Enterprise architecture – new business value perspective

Abstract

Organisations today are characterised by conglomerate organisation structures that evolve through mergers and acquisitions. Corporate offices need to add superior knowledge and skills to ensure that the collection of diverse businesses is operating as more than independent units. A new management approach is required to create synergies between the diverse businesses, their processes and system landscapes. Enterprise Architecture (EA) creates value on a corporate level by facilitating process/information technology alignment and synergy between different strategic business units (SBUs). Unfortunately many EA implementations seemed to fail owing to a short-term financial focus and measurement. This article explores the possibilities of linking EA to a corporate balanced scorecard (BSC) to demonstrate its long-term financial improvement capabilities in supporting the business strategy. The aim is to use the corporate BSC context to direct EA objectives in creating contextualised value for a specific enterprise.

Organisasies word vandag gekenmerk deur konglomeraatorganisasiestrukture wat groei deur middel van die samesmelting en oorname van ander organisasies. Korporaatkantore sal hoër-staande kennis en vaardighede moet toevoeg om te verseker dat die versameling van diverse besighede groter is as wanneer hul onafhanklik van mekaar opereer. ’n Nuwe bestuursbenadering word benodig om sinergieë tussen die diverse besighede, hul prosesse en stelsel-landskappe te skep. Ondernemingsargitektuur (OA) skep waarde op ’n korporatiewe vlak deur die fasilitering van proses/inligtingtegnologiebelyning en sinergie-skepping tussen verskillende strategiese besigheidseenhede. Ongelukkig faal vele OA projekte weens ’n kort-termyn finansiële fokus en prestasie-meting. Hierdie artikel ondersoek die moontlikheid om OA te koppel aan ’n korporatiewe gebalanseerde telkaart (KBT) om sodanig OA se lang-termyn finansiële verbeteringsvermoë ter ondersteuning van besigheidstrategie te demonstreer. Die KBT konteks word dus gebruik om OA doelwitte te rig om gekontekstualiseerde waarde vir ’n spesifieke onderneming te skep.