Purpose of having an Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise Architecture is closely connected to an overview of the whole. It does not matter if an enterprise means a large corporation, or a division, or a department. Enterprise Architecture is to keep an eye on the overall interest of this “enterprise.”

So what’s the business case of having an Enterprise Architecture? One thing for sure is that people tend to follow the trace of “standardization” when an EA process is driving. And this leads to a better commoditization of software and systems within an organization, i.e., controllable operating cost and predictable development time. When having an established EA process, people tend to have better communication effects and are able to make design decisions in shorter time (this is extremely important for large organizations where escalations and politics are popular). And, the most important of all, an EA tells the people, especially the leaders, the directions to go, the initiatives to take, and the strategies to rely on.

Perhaps a better way t to look at this is to see the situation when EA is not in place. Without EA, an organization definitely experiences one or more of the followings.

• Many locally optimal, rather than globally optimal solutions exist and cannot removed
• Very high operating cost due to the fact that things are not globally shared and re-used
• Too much dependency on a vendor or a legacy application (no one knows who's using it, no one knows anything about it, no one dares to close it down)
• Most solutions are created for short term purpose and limits the long term benefit

• IT standards are not respected

It is worth noting that even lots of IT functionalities are outsourced to different vendors, EA is still vital and even more critical in such situations. With more than one vendors pressing the CFO for different payments, the EA team must guardian the enterprise to avoid being a cash-cow kind.