The Future of

Enterprise Architecture
Rethink the way you do Enterprise Architecture,
as the world has evolved.

The Future of Enterprise Architecture | ValueBlue

 The world is changing. Consumer tastes change, technology
evolves, rules and regulations are put in place. There are many
outside factors that affect the way we do business. Enterprise
Architecture — the foundation for organizational planning and
structure — needs to be flexible and also evolve with these changes.

Throughout this eBook we will examine three trends that are

happening in the outside world, how those trends play a part in the
future of Enterprise Architecture (EA), and the main ways enterprise
architects can help organizations adapt to these changes and
future-proof their organization.

The Future of Enterprise Architecture | ValueBlue 1

 INDEX

Chapter 1.
External Factors:
The Rapid Change of
Companies and Markets 3

Chapter 2.
How These Trends Have
Shaped the New Role
of Enterprise Architecture 8

Chapter 3.
Leveraging EA to Be Less
Tactical and More Strategic
in your Future State Planning 14

20
Chapter 4.
Conclusion

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CHAPTER 1.

External Factors:
The Rapid Change of
Companies and Markets

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 As the external factors listed above shift the market, an organization must change
its strategy. Yet, it is essential that EA support organizational changes and help all
teams within the company work together toward their common business goals.

Companies That Don’t Adapt, Perish

While it is critical for companies to adapt in order to succeed, some might

take this a step further. Without rapid adaptation to current trends, companies face
extinction. New companies will always be created around the latest trends, or existing
companies will adopt them. Simply put, other companies are transforming, and if you
don’t, you will fall behind. EA sets the foundation for an organization to adapt to its
rapidly changing environment.

The future of EA determines a company’s success in achieving its organizational

goals. However, it is more valuable for Enterprise Architects to focus on “white space”
within the organization. That is to say, areas where leaders lack specific support and are
often overlooked or ill-equipped to respond to. These gaps allow EAs to surface these
emerging threats and opportunities to business leaders and recommend strategic
responses1. Together EAs and business leaders can accomplish things they could not
do alone.

Adapting the Right Way

However, it’s not just about adapting, but adapting in the right direction. One of
the most famous examples here, of course, is Kodak. Most people see Kodak as a story
of stubbornness, lack of adaptability, and ultimately a loss to new technology. However,
Kodak did evolve its business. By 2005, Kodak was ranked number one in digital
camera sales and had over 1,000 patents on digital imaging and printing. Yet, Kodak
still failed, eventually filing for bankruptcy in 2012.

1
Gartner: 3 EA Tactics for Responding to Digital Opportunities and Threats

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 According to the HBR, “Kodak was so focused on its own technology transition
that it missed the fact that the improvements in the very same components that gave
rise to digital printing would, with further progress, undermine its very basis.”2 While
they became a top player in digital printing and cameras the technology soon became
obsolete as camera phones overtook digital cameras. In other words, Kodak was so
focused on how the technology fit into its business plan that they never stepped back
to think where the technology could take them. Adapting is important, but only if
you’re adapting in the right direction. As the world changes, your strategy must change
as well.

Enterprise Architecture Moves into the Business

Technology is amassing across entire organizations. What used to be under the

umbrella of purely the IT department has sprawled out, particularly through the rise of
SaaS and low-code/no-code solutions. The result is that the average technology user
across the business is now making IT decisions.

An example of the explosion in tech stack complexity can be seen by looking

at marketing teams across every industry. The overall martech landscape has grown
by 24 percent since 2020.” And that growth has been across various areas such as
“content & experience (34%), commerce & sales (24%), and management (67%).”3 This
is an example of just one department within your organization -- and that growth is
not slowing down. These individual departments are now responsible for buying their
own technology, and often make ‘best of breed’ over ‘best of suite’ decisions which
rarely align with other departments. Purchase decisions often result in overlapping
functional needs and lack the architectural guidelines or guardrails needed to view
their technology stack as part of the overall enterprise landscape. Application sprawl
like this is one of many reasons this new way of working across businesses is placing
new demands on Enterprise Architecture teams and their ability to enable an evolving
business.

