Architecture for the

Information Age
Introduction ownership. On a 3 year program, that’s an extra 6 months
before the expected benefits start to take effect.
How are architecture practices changed by digitalization
and the Information Age? If you can imagine the scale and As the volume and complexity of information has grown, we
complexity of the information your organization deals know that our clients are finding it harder to mobilize their
with every day, then you are starting to grasp the need for organizations around the information and data issues that
more advanced ways to manage, organize and visualize this they need to resolve which can be articulated as below:
complexity.
• I wish I had a view of the flow of information in
The Information Age challenges that are faced by our my organization
clients have led us, at Capgemini, to update our approach
to architecture and the way we think about information • I wish I could resolve the conflict between the
architecture in particular. data issues my projects want to resolve and the
reality of information ownership
Since 1993, Capgemini has developed its own approach of
architecture through the Integrated Architecture Framework • I wish I had enough control of personal data
(IAF). We have now updated IAF to version 5.1 to address that we hold to satisfy GDPR requirements
the Information Age challenges we have encountered with
our clients. • I wish I had confidence that my target
application landscape could support my
Capgemini’s Integrated Architecture Framework (IAF), is enterprise information needs
a comprehensive and flexible approach to undertaking
Enterprise, Business and IT/Solutions Architecture, and is • I wish I understood the difference between the
based on inputs from many of Capgemini’s most experienced information quality I need on the shop floor
architects. Its development and use has continued and what I need for marketing
to demonstrate our leadership in the domain and has
frequently contributed crucial parts to worldwide standards, • I wish my users trusted the data in the
notably TOGAF. applications they used
Challenges • I wish I had traceability from my data models
At Capgemini, we see our clients addressing and standards to my information ownership
a number of key challenges:- and business goals

• In the digital age, recognizing that mastery of data across • I have a BI initiative, but how and where do I get
the enterprise is the major challenge for profitability and the clean, high quality data that it needs
staying competitive
• In an insight-focused revolution, understanding how • I wish I knew how to best organize my
enterprise information is managed in order to provide the Information Governance (IG) to get effective
quality of data required by their MI / Analytics / ML management of my information
• Struggling or failing to make MDM solutions work and
needing to regroup around a better understanding of their • I wish I knew why the data used in my
enterprise Information applications doesn’t reflect the language used
• For information managers, needing a solid architectural in my organization
foundation (or way of structuring and modelling) to
support management of enterprise information and data Big data is not the new game in town anymore. Gartner
• And as the digital age moves forward, recognizing that removed it from their hype cycle in 2016, and it must now
organically-grown integration landscapes are causing be considered business as normal in the information age.
increasing obstacles to implementing new initiatives on However organizations are still struggling to recognize this in
time or with sufficient information quality. their architecture approaches.

At one European client, we estimated that major There is still a chasm between how business and IT
programs were being delayed by 15% because of a lack understand the term “information”, how they communicate
of understanding of their enterprise information and its

2 Architecture for the Information Age

about the information needed to run a business, and how this of an information view, it was apparent that the defined
translates into the data processed and shared by IT systems business rules were being applied in an inappropriate
situation, i.e. on integration.
Brief Case Studies
The following use cases discuss various areas of the IAF 5.1 2. Effects of Governance on IM and then on IS design
update, which help with some selected client challenges.
IAF 5.1 provides artefacts and traceability to clearly identify
1. Why the difference between information the major governance impacts on the use and treatment of
and data matters? the enterprise’s information.

We distinguish clearly between information and data in IAF For example, understanding the business reality and
5.1, defining information as data in context or for a purpose. constraints on Information Governance (IG), such as who
This allows both architects and information managers to really owns the information in the organization, allows not
think more clearly about how they define rules and standards only appropriate IM decisions to be taken, but also broader IT
for data. decisions.

