Why Enterprise Architecture is a Corporate Responsibility
In these days of corporate responsibility and compliance, we need to consider the efficiencies of our IT infrastructure along with other corporate assets. For most companies enterprise architectures are the single most limiting factor to their business economics since they don't have the ability to adapt to business changes in a timely manner. While many in IT have accepted this as one of life's realities, we co
Follow @infoworldIn these days of corporate responsibility and compliance, we need to consider the efficiencies of our IT infrastructure along with other corporate assets. For most companies enterprise architectures are the single most limiting factor to their business economics since they don't have the ability to adapt to business changes in a timely manner.
While many in IT have accepted this as one of life's realities, we could be entering an era where such a reality is unacceptable. Indeed, as innovative corporations learn how to leverage concepts such as SOA to liberate their IT from a static and fragile architecture, less innovative companies could find themselves quickly losing market share to competitors that have embraced the agility value of SOA.
Moreover, the companies who choose to maintain an inefficient architecture could find that their stock price and investor relations have suffered as well, perhaps even becoming targets for shareholder lawsuits as the mood shifts around enterprise architecture as a true corporate responsibility. If investors hold management accountable for accounting irregularities and missed sales, then lost dollars around the ineffectiveness of IT can't be far behind. Thus, the ability to maintain effective and agile enterprise architecture is indeed a corporate responsibility, and those who don't focus on their IT architecture could find that they suffer in the short term, and die in the long-term.
While few will disagree that the inefficiencies of existing enterprise architectures have reached a critical level, many count on "flying under the radar" of those who look at the efficiencies of the company. Let's face it; enterprise architecture is very technical and difficult to understand by the layman. The well publicized corporate scandals focused on shady accounting practices and corporate mismanagement, while IT received a pass in the past years. This will no longer be the case. Today, those who look to value and invest in a company take a critical look at all aspects of the corporation, especially any areas of inefficiencies, including IT. In other words, dysfunctional enterprise architectures could and will devalue the corporation overall, and could put the business at risk.
Enterprise architectures, however, are not fixable by simply bolting on new technology or building connections between systems. Architecture is, well, architecture, and it requires a great deal of planning and analysis to create a strategy that rejuvenates the enterprise architectures into something that lives up to the corporate expectations of business agility and efficiency. Thus, fixing your architecture could take years, and now is the time to begin the steps toward creating an architecture that serves the needs of the business, and not the other way around.
