In today’s business environment enterprises and their supply chains must be considered as fragile, yet dynamic connections of customers and trading part-ners constantly maneuvering for competitive advantage. In turn, these smaller galaxies of business relationships are evolving within a much wider context of the industries and economies that comprise the totality of global business. Far from being isolated, self-contained systems, each is both simultaneously grow-ing in internal complexity while at the same time drawn increasgrow-ingly into posi-tions of greater dependence on other systems. Unlike the physical universe where constellations are racing away from a common point, today’s corporations are finding the space separating each other shrinking and the need for communion expanding.
The response of businesses to these twin principles of internal evolution and increasing channel dependence is found in the continuous deconstruction and
reinvention of the enterprise business architecture. The term enterprise business architecture can have a very wide meaning. It encompasses the components of the firm that are responsible for the performance of ongoing transactions involved in buying, making, and selling products. It also refers to the corporate cultural that has evolved over time and drives current and future attitudes, expectations, and value judgments about what is the mission of the firm. It consists of the particular configuration of human and computerized resources that accumulate, analyze, and utilize the enterprise’s repository of information. An finally, it consists of the core competencies of its human resources that breath life into and serve as the directing instruments of the totality of the firm’s business components. Without an effective architecture an enterprise’s evolution to more successful models would cease and its ability to adapt to change in the face of new business paradigms and technologies would rapidly disintegrate.
The foundation of an effective enterprise business architecture resides in the creation of a comprehensive information strategy that directs the organization
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Figure 2.3 WAN.
towards a coherent, integrated environment for managing and delivering informa-tion in support of both short-term objectives and long-term the business goals.
The effectiveness of abusiness architecture is the ability of its processes and sys-tems to respond to changing conditions and customer interactions as they occur.
Operational responsiveness means capitalizing on opportunities like reduced cycles times, new sales, lower spend, and reduced risk by identifying and han-dling problems quickly and accurately. Strategic responsiveness means capitalizing on opportunities by quickly adjusting business processes and channel configura-tions to pursue new marketplaces, drive greater efficiencies by engaging in opconfigura-tions like outsourcing or partnering, and reducing risk by mastering complex challenges emerging from a changing business and regulatory landscape.
Today’s business architectures will, of course, have varying degrees of operational and strategic responsiveness. Regardless of the actual structure, the goal is to improve responsiveness over time and increase the value and effectiveness of the business sys-tems comprising the company’s architecture, transforming them into competitive weapons. Managing this evolution requires the utilization of the following four-fold agenda to guide information strategy development and definition as well as the gov-ernance of supporting information infrastructure [6].
1. Information Strategy Definition. The information strategy establishes the principles that will guide the organization’s efforts to create and exploit their information system databases and application capabilities. The information strategy provides an end-to-end vision for all components constituting the information system structure and is driven by an organization’s business strategy and operating framework. The information strategy establishes the culture, nomenclature, and common objectives to assist all levels of users realize the information system vision. Organizationally, the strategy sets the ongoing framework and guiding set of principles to ensure that current and future investments in people, processes and technologies align and support an agile and flexible information environment. The information strategy is a critical component of the enterprise business architecture. It represents a commitment, across the enterprise, to recognize and treat the information system and its contents as strategic assets.
2. Information Definition and Governance. Defining the content of a business information repository and its governance is a critical component of an enter-prise business architecture. This is a nuts-and-bolts issue that requires answers to basic questions as to the nature and accuracy of system information, where it is located and how long it is kept, and how does the business access and use it for decision-making. Information definition and governance can enhance the quality, availability, and integrity of database information by fostering cross-organizational collaboration and policymaking.
Effective governance of system data requires establishment of a specific corporate organization whose mission is to define the policies and managing
practices of information assets over their life cycle. Some of the objectives of information definition and governance include the following:
Defining governance infrastructure and the toolsets deployed to ensure
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ongoing database and application excellence Defining ongoing governance processes
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Developing technology and business system architecture standards and
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practices
Providing for initiatives aimed at monitoring and improving database
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and process quality
Establishing necessary organizational policies and cross-organizational
◾
oversight
Establishing an effective training program aimed at all levels of the
◾
organization
Information definition and governance is easily overlooked. However, if the business architecture is to provide the level of information capable of reveal-ing competitive advantage and expandreveal-ing business performance definition and governance must be seriously embraced as a critical pillar of overall infor-mation system accountability.
3. Information Infrastructure. If a business is to leverage their information sys-tems as a competitive advantage, it is essential that they construct and main-tain an effective enterprise-level information infrastructure. Anything less results in significant operational inefficiencies associated with data dupli-cation, inaccuracy, and inaccessibility. As detailed in the discussion of the technology architecture, an enterprise information infrastructure framework identifies the technology necessary to establish the DBMS, software, net-working toolsets, and the actual configuration of these components into a technology solution governing the functioning of the enterprise.
According to an IBM study [7], enterprise information infrastructure frame-works include the following elements:
Information integration management systems,
◾ such as enterprise intelligence
(data warehouse) solutions, ERP, and customer relationship management (CRM), integrates transaction data for decision-making.
Data master file management
◾ enables master data—such as customer, sup-plier, items, and employee data—to be easily accessed to provide accurate information for any business application.
Dynamic data warehousing
◾ provides the capabilities to turn historical data into relevant, real-time predictive analytics that enable timelier, more insightful business decisions.
Enterprise content management
◾ (ECM) provides content management,
discovery, and business process management to guide enterprise transformation.
Operations management
◾ encompasses servers and data management tools supporting various platforms.
Business intelligence and performance management
◾ provides decision
mak-ers across the organization with information they need to undmak-erstand, oversee, and drive the business so they can align their actions with orga-nizational objectives.
Metadata management
◾ enables designers to organize and define the mean-ing of data within an organization’s system. The goal is to assure con-sistency, completeness, and visibility through service directories, data directories, content directories, translation, retrieval, and navigation processes.
4. Information Structure Deployment. The enterprise information architecture must provide a deployment roadmap that defines how the various technology toolsets governing systems management will be configured, maintained, and improved over time. Among the critical tasks constituting the action plan can be found leveraging existing investment in hardware and software, prioritiza-tion of technology projects, dates for technology rollout, capabilities required to support and access relevant information, reference to forthcoming business and governance practices, and discussion of future investments in emerging technologies.
Most organizations today have some form of information technology strategy, set of governance guidelines, hardware and software infrastructure, and program for continuous information structure improvement and deployment. What dif-ferentiates first-in-class from the herd is the ability to address each of the above four components of enterprise business technology simultaneously while ensur-ing integration with the third component of the enterprise information busi-ness system framework portrayed in Figure 2.1—the inter-enterprise busibusi-ness architecture.