For example, if you just think about data, you would view the In most cases we find that IG has to follow business
concept of ‘address data’ as something that probably has a governance, and at least, cannot cut across or undermine it. If
single definition or single set of rules to manage it. However, two parts of your organization can make separate IT buying
as soon as you think about putting that data into different decisions then they will make separate IM decisions. This
business contexts and see it as information, your view can be assessed with artefacts in IAF 5.1 and the boundaries
immediately changes. between different IT purchasing organizations can be
identified in information sharing between business services.
It’s possible to see that customer address data used in This leads to deeper understanding of the information rules
an order delivery process (Customer Delivery Address that apply within each organization and which need to apply
Information) is very different from customer address data between the organizations. This has direct implications in say
used by your marketing department (Customer Current design decisions concerning data integration.
Address Information). So for example, if the zip code or
post code is put in address line 4, it can still be delivered; but The IAF 5.1 content framework has artefacts that help
not being in the right field it is useless for marketing insight assess the set of information within each governance
analysis. domain or organization. It keeps traceability to the business
architecture, allows clear assessments of the impact of these
Once these are seen as different kinds of Information, it is governance structures and the implications for Information
easier to understand that they need different standards and Systems architecture.
rules to govern them, and of course require different levels of
information quality. The dangers of not understanding the effects of business
and information governance on your treatment of data, or
The IAF 5.1 content framework formalizes this thinking and the design of your systems landscape, will directly effect your
gives the tools to structure and understand information organization’s ability to make decisions and conduct business.
within the business contexts. Being able to see your We frequently see organizations tryingto apply information
information in this way has profound effects on your or data rules and standards across organizational governance
Information Management (IM) decisions, on your enterprise boundaries, with no will within the business to adhere to
architecture decisions, and on your solution design decisions. them. The IT department may try to enforce them, but the
business dynamics in the separate organizations often mean
The dangers of not understanding data in context can cause exceptions and ‘work arounds’ are implemented locally as the
serious business disruption. One of our retail clients found rules and standards are increasingly ignored and left on the
they had a problem measuring business activity across shelf.
their global business units, causing much wasted time in
management arguments and disputed figures. One of the
major causes of this was applying data rules to data flows
across global systems. This prevented data from being
passed on to their global management function if it didn’t
reach certain data quality criteria. With an understanding

3
 IAF 5.1 provides a framework that
helps an organization look at its
data integration, its issues and
effective design.

3. Getting to grips with Data Quality of “information structure” and “information interaction
with the business”, we bring focus to six risk areas. These
IAF 5.1 provides a structure for understanding your required are six separate aspects of information risk that can affect
data quality within the correct business context, taking both the business. Based on these business goals for a specific
business goals and risks into account. business area and the associated risks, appropriate decisions
can be made about data rules and the required levels of data
For example, we worked with an global client who asked us quality needed to operate that business area effectively.
to look at their data quality issues in a large e-commerce
program. Architectural analysis showed that there were The dangers of not understanding the difference in data
three different views of data quality: those defined by the quality requirements in different parts of your business
e-commerce program; those defined by the global marketing means that some areas may be forced to operate at higher
organization; and those defined by the local business. costs to achieve a level of data quality that is well above
that which is needed to run their business area. Conversely
Because the e-commerce program was driving solution some areas of the business could be falling short of data
development, it was enforcing its particular view of data quality needs that are vital to other areas of the business to
quality on other areas. For instance, it required a certain set function properly.
of mandatory fields in a record, in order to allow that record
to be accepted by the e-commerce platform. From the 4. Regrouping around Information for improved
point of view of the local business, its current data quality, Master Data Management (MDM)
although not being perfect, was absolutely good enough for
it to run a very profitable business; they certainly didn’t need IAF 5.1 provides techniques to understand how to best to
any of the so called “mandatory fields” to be mandatory in all work with semantic issues, conflicting business rules, and
cases. quality requirements and to give the necessary design
foundation to establish effective MDM solutions.
Additionally, there was a serious consequence for the
e-commerce program; in a number of scenarios it meant For example, creating Master Data Management solutions in
that a customer who had ‘signed up’ in the local business area, organizations, which have organically grown their IT systems
could not then access the e-commerce capability, unless of and data, needs a thorough appreciation of how that data is
course they signed up again on the e-commerce site, thereby used and by whom.
creating a duplicate identity - propagating more data issues.
Working with one client, we noticed that in the case
The IAF 5.1 content framework allows traceability of of product information, that the disparate areas of the
business goals through the Information Architecture. As organization that used it had very different understandings
the Information Architecture is built up, both in terms of that data, or even of what a ‘product’ was in their

