By Uche NWAUKWA
Today’s enterprise architects (EA) must evolve from tech-only shells. This article provides a highlight on emerging demands for the EA as 72% of organizations are either starting, restarting, or renewing their Enterprise Architecture efforts.
Smart and collaborative enterprise architecture (SCEA) is an inclusive and innovative way to design and implement enterprise solutions. In order to build a more flexible and adaptive system that can respond to the quickly changing business environment, it takes a holistic strategy that accounts for the entire organisation, including personnel, systems, and technology.
Using intelligent technology, including Machine Learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT), organisations can enhance internal cooperation and communication; these are fundamental tenets of SCEA.
Automating monotonous activities, monitoring, and analyzing data, and actually providing insights that might assist decision-makers in making more informed decisions are all possible with the help of these technologies. Everyone has something in it for them. The SCEA expert must communicate these benefits to stakeholders clearly, and in stakeholders’ terms.
Participation and corporate adoption of an enterprise architecture become a function of everyone in the organisation meeting individual and hence, collective objectives and key results (OKR) by using technology as a means to their OKRs. That way, it is difficult for the Enterprise Architect to deviate from business objectives like studies show 32% of EA solutions do.
Examples include predictive maintenance for industry workers, automated microservices (CI/CD pipelines) and data workflow (MLops) for various units and even, hiring, training needs analysis, etc. for HR, to geospatial analytics for compliance, etc. For architecture as a practice to go beyond lines and boxes in tech-nerd diagrams, it has to be beneficial enterprise-wide.
SCEA places a strong emphasis on teamwork, which is another crucial feature. Teamwork gets at its best when everyone is clear about what’s in it for them. Beyond the organisation, collaboration with clients and partners from outside the company is also included.
This covers cooperation across various teams and divisions within the organization. SCEA can aid in the development of a more integrated and cohesive enterprise system that is better able to meet the demands of the business by tearing down silos and promoting cross-functional collaboration.
Using a comprehensive and staged approach is crucial for implementing SCEA.
A thorough evaluation of the existing corporate architecture, which identifies areas for development and potential applications for smart technology is a good place to start. The selection and integration of the required technologies, as well as the creation of new procedures and job roles to support the new system, can then be done according to a resultant roadmap and gap analysis.
Making sure the new system is scalable and can adapt to the changing needs of the business is one of the main difficulties of SCEA. Studies show successful EAs adopt cloud solutions to make their solutions nimble enough. This calls for an adaptable and modular architecture that can quickly integrate new technologies and adjust to changes in operational procedures. For the system to be used efficiently and for any faults or problems to be rapidly resolved, a strong governance structure is also necessary.
The requirement for effective data management and security presents another hurdle for SCEA. With the rising adoption of smart technologies and the resulting massive data collection, it is crucial to guarantee that the data is being used responsibly and that its security and privacy are upheld.
In order to protect against cyber-attacks, this necessitates the implementation of a strong data governance framework and cutting-edge security measures. Security measures have to go beyond screens and alerts sent to techies to deviations from the norm and automated response.
The advantages of SCEA are obvious despite real-life obstacles in the marketplace. SCEA can aid in building a more flexible and agile enterprise system that can react fast to the changing business environment by utilizing smart technology and encouraging cooperation. This may result in higher innovation, better decision-making, and enhanced efficiency, all of which may ultimately fuel the company’s expansion and success.
Finally, feedback is as key as automation, flexibility, etc. In fact, it drives the whole process. ‘Mistakes’ should never occur more than once, and processes and workflow should be automated immediately after the right fit is identified. However, empirical data from continuous feedback and continuous development must be used to endlessly make SCEA the most suitable for adopting organisations. Results must be data-driven and communicated with clear data-driven impact and implications.
**Uche Nwaukwa is a DevOps, SRE, and Senior Cloud Architect with 15+ years of experience having played strategic roles in global fintech, banks, ISVs, telecommunications, and OEMs including Microsoft, IBM, and Google. He has been privileged to advise execs and techies alike on architecture best practices in the financial services industry, dominantly.
Uche has served as an Enterprise Architect and also, a CTO driving bespoke architectures to meet stringent SLOs and SLAs. He is an avid learner, a father, and a husband, and he likes to relax with a good chess game and cycling.
Uche is also one of the founding members of Cloud Techie – a digital community that helps businesses grow using the cloud.
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