Purdue Setup

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current architecture and as a result of enterprise architecture development work is a target enterprise architecture. The FEAF does not distinguish the terms data and information.

At level four, the FEAF is quite similar to the Zachman framework. FEAF level four describes the stakeholder views (in rows) and interrogatives what, how and why as columns. The FEAF includes the first three columns of the Zachman framework. FEAF level four is illustrated in Figure 2.19.

Figure 2.19 FEAF Architecture Matrix (CIO Council, 1999).

Cells which are in the focus of this study are highlighted. The cells that this study primarily covers are highlighted in Figure 2.19.

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direction by adapting processes to pursue this direction, and to provide clear communications with employees so that the entire company is focused on reaching the desired direction.

Some of the problems that can explain the high SME failure rate can be related to a weakness of the entrepreneur's knowledge management, causing a lack of structure and overview of the company (Proper and Greefhorst, 2011). Bernaert et al. (2013) lists a number of problems that can occur caused by such a lack of overview:

• For ERP adoption, the most important criterion used by SMEs in selecting an

information system is the best fit with current business procedures (van Everdingen et al., 2000). If the CEO leaves the company for some reason (e.g., he sells the company or a child takes over), his overview of the company has to be transferred to the new CEO.

• In an SME, employees tend to know less about the structure of the company and why things are done. Although the entrepreneur knows the overview of the company, it is difficult for him to communicate with its employees about strategic issues without having an explicit overview (Kamsties et al., 1998).

• A concrete job description and overview of tasks and responsibilities of employees is difficult to keep track of, especially in a changing environment and enterprise (Kamsties et al., 1998).

• A strategy is not static, neither are processes. Keeping processes at all time in line with the strategy is difficult to achieve (Dougherty, 1992).

• An SME has different stakeholders with different desires and goals. Balancing these goals as good as possible is not a simple assignment. (Heyse et al. 2012).

2.8.1 Requirements for EA for SMEs

To guide the development and evaluation of an EA approach for SMEs, requirements for an appropriate solution are needed. First, the requirements for EA in general are presented, followed by those for the adoption and successful use of IT in SMEs. To end, the combination of these two sets of requirements into a single set for EA in an SME context is also described.

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2.8.1.1 Requirements for Enterprise Architecture (EA)

The essential requirements for EA (Lankhorst 2013; Zachman 1987) are the following:

1. Control: EA should be usable as an instrument in controlling the complexity of the enterprise and its processes and systems.

2. Holistic Overview: EA should provide a holistic overview of the enterprise and be able to capture its essence: the stable elements that do not vary across specific solutions found for the problems currently at hand.

3. Objectives: EA should facilitate the translation from corporate strategy into daily operations.

4. Suitability: EA should be suitable for its target audience. It needs to be understood by all those involved, even if they come from different domains.

5. Enterprise-wide: EA should enable optimization of the company as a whole instead of doing local optimization within individual domains.

6. Integrated: EA should enable joining all partial architectures together into a whole (By Author).

The fourth requirement refers to the target audience. In our case, the target audience is SMEs and, more specifically, their owners or managers. Therefore, requirement 4 is refined using the requirements for the adoption and successful use of IT in SMEs

2.8.1.2 Requirements for the Adoption and Successful Use of IT in SMEs

The requirements for the adoption and successful use of IT in SMEs with respect to number 4 in (2.8.1.1) are as follows:

4.1 The approach should enable SMEs to work in a time-efficient manner on strategic issues.

4.2 A person with limited IT skills should be able to apply it.

4.3 It should be possible to apply the approach with little assistance of external experts.

4.4 The approach should enable making descriptions of the processes in the company.

4.5 The CEO must be involved.

4.6 The expected revenues of the approach must exceed the expected costs and risks.

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By combining these requirements with the EA requirements, this study obtained a set of requirements for the adoption and successful use of EA in SMEs.

According to requirement 4 and thus 1 - 6, the EA model should be understandable and adaptable by non-EA experts in SMEs.

EA has become one of the top priorities of IT executives and is considered an important instrument for aligning the required changes in corporate strategy and business processes with an increasingly complex IT landscape (Luftman & Ben-Zvi 2011). Some of the most recognized benefits of EA are that IT can be used more efficiently and flexibly, business and IT can be better aligned (Radeke 2011; Tamm et al. 2011), and a better fit between business operations and strategy can be achieved (Hoogervorst 2004). Braun and Winter (2005) emphasized that in order for business-IT and strategy to be aligned, EA must be adaptable and constantly held up-to-date.

SMEs constitute over 90 % of operating businesses in many countries, in the U.S. even 99.7 % (Small Business Administration, 2011) , in Europe 99.8 % (European Commission, 2011) and in Nigeria about 90% (Mordi, 2005). There is therefore a great need for more rigorous research that is relevant for this important sector of the economy (Devos 2011).

Right now, existing EA frameworks are primarily used in large enterprises (Gartner 2012). Wißotzki and Sonnenberger (2012), among others, recognize the importance of EA and EA management (EAM) in particular, but also notice that EAM is still mostly unexplored and rarely used, especially in the context of SMEs (Devos 2011). Yet, such specific research is crucial, as research findings based on large businesses cannot be generalized to small businesses due to the inherent differences between SMEs and large businesses (Aarabi et al. 2011).

Lybaert (1998) discovered that SME owners or managers with a greater strategic awareness use more information and that SMEs that use more information are generally more successful. Hannon and Atherton (1998) further revealed that for SMEs success is correlated with higher levels of strategic awareness and better planning of owners-managers. In addition, there is evidence to believe that companies that make strategic rather than just financial business plans perform significantly better financially than those that do not (Smith, 1998).

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Jacobs et al. (2011) argued that from the perspective of change and complexity, EA could assist SME management during the growth of a small enterprise. For example, according to Aarabi et al. (2011), ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems cannot be successfully implemented and utilized in SMEs if EA is disregarded. In fact, it is EA‘s integration of strategic goals, business processes, and technology planning methods that provides the standards, roadmaps, and context for ERP implementation (Zach, 2012). As Bidan et al. (2012) concluded, process standardization in SMEs is more important than the deployment of technology (e.g., ERP systems) to improve organizational performance. In short, SMEs need to get a structured view of their company, even before they start implementing an ERP solution.

Hence, while EA might offer SMEs a solution to typical problems related to a lack of overview, strategic awareness, IT planning, and business-IT alignment, EA approaches that cater for the specificities of small businesses are still missing. This lack of research on an EA approach that can readily be used for SMEs is exactly the problem that is addressed in the present research.