Enterprise Architecture Change Management:

Enterprise Architecture and Change Management is one of the hot topics recently I ran into. The discussion was how establishing an enterprise architecture governance center of excellence (COE) process effects the organizational change. Before we get into the enterprise architecture governance and change management, let us analyze the growing need of enterprise architecture practice. Though enterprise architecture is not new, in recent years we are seeing broader trends in organizations adopting enterprise architecture. Some of this are a direct contribution of growth of enterprise architecture evangelism and summits by larger vendors and researchers like Gartner and Forrester. Other reason is that enterprise architecture itself is getting more matured with more success stories and case studies. More organizations are standardizing business processes for cost reduction and improved efficiency. But what should trigger an organization to standardize their enterprise architecture? Let’s discuss some key areas

Business Strategy

One of the key contributor to organizational change management is business strategy. There are many reasons why a company should adopt changes in the operational strategy. Ultimately, the goal is growth and revenue increase. Such changes in business strategy triggers many operational areas, and technology will be challenged to enable these agile business changes. Aligning technology and business is not a new story. Unfortunately, this term has been overly used by many, myself including. What is aligning business technology anyway? Clearly, when you think about this there is no one line answer. But you will be amazed with the challenges you would list when you start you alignment journey. Out the most, there is no doubt that larger organizations has challenges aligning their own business strategies within line of businesses. You will not be surprised to notice that your next cubicle neighbor was not aware about company’s plans of organizational change.

Globalization

Recent studies says that in coming years, more companies will be reaching out to take advantage of the global resources pool. According to Gartner research worldwide outsourcing market is to grow 8.1% in 2008. Off-shoring partners such as Tata, Wipro, Cognizant, Infosys are growing leaps. However, recent dollar plunge had some overcasts as well. That makes the jobs market a bit tougher right? Off course, without a doubt. Organizations, once again, need to take new steps on managing off-shore and on-shore resources. Timely work flow coordination and information gathering is critical for businesses that adopts this route. In order to deliver that, new technology framework and enterprise software that could streamline these processes becomes necessary. Do I hear change management?

Cost Reduction

“Our IT budget surpass sales”, this was one of the comment I recently heard from one of CIO who recently set up new enterprise architecture group. How this can cause change? The company needed to replace some of the old processes and methodologies for conducting daily business, including applications and business processes. They conducted a strenuous course on project portfolio, application rationalization, business process re-engineering, vendor consolidation, communication program and organizational assessment. After enterprise architecture COE drill, internal departments now has new processes in initiating projects. And program management has total control on managing the IT project portfolio, the enterprise architecture group operates at CIO’s advisory service, they have identified older systems to replace and reduce, roadmap for aligning an enterprise software package for greater process visibility. I am sure that not everyone were happy with this change management, even with a 15-20% forecast cost savings.

Market Competition

With strong growth in SAAS, mobile, open source and other technology sectors, the market and industry competition is still ahead of new innovations. Companies with older processes struggle to introduce new products in a timely fashion where time-to-market factor is very critical. On some other cases, those who have innovative ideas lack the technology to enable the go-to-market strategy. Both of them have common challenge. How to grab the market opportunity before others do. Once again, without an agile technology framework, standards and processes market competition becomes very challenging.