2
Harvard Business Review: Many Companies Don’t Know How to Compete in the Digital Age
3
MarTech Day 2022: Marketing Technology Landscape Sees Continued Growth

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 As a result, IT teams are less relied on to build custom solutions and rather
functional teams now do so for themselves. The bring your own technology approach
has expanded from hardware to software and brings with it consequences. IT must now
decentralize across the organization – but without a central hub or complete overview
of technology landscapes, visibility is lost, and decisions become much more scattered,
far less effective, and riskier.

Increase Visibility Through Collaborative Tooling

It’s clear that in today’s day and age, having your architecture team working in a
silo is no longer functional. An Enterprise Architect not only needs to understand key
organizational vision – but actively contribute to this with their own data-driven insights
and recommendations. In 2023, Enterprise Architecture simply needs to be more
collaborative than ever before. To achieve this goal, tools that facilitate architecture
collaboration across the entire organization are non-negotiable.

At its core, you can look at collaborative tooling as decentralizing and

democratizing architecture data throughout the organization. This is key as; enterprise
architecture is an ongoing and continuous effort that needs cooperation from the entire
organization. Executing together from a single source of truth promotes actual change
and safeguards the transition towards the most effective future state design.

The right Enterprise Architecture tools actively drive stakeholders throughout the
organization to contribute to architectural data for better decision making. Architecture
should support all stakeholders and enable of every strategic and tactical role in an
organization.

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Ever Increasing Legacy IT

As technology innovates, more systems that were once commonplace move

towards legacy, faster. The issue with legacy tech is a double-edged sword. Most
companies know these older systems are slower, not as functional, and increase risks or
disturbances in user experience. However, they are so entrenched in an organization’s
structure that sunsetting them will always have a significant impact on IT’s day-to-day
running activity – and specifically, an impact that is almost impossible to determine
upfront.

For example, many banking organizations notoriously still run on mainframes.

Yet, in a recent study by Accenture, 82% of surveyed companies planned on moving
more than half of their mainframe workload to the cloud.4 Disruptive Fintech players
ensure that the pressure is on for these financial institutions to move away from legacy
systems, but banks have difficulty making the final transition. In short – these banks
know they must adjust, plan to shift from mainframe systems, yet simply lack the ability
to tackle the operational complexity. And as we all know, the longer legacy tech stays
in place, the more difficult separation will be.

The challenge once again comes back to visibility – or lack of it. This type of
digital transformation initiative calls for visibility across the entire organization and a
highly accurate assessment of potential impact and risk. Collaborative tooling facilitates
agile collaboration across stakeholders and ensures that organizational data is available
and accurate.

4
Accenture: The great cloud migration: what banks need to know

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CHAPTER 2.

How These Trends Have

Shaped the New Role of
Enterprise Architecture

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 The need for overall adaptation, the fading line between IT and ‘the business’,
and the increase in legacy IT have all contributed to the remodeling of how Enterprise
Architect fits into the organization. EA now plays a larger role than ever before - as
organizations need to adapt more quickly. The main ways EA needs to evolve to keep
up with increasing needs is as follows:

1. EA needs to become an agile partner

2. EA needs to increase collaboration and democratize architecture for

non-architects

3. EA needs to move its focus from short-term optimizations to strategic

projects aligned with business objectives

4. EA needs to become smart i.e., enhanced decisioning-making via AI and

machine learning

Importance of Agile Maturity

Across the Organization
Since the global COVID-19 A McKinsey study found that over
pandemic, the importance of 70% of large-scale technology projects
organizational agility has only increased. run out of time or budget. Of that 70%,
While 2022 no longer sees many effects nearly 40% run over budget by 50% or
of the pandemic, it forced lightning speed more5! However, companies that adopt an
change from the world’s most successful agile mindset find they complete projects
companies – who have kept this agile on time and budget, a higher percentage
adaptable mindset moving forward. Many of the time.
that could not adapt fast enough did not
survive.

5
How to avoid large technology-program failures | McKinsey

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 One of the issues causing transformation initiatives to
go over time and budget is the depth of desired achieved
results vs. the ability to execute on then. According to our
recent Agile Business Transformation Benchmarking Report,
24.2% of CIO/CTOs surveyed see only one goal reached from
their transformation initiatives (and 25% see none!). However,
of the survey respondents who also denoted a higher agile
maturity, they initiatives results were much better. On
average, those with higher maturity see 4 goals of their
initiative projects reached.6

6
2022 Agile Business Transformation Benchmarking Report | ValueBlue

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 The stronger an organization’s ‘agile maturity’, the more effective business
transformation projects tend to be across the entire business. But enabling an entire
organization – with its multiple revenue streams, dozens of functions, and thousands of
employees to pivot quickly enough to not only survive, but thrive, during unexpected
market changes? Enterprise Architecture, nor IT, can do that alone. The entire
organization must be set up for adaptability – and that requires comprehensive data,
reliable predictions, accurate insights, and collaborative decision-making.

