There are tons of great benefits when you deploy EA. Some of the most important are helping IT and the business to determine how people, processes, data, technologies, and applications interact to ensure alignment in enterprise objectives. It’s used in digital transformation, cloud migration, customer journey mapping, regulatory compliance, so many areas of impact in the business. Check out some of the customer reviews on Erwin Evolve to see the measurable impact a good EA program can have.
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Enterprise Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Aug 5, 2021
Some of the other answers have already provided all the usual bullet points, better business IT alignment, better PMO, compliance, standards and so on.
Those points are all true but it's very much like going on a fitness plan. I'm going to start eating properly, exercising regularly, etc. But after a few weeks, you realize, hey this is hard work, I have to stop eating my favorite deserts, get up early, etc.. and you start cheating and before you know you are only going through the motions( eating a chocolate-coated caramel marshmallow power bar instead of a mars bar).
EA is like that, there is nothing magic about it, the benefits come from changing the way you do things as a company. Logical, smart, rational things. EA methodologies, tools and so on are the only tools to help you apply those changes.
These are things like, viewing architecture as a live constantly changing thing ( just like code) instead of a set of diagrams that are printed out, out in a binder and forgotten.
Make your documentation an implicit and integral part of your design instead of a static dreary drudgery artifact that is out of date before it's even printed allowing everyone to view what you are building and providing relevant input without having to become tech-savvy, vetting your designs in-depth to find and fix flaws early and easily.
How you do all these things is beyond what I can write in a paragraph but suffice to say you need to think like a designer and at an enterprise level ( i.e. which approach will be best "long-term" and will best fit in with the other apps in my organization ( e.g. don't create your own database for each project - share data and databases efficiently).
I'd strongly suggest you focus more on practical proper design principles and then use EA tools to apply them.
Director Product Marketing at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Jul 27, 2020
Enterprise Architecture only adds value to the business when it is applied to the actual problems the business faces. All too often people seek to use other people's benefits when trying to justify it in their own organization.
It is easy to roll off benefits such as reduced IT costs, effective impact analysis, better connecting business problems with IT solutions, providing better governance and management of IT projects, etc. However, if these are not seen as issues in your business then the benefits will not be understood.
So instead, consider what problems your business leaders face, what challenges the IT folks have, and ask yourself how could EA deliver better results and in a timely fashion. The size and scope of these issues will provide insight into the monetary or resource costs of the problems, and thus enable EA initiatives to be sized in a way that ensures cost-benefit makes sense.
Using an EA tool and initiative that costs hundreds of thousands to solve problems that are only perceived as being worth tens of thousands is never likely to mke sense.
Lastly, if you focus your efforts on providing answers and actionable insights rather than creating or managing an enterprise architecture you are more likely to succeed.
The foundation of an EA approach, is to establish the link between the main perspectives of an organization, from the strategic objectives, the capabilities necessary to reach those objectives, the projects that aim to implement and / or increase the maturity of the capabilities and the architectural components that the projects aim to transform, such as the business processes and the systems that support them, the skills of the people who will operate these processes, etc.
This connection between the main artifacts allows a common language, which can be understood by all interested parties, facilitating the combination of efforts in order to achieve the corporate objectives, which translates into greater efficiency in the transformation and operation process, and a clear decision-making process on strategic investments.
In this way, it is possible to know with clarity which projects are important, how much they contribute to achieve the corporate objectives and what the return point of this investment is, and the real added value for the business.
1. Promotes integration of processes - you are able to have a blueprint of all your processes and see the points of interlinking, silos and redundancy.
2. Provides a platform for process, data and system management which assists management to have a central place to monitor and an overview of how each is performing
3. It provides an organization with a planning process to better understand its business strategy; which helps the organization to respond faster to competitive pressures and deploy a higher quality faster.
