Bizzdesign: Roadmap from Strategy to Execution With Enterprise Architecture
Nov 3, 2022
To implement change in large and complex organizations, you need to know how the organization functions. “Are you sure that if you remove a service on one side of the organization, you won’t stop a customer process elsewhere?” asks Peter Matthijssen of Bizzdesign. You need a roadmap called enterprise architecture. “This is an essential tool for the CIO to execute change successfully from strategy to execution.”
Where in the past organizational changes were implemented every five or seven years, change is now a continuous process. In our turbulent world, organizations are constantly protecting or strengthening their positions in the marketplace. This is especially challenging and complex for large organizations because change is challenging and complex, says Peter Matthijssen, Chief Product Officer at Bizzdesign.
Research from McKinsey shows that, despite investments, the success rate of change projects is still low (about thirty percent). Organizations need to strengthen their change capabilities. Mastering your enterprise architecture is more important than ever. “With enterprise architecture, you know the impact of change, and you can design scenarios for the future and plan and execute changes,” says Matthijssen.
“Our customers are the largest organizations in the world. A major challenge for them is to create agility to respond to developments in the world”, says Matthijssen. “These organizations are complex because they consist of thousands of employees, processes, and IT systems. If you want to change, you must have a view of the entire architecture and how everything relates to each other.”
Enterprise architects map organizations at different levels: the strategy, processes, organizational structure, services, products, IT systems, and technology. The connection between parts is essential here. “For example, if you are going to deliver a service via an app instead of a physical location, what impact will that have on people, processes, and IT systems?”
An enterprise architect generally deals with enterprise architecture, and this role is often filled by someone from the IT department under the responsibility of the CIO. But the scope of enterprise architecture is broader than IT. Matthijssen says, “The strength of the enterprise architect is precisely in that they know how to connect different levels and disciplines.”
Shell is a Bizzdesign customer and will speak at Gartner’s IT Symposium/XPO: “Of course, they have a huge challenge in the energy transition, and that has an impact on all layers of the organization. Such a transition does not happen at once, but it’s realized with numerous programs and projects. Enterprise architecture is an essential tool to design, plan and execute complex changes.’
To help organizations change with confidence, Bizzdesign offers an enterprise architecture platform. Matthijssen says: “Our Horizzon platform enables organizations to capture, visualize, analyze and design their enterprise architecture across multiple dimensions for the future with a central data storage, a single source of truth, as a reliable foundation.”
According to Matthijssen, a platform such as Horizzon is indispensable within organizations: “Large organizations can no longer afford to shape and realize their changes without support from a powerful tool. Just like finance, sales, and HR disciplines, the enterprise architect deserves a powerful platform.” The platform’s strength is reaffirmed by Gartner, which ranks it as a market leader.
An enterprise architect works from the current situation, focusing on the question: where are we going? Matthijssen says, “From a single source of truth, our platform supports the design of future scenarios and the prioritization of investment options. In a dynamic world, this is a continuous process.”
The enterprise architect plays a central role, connecting different worlds and dimensions. And this is now a popular position in organizations, Matthijssen says: “This role has been around for some time, but it’s becoming increasingly important. Several studies by Glassdoor position enterprise architects at the top of the highest-paying jobs in the US and UK. In other words, there is more appreciation for this role.”
The enterprise architect is going through a similar development as CIOs: where in the past the emphasis was solely on IT, they are increasingly concerned with business issues and are given co-responsibility for achieving business goals. “Due to digital transformation, the lines between business and IT are blurring. Enterprise architecture plays a pivotal role in supporting change and innovation.”
“In large organizations, an enterprise architect always works together with specialists, such as IT, data, security and solution architects,” says Matthijssen. However, it is not the intention that every specialist works in isolation on their island. “Bizzdesign Horizzon is, above all, a collaboration platform that brings together and connects specialists, including business and management roles, who gain access to visual information and self-service analytics tools.’
Translated from original article published on Dutch IT Channel
Author: Anne van den Berg