Democratizing EA Practices into

the Entire Business

In 2023, Enterprise Architects must continue to break away from their IT silo.
EA was never solely an IT function. An architect’s job has always been to support
the optimization of the business and operating model of the organization. However,
we often fell into the trap of viewing the entire business as a single block where all
stakeholders work and act similarly. This is a dangerous assumption.

While there will always be overlap in achieving business objectives, each

department, business unit, or line of business has differing needs, expectations,
and goals. Figuring out how to deliver value to each part of the business in a silo is
impossible. EA must understand these nuances and ensure they are supported in both
making, and executing, the right business decisions.

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 Three Types of
Decision Making
1. Ivory Tower: Centralized collection of information and
centralized distribution

2. Information Gathering: Decentralized collection of information

but centralized distribution

3. Self-service: Decentralized collection of information and

decentralized distribution and access

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Integrated Technologists Within
All Departments

A business technologist is an employee who is not part of the IT department

but creates technology capabilities for business use. Business technologists still do
technology-based work; however, they belong to a non-tech department, i.e., an
analytics architect in the marketing department.

There are business technologists throughout your organization. According to

Gartner research, 41% of employees can be described as business technologists.
This number varies significantly by industry. For example, it’s closer to 25% in less
technology-intensive sectors like governmental organizations, but for IT-intensive
sectors like energy, it’s closer to 50%.”7 The number of technology ambassadors has
only increased over the past few years, and that number will only keep rising.

Enterprise Architects provide governance but must remain flexible because

business technologists are now part of the decision-making process. Finding these
technologists and collaborating with them makes organizations 2.6x more likely to
achieve their transformation initiatives faster.

7
Gartner: The Rise of Business Technologists

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CHAPTER 3.

Leveraging EA to Be Less
Tactical and More Strategic
in your Future State
Planning

The Future of Enterprise Architecture | ValueBlue 14

 We previously discussed how adaptability determines the success of a company.
Now we’re going to connect that idea to Enterprise Architecture and look at how good
Enterprise Architecture lays the foundation for adaptability throughout an organization.

The ability to adapt comes from having a clear understanding of where you are,
where you want to go, and what is needed to get there. As an architect, the greater
handle you have on your current state the more effectively you can map the road to
your future state. These practices ensure a successful transformation initiative that can
coordinate multiple departments around the everchanging goals of an organization.

A few moving parts are needed to get the entire picture, and act upon it:

1. Accurate insights and data to base decisions off

2. Clear interpretation that anyone in the company can understand
3. Strategic plans - within architecture frameworks - that align with business
goals

Enterprise Architects need to move from making tactical, shot-term, optimizations

in lieu of strategic planning and facilitating the execution of an entire portfolio of
transformation projects. To do this, architects need to align projects, programs, and
planned change with business objectives. Where can you start with this? Start with an
Enhanced Business Model Canvas to capture objectives and value streams in one place.
Next, tie projects in the portfolio to objectives.

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 One Way to Make EA more
Strategic: The Enhanced BMC
The Enhanced Business Model Canvas takes the Business Model Canvas and the
Operating Model Canvas and fits them together to create a more holistic view of your
organization. A Business Model Canvas is a visualization of how a company intends
to turn a profit by identifying its customer base and how to deliver value to those
customers while monitoring incurring costs.

While an Operating Model Canvas helps translate strategy into choices about
operations and how to organize them. The combined model helps convert strategy into
operational choices and is a perfect blend of your front-end channels and the backend
operations needed to achieve delivery of your product and value proposition.

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 Why it Matters
To quote Gartner “Digital transformation impacts each component of your
business model. Transformation programs often fail because complexity makes
execution difficult. To succeed with transformation, executive leaders should leverage
approaches that are adaptable, cyclical, and resilient.”8 Yet, one key struggle Enterprise
Architects often run into is regularly reviewing the impact their execution has on other
business activities.

Enhanced Decision Making Supported