expertise, abstract thinking,
and efficient execution.

Copyright 20092015 Simplilearn Solutions.

www.simplilearn.com

ROLE OF

ENTERPRISE
ARCHITECTURE
AS A CAPABILITY IN TODAYS WORLD

Skill development in this area gains greater importance in the context of

businesses today, which are looking for growth, productivity, and sustainability.
Enterprise and EA service providers must seek and demand structured courses
from education institutes to build this capability. To begin with,
Framework-based training modules like TOGAF can be advantageously utilized.

Enabled Partner Ecosystem

A learning organization effectively uses its partner ecosystem to discover and
identify patterns of changes in the business ecosystem. Every partner acts as
an industry listener and thought leader for a successful partnership outcome.

3. The drivers of change

Every industry has its own drivers that an EA capability within an enterprise
needs to listen to. The era of SMAC has brought in additional drivers that are
discovered by using technology as the nerve system for every business.
The drivers for change come from many different facets.
Big and small opportunities are discovered using mobile and Big Data as sources
of customer engagement. People, as a whole, are connected in a techno-social
ecosystem. Every experience -whether good or bad- is instantaneously made
available that could either help or hurt a business. Engaging these drivers is very
important to every business and individual in the world today.
The utility of Big Data as a data source and mobile as platform to connect to that
source is huge. Enterprises must understand the context of information that flows
out of these sources but should also have a use-case that can be looked at as a
business and technology requirement.

Copyright 20092015 Simplilearn Solutions.

www.simplilearn.com

ROLE OF

ENTERPRISE
ARCHITECTURE
AS A CAPABILITY IN TODAYS WORLD

Businesses today are moving from defined to architected to manage,

in the maturity models. Technology plays a critical role in this. The next level is
optimised, which is scary enough for every enterprise to operate as a highly
interoperable organisation with its people, technology, and the external world.

4. The Benefits of
Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise Architecture embeds its capability into the domains of Business,
Technology and Strategy. The following are strategic benefits every enterprise
can avail of:
Enterprise architecture helps to achieve effectiveness, efficiency,
alignment, and agility of an enterprise.
It provides greater visibility in terms of ones ability to
participate and run the business with its ecosystem.
It helps to fill internal capability gaps to increase ROI.

5. Summary
In summary, enterprises today need more insights into the drivers that change
the way they do business, customer touch points, and the capabilities that are
needed to achieve business goals. EA as a core practice can help enterprises get
greater insights.

Copyright 20092015 Simplilearn Solutions.

www.simplilearn.com

Simplilearns training imparts immense learning benefits

with a clear focus on the vital concepts of the enterprise
and IT architecture vertical.
32 hours of Instructor led Training

134 end of chapter quizzes

Courseware approved by The Open Group

Downloadable G116 Document

3 sets of practice test papers

Reinforcement, Tips & Tricks Videos

Reference Cards & TOGAF word puzzle

About the author:

Hari Ramachandra
A business technology professional reflecting strong leadership qualifications with hands-on
experience in Information (EIM) strategy, enterprise architecture, practice leadership,
solution consulting and delivery management. His focus areas are BI & Analytics architecture,
Information strategy & governance, Road mapping and execution of transformation projects.
Hari holds a masters in management and computer applications. His certifications include
TOGAF and IT Governance.

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