Enterprise Architecture Management facilitates the alignment of technology and business strategies to ensure organizations effectively reach their goals. It offers a structured approach to managing and optimizing complex IT landscapes.Enterprise Architecture Management offers a comprehensive framework to manage and streamline IT resources aligned with business objectives. It helps businesses outline current systems and apps while identifying areas for improvement. By leveraging best practices...
There are tons of great benefits when you deploy EA. Some of the most important are helping IT and the business to determine how people, processes, data, technologies, and applications interact to ensure alignment in enterprise objectives. It’s used in digital transformation, cloud migration, customer journey mapping, regulatory compliance, so many areas of impact in the business. Check out some of the customer reviews on Erwin Evolve to see the measurable impact a good EA program can have.
Some of the other answers have already provided all the usual bullet points, better business IT alignment, better PMO, compliance, standards and so on.
Those points are all true but it's very much like going on a fitness plan. I'm going to start eating properly, exercising regularly, etc. But after a few weeks, you realize, hey this is hard work, I have to stop eating my favorite deserts, get up early, etc.. and you start cheating and before you know you are only going through the motions( eating a chocolate-coated caramel marshmallow power bar instead of a mars bar).
EA is like that, there is nothing magic about it, the benefits come from changing the way you do things as a company. Logical, smart, rational things. EA methodologies, tools and so on are the only tools to help you apply those changes.
These are things like, viewing architecture as a live constantly changing thing ( just like code) instead of a set of diagrams that are printed out, out in a binder and forgotten.
Make your documentation an implicit and integral part of your design instead of a static dreary drudgery artifact that is out of date before it's even printed allowing everyone to view what you are building and providing relevant input without having to become tech-savvy, vetting your designs in-depth to find and fix flaws early and easily.
How you do all these things is beyond what I can write in a paragraph but suffice to say you need to think like a designer and at an enterprise level ( i.e. which approach will be best "long-term" and will best fit in with the other apps in my organization ( e.g. don't create your own database for each project - share data and databases efficiently).
I'd strongly suggest you focus more on practical proper design principles and then use EA tools to apply them.
Cheer.
Enterprise Architecture only adds value to the business when it is applied to the actual problems the business faces. All too often people seek to use other people's benefits when trying to justify it in their own organization.
It is easy to roll off benefits such as reduced IT costs, effective impact analysis, better connecting business problems with IT solutions, providing better governance and management of IT projects, etc. However, if these are not seen as issues in your business then the benefits will not be understood.
So instead, consider what problems your business leaders face, what challenges the IT folks have, and ask yourself how could EA deliver better results and in a timely fashion. The size and scope of these issues will provide insight into the monetary or resource costs of the problems, and thus enable EA initiatives to be sized in a way that ensures cost-benefit makes sense.
Using an EA tool and initiative that costs hundreds of thousands to solve problems that are only perceived as being worth tens of thousands is never likely to mke sense.
Lastly, if you focus your efforts on providing answers and actionable insights rather than creating or managing an enterprise architecture you are more likely to succeed.
The foundation of an EA approach, is to establish the link between the main perspectives of an organization, from the strategic objectives, the capabilities necessary to reach those objectives, the projects that aim to implement and / or increase the maturity of the capabilities and the architectural components that the projects aim to transform, such as the business processes and the systems that support them, the skills of the people who will operate these processes, etc.
This connection between the main artifacts allows a common language, which can be understood by all interested parties, facilitating the combination of efforts in order to achieve the corporate objectives, which translates into greater efficiency in the transformation and operation process, and a clear decision-making process on strategic investments.
In this way, it is possible to know with clarity which projects are important, how much they contribute to achieve the corporate objectives and what the return point of this investment is, and the real added value for the business.
EA benefits include:
1. Promotes integration of processes - you are able to have a blueprint of all your processes and see the points of interlinking, silos and redundancy.
2. Provides a platform for process, data and system management which assists management to have a central place to monitor and an overview of how each is performing
3. It provides an organization with a planning process to better understand its business strategy; which helps the organization to respond faster to competitive pressures and deploy a higher quality faster.