Enterprise Architects drive digital transformation

EA has a need to understand emerging technology opportunities and drive strategic business innovations

Continuous innovation using the latest business and technology ideas to create new revenue streams, services and experiences is a high priority for firms. Success demands a world-class enterprise architecture (EA) program, with EA and technology innovation leaders steering EA to a form of internal management consultancy.

Leadership Vision 2020: EA and Technology Innovation Leader. Actionable recommendations, tools and practices and consultative guidance lead to business-outcome-driven EA.

Gartner is helping us on different levels; from the strategy, high levels, down to the key projects and iniatives themselves.

Khalid Al-Mutawah

Director of Enterprise Architecture, Information & E-Government Authority, Government

How we address your top challenges

To survive and thrive in digital business management, EA leaders must proactively identify possible disruptive trends (technology, economic, societal, political, environmental), evaluate them to determine the impact on the business, and provide innovative solutions.

Build new business models to exploit emerging technologies

The mesh of interconnected people, devices, content and services is enabled by digital business platforms delivering a rich, intelligent set of services to support digital business. EA leaders are key enablers for this digital business.

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Plan a business-driven EA

EA leaders recognize the need to focus on business outcomes, which requires a structured approach to guide both project and product execution. Creating a stage plan will provide the structure to guide, mature and build a world-class EA capability.

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Provide the insight and analysis required by your C-suite

Leading organizations are transforming their business models to create new sources of revenue, services and experiences for customers. EA and technology innovation leaders must use a business architecture landscape to provide the insight and analysis required by senior leaders.

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New to your role?

Success as an enterprise architect depends on establishing the foundation for a sound approach from the beginning. This requires a firm grasp on best practices, avoiding worst practices, an understanding of how to deliver value, and clearly communicated goals and objectives.

Enterprise architecture and technology questions Gartner can help answer

What are the roles and responsibilities of an enterprise architect?

The key role of an enterprise architect is to create a scalable framework of IT assets and business processes aligned to a corporate governance that supports the organization to deliver on its goals and strategic objectives.

They must also develop the internal management consulting skills to influence and educate business leaders and executives on the importance of certain IT decisions or risks.

Two key responsibilities of an EA are to:

Provide enterprise architecture services to stakeholders: EA helps business and IT leaders make smart investment decisions by providing context and support to help teams collaborate, building better flexibility, agility, and autonomy in decision making, and enabling faster speed to value and time to market.
Select tools to support the EA discipline: EA tools are constantly evolving, and the right selection and use of EA tools are critical to supporting business transformation and optimization efforts.

How do enterprise architects contribute to business strategy and execution?

Enterprise Architecture helps organizations formulate business strategy through outlining the framework needed for IT delivery. It also informs business and operating models, and leads the enterprise responses to disruptive forces such as changes to markets, customers, supply chains and technology.

The way that the architects themselves contribute to the organization’s success in this is through streamlined management of all moving parts of the framework and strategy, plus identifying gaps and improvements across the organization’s execution of that strategy.

How do enterprise architects differentiate themselves from other domain architects, such as business, information, solutions and technical architects?

The key differentiator between Enterprise Architects and other technical architects across an organization is the EA’s ability — and requirement — to operate as an internal consultant across all pillars of the business.

Rather than focusing on one singular disciple, the EA has to cover the breadth of IT frameworks as it applies to each individual business unit, assess its viability and then design a roadmap to success for that unit, via scalable IT solutions.