4 Architecture for the Information Age

organization. In this situation, the business analysts, working also the global organization owns the website, while the local
to integrate product data between the product development business units their individual CRM systems, etc.
area of the business and the e-commerce area, couldn’t
initially establish the basis for communicating what a product As a result of owning their own systems and having their own
or its attributes were, because the business languages P&L, IT governance (if in place) often fails or is too weak to
used in the two areas were so far removed from each override the immediate business imperatives to upgrade
other. The current integrations, which passed data through those systems. So, when inevitably they need to upgrade
many interfaces, produced so many issues that only a small their system, the data often changes; however it is the data
proportion of products “got through” to the web store. The exchange with other systems that suffers, because often
causes were not just semantic, but also driven by a series integration is left out of scope and any complementary
of misunderstandings about business rules, quality rules, updates needed in other systems doesn’t happen. Even
formats, and different states of product information. where IT governance is in place to manage integrations,
we often find that the data is not the focus, but treated
The IAF 5.1 content framework also allows us to build a more as a commodity that just flows “down the integration
view of information, such as product information, from the pipe”. As a result, the organization’s ability to exchange data
semantics of the information’s use in areas of the business. effectively around the organization is degraded, bit by bit,
This can be achieved right down to how that information is month by month.
most effectively structured according to the principles and
goals of the organization, and finally to appropriate business The IAF 5.1 content framework has artefacts to support these
rules and standards in the context of how the data is used. data integration issues:

IAF 5.1 enables this while modeling how that information • The ability to model governance (as indicated earlier). This
flows and changes as it passes through the organization and enables us to build a view of how data is exchanged, with
the impact this has on IT systems and system design. This a focus on how the organization’s information is governed,
modelling allows us to assess the timeliness, availability of no matter how complex or changeable that business
information flows, and through this traceability determine if governance is. Once it is recognized by an architect, it
the data that arrives at a user interface is fit for purpose (or can be modelled, and its effect on the organization’s
design it to be so). management of information can also be modelled. With
these insights, it is possible to design the best approach to
The dangers of not being able to have a good view of these data integration that works for that organization.
master data challenges can lead to delayed or paralyzed • The ability to understand information quality in a
MDM programs, with the business not being able to realize structured, traceable way. This answers the question of
the vision they have of operating with the “single version of what the data quality should be in the context of each part
the truth” that they so often need. of the organization where the data is used. Understanding
the differing data quality requirements of separate areas
5. How to bring the focus onto Data Integration of a business, using the same data, allows design decisions
about how data quality is dealt with in integrations to be
IAF 5.1 provides a framework that helps an organization made - based on some objective assessment.
look at its data integration, its issues and effective design.
By data integration, we mean the flow of data across the The dangers of not being able to understand your
organization, which of course includes how that data is organization’s data integration landscape is an inevitable
exchanged between IT systems. IAF of course deals with degradation in data quality as your data moves around
other aspects of integration, the technical infrastructure systems. We have seen good data being blocked by
required as well as any functional or orchestration designs. integration, or feedback loops in integrations where data
However, IAF 5.1. brings the focus on information, which lets corrected manually yesterday gets flipped back to yesterday’s
us look at the data exchange issues within the context of how state - day after day. We’ve seen uncontrolled growth of
the organization uses and manages its information. duplicates, as well as systems receiving their data, but just in
a semantic or syntactic state that they cannot use at all.
For example, many integration issues arise out of how an
organization buys its IT systems or services. We may see
instances where the sales department owns the CRM system,
while the customer service area owns the call center systems;

5
The Focus of IAF 5.1

Information Architecture is an essential part of the Capgemini Information Value

Chain; the way we see an organization’s Information, contributing to business
outcomes. Without the in-depth understanding that Information Architecture
brings, the whole value chain is weakened and the expected business outcomes
are diluted.

Figure 1 - Capgemini’s Information Value Chain

Information Strategy
Information Architecture
Day to Day
Control
Conduct Information Information
Provide Information Business
Business & Content Presentation
Information Exploitation Outcomes
Operations Consolidation & analysis
Day to Day
Operations
Information Governance
Information Operating Model

Working on IAF client engagements, we’ve experienced the reality of our clients’
challenges and have applied the underlying principles of IAF to help resolve them.
The core abstraction levels of IAF lead to a way of thinking about architecture that
is insightful in many aspects of our work, from Information Strategy, Information
Governance, Business Information Service Centers, Insight generation, MDM
program delivery etc.

Figure 2 - Abstraction Levels of IAF

WHY do we need the Architecture? HOW to address these needs?

Business Drivers, Objectives and Scope Components and Interactions

WHAT are the needs? WITH WHAT to address these needs?

Services and Interfaces Structures, Standards and Guidelines

IAF is, in essence, agile so we can use particular aspects of the framework as the
situation demands. So when an Information Manager needs to see the flow of
information across the whole business, IAF provides a ready artefact to support
this. When we need to identify how Information Governance should work (i.e. which
information is owned by whom, in which part of the business), then IAF has a way of
thinking that gives us a clear, crisp and clean view of this.

6 Architecture for the Information Age

Over time, we have adapted the framework, made small
upgrades, and clarifications within IAF, culminating in
IAF 5.1, which makes dealing with these Information Age
challenges that much easier.

In upgrading IAF, we needed to find ways of:

1. Baking in data quality, and how data quality is seen in the context of
different parts of the organization - in other words an overall view of
Information Quality;
2. Providing a link between IAF Information Artifacts and the practice of data
architecture;
3. Strengthening data migration approaches - allowing clear definition of data end
state quality, alongside business and systems;
4. Adding an ‘information-first’ approach to sit alongside the business- and
systems-first approaches;
5. Recognizing and embedding the language of an organization into an
architecture, to allow data and IS designs that are more intuitive and usable,
plus improving data quality and data trust issues;
6. Molding the use of Information Domains and Information Interaction models
so they would be more useful to Information Managers and the governance of
information;
7. Assessing better the risks involved with using information and the traceability
between information risk assessment and information quality; and
8. Clarifying the use of the Logical Information Model and the important role
it plays in linking Information Security and Governance to Information Policy,
Information Standards and Logical Data Models.

All of this allows organizations to build comprehensive views of how they use their
information, where and why they use it – no matter how complex or the volume of
information they have.

Conclusion

IAF 5.1 is now the Architecture Framework for operating with the digital challenges
of the Information Age. This helps us connect digital initiatives with the emphasis
on Information Governance and Information Management that our clients need to
be successful.

With this development in IAF, we can help our clients to ensure that Information
Architecture is a major focus of any Enterprise Architecture or Solution
Architecture initiative.

We can deliver information architectures that the business own, that align with
governance and that provide traceability to good Information System / Technical
Infrastructure design.

IAF 5.1 is a tool that allows us to mine the underlying seam of value in digital
- INFORMATION

7
Capgemini Insights & Data
In a world of connected people and connected things, organizations need a
better view of what’s happening on the outside and a faster view of what’s
happening on the inside. Data must be the foundation of every decision, but
more data simply creates more questions. With over 11,000 professionals across
40 countries, Capgemini’s Insights & Data global practice can help you find
the answers, by combining technology excellence, data science and business
expertise. Together we leverage the new data landscape to create deep insights
where it matters most - at the point of action.

To find out more visit us online at www.capgemini.com/insights-data and

https://www.linkedin.com/company/bi-big-data-&-analytics or follow us
on Twitter @Capgemini

About
Capgemini
A global leader in consulting, technology services and digital transformation,
Capgemini is at the forefront of innovation to address the entire breadth of
clients’ opportunities in the evolving world of cloud, digital and platforms.
Building on its strong 50-year heritage and deep industry-specific expertise,
Capgemini enables organizations to realize their business ambitions through
an array of services from strategy to operations. Capgemini is driven by the
conviction that the business value of technology comes from and through
people. It is a multicultural company of 200,000 team members in over 40
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