Enterprise architecture defines a firm's needs for standardized tasks, job roles, systems, infrastructure, and data in core business processes. This book explains enterprise architecture's vital role in enabling - or constraining - the execution of business strategy. It provides frameworks, case examples, and more.

Does it seem you’ve formulated a rock-solid strategy, yet your firm still can’t get ahead? If so, construct a solid foundation for business execution—an IT infrastructure and digitized business processes to automate your company’s core capabilities. In Enterprise Architecture as Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution, authors Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, and David C. Robertson show you how. The key? Make tough decisions about which processes you must execute well, then implement the IT systems needed to digitize those processes. Citing numerous companies worldwide, the authors show how constructing the right enterprise architecture enhances profitability and time to market, improves strategy execution, and even lowers IT costs. Though clear, engaging explanation, they demonstrate how to define your operating model—your vision of how your firm will survive and grow—and implement it through your enterprise architecture. Their counterintuitive but vital message: when it comes to executing your strategy, your enterprise architecture may matter far more than your strategy itself.

The popularity of enterprise architecture (EA) has increased in the last two decades, in both business and academic domains. Despite the cumulative interest from all sectors, the implementation and practice of EA have been entangled with numerous challenges and complexities. Consequently, some organisations continue to theorise the concept, which has ramifications on practice and return on investment (ROI). This has led to many studies that have been conducted, to understand the complexities impacting the implementation and practice of EA in organisations. Yet, the trajectory of some convolutions remains mystery in many quarters. This attributes to the struggle to articulate the value of EA in many environments. Hence many organisations find it difficult to apply EA for strategic management of modern information technology (IT) solutions. Enterprise Architecture for Strategic Management of Modern IT Solutions provides guidance on how to employ EA in deploying and managing IT solutions from pragmatic and implementable strategies’ perspectives. Until now, implementation and practice of EA have been slow, despite its growing popularity and interest from all sectors. The author employs sociotechnical theories such as actor-network theory (ANT) and structuration theory (ST) as lenses to examine and explain why and how challenges and complexities exist and derail the implementation or practice of EA in organisations. By doing so, this serves to enable practitioners and readers to gain fresh insights on why the challenges exist and how they can be addressed in creating collaborative capabilities for business enhancement, sustainability, and competitiveness. The book provides detailed insights on how to apply EA for organisational purposes, from three main fronts. First, it explains the implications that lack of understanding of EA have on organisational activities and processes. Second, it examines the challenges and complexities that hinder the implementation and practice of EA in organisations. Third, it proposes models and frameworks on how EA can be applied for strategic management of modern IT solutions in organisations. Written for postgraduates, researchers, academics, and professionals in the fields of EA, IT, and information systems, this book provides a valuable resource that will enable and enhance implementation and practice of EA including future studies.

The Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) discipline deals with the alignment of business and information systems architectures. While EAM has long been regarded as a discipline for IT managers, this book takes a different stance: It explains how top executives can use EAM to leverage their strategic planning and controlling processes, as well as how it can contribute to their sustainable competitive advantage. Based on the analysis of best practices from eight leading European companies from various industries, the book presents the crucial elements of successful EAM. It outlines what executives need to do in terms of governance, processes, methodologies, and culture in order to bring their management to the next level. Beyond this, the book points out how EAM could develop in the next decade, thus allowing today’s managers to prepare for the future architecture management.

A critical part of any company's successful strategic planning is the creation of an Enterprise Business Architecture (EBA) with its formal linkages. Strategic research and analysis firms have recognized the importance of an integrated enterprise architecture and they have frequently reported on its increasing value to successful companies. Enterpr

Based on an extensive study of the actual industry best practices, this book provides a systematic conceptual description of an EA practice and offers practically actionable answers to the key questions related to enterprise architecture.

For you as an IT manager, changes in business models and fast-paced innovation and product lifecycles pose a big challenge: you are required to anticipate the impact of future changes, and to make rapid decisions backed up by solid facts. To be successful you need an overall perspective of how business and IT interact. What you need is a toolkit, enabling you to manage the enterprise from a helicopter viewpoint while at the same time accommodating quite detailed aspects of processes, organization, and software lifecycles. Strategic IT management embraces all the processes required to analyze and document an enterprise’s IT landscape. Based on the experience of many projects and long discussions with both customers and academic researchers, Inge Hanschke provides you with a comprehensive and practical toolkit for the strategic management of your IT landscape. She takes a holistic view on the management process and gives guidelines on how to establish, roll out, and maintain an enterprise IT landscape effectively. She shows you how to do it right first time – because often enough there’s no second chance. She tells you how to tidy up a IT patchworks – the first step towards strategic management – and she gives you advice on how to implement changes and maintain the landscape over time. The book’s structure reflects the patterns that exist in strategic IT management from strategic planning to actual implementation. The presentation uses many checklists, guidelines, and illustrations, which will help you to immediately apply the content. So, if you are a CIO, an IT manager, a business manager, or an IT consultant, this is the book from which you’ll benefit in most daily work situations.