Empowering Enterprise Architect : Key To Digital Transformation Success
Digital transformation is not a new concept – recent years have seen the rapid evolution of technology in business, from the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain to chatbots, machine learning and virtual reality Digital transformation. With so much hype around digital change, it’s surprising to know that most of the efforts are not fruitful as expected.
A poll conducted by Wipro Digital in 2017 reveals: over 400 U.S.-based senior executives believe their company isn’t successfully executing 50 percent of their strategies. One in 5 say their company’s digital transformation is a waste of time.
A survey conducted by McKinsey on enterprise-architecture management revealed that when companies decide to go all-in with digitization, the point-to-point connections among systems rise to almost 50%, the quality of documentation falls and services are reused less often. It creates greater complexity at the beginning of the digitization roll-out phase, but also on the long run.
As per Forbes Technology Council Community Voice : two major reasons are becoming bottleneck -
- Teamwork is forgotten in business transformations
- Enterprises lack an operational system of record that acts as the authoritative source of truth for the organization’s work investments, progress and results
Further deep dive reveals some more surprising elements impacting whole efforts
- Lack of clear vision
- Failure to recognize common requirements across multiple operating departments
- Failure to select a path for change without considering the future
- Failure to address the complexity explosion that usually accompanies transformation and modernization
Empowering Enterprise Architect is key to success
Most of the companies don't know the role of Enterprise Architect and how they fit in their strategy. Business leaders are not aware of what the Enterprise Architecture groups does.
Digital transformation is a journey not a one off-event and it requires clear vision, strategy, governing policies and coordinated action to achieve it -that's where EA comes in picture.
- The Enterprise-Architect (EA) can play a central role in reducing the complexity associated with digital transformations i.e. cloud computing , online business models and simplifying and modernizing their IT systems. Reducing complexity is especially critical being core of the problem.
- EA maps out the enterprise design and blueprint towards realizing business value, and at any point in time if trouble and issues arise, the enterprise architect can use the Digital Enterprise Architecture Map to trace the issue back to the cause of it, take steps to adjust, and have visibility into the effects of that adjustment.
- EA helps to establish rules for and processes around technology usage to ensure consistency across business units and functions.
- EA provides a common language for enterprises to support their users through technology upgrades, workflow changes and adopting enterprise mobility. Creating common requirements across business and IT departments, implementing change management with an eye for the future and resolving the complexity explosion from digital transformation and application modernization are important aspect to make digital transformation success.
A lack of EA leads to unmanaged IT complexity. You may face issues such as increased costs through the duplication of resources to develop, operate and maintain systems, along with reduced flexibility because you aren’t benefiting from the economies of scale. Delays in delivering changes also act negatively because they promote further complexity and uncertainty.
Findings from research suggest that when the EA group is directly involved in digital-transformation projects, the documentation and communication between business and IT stakeholders improves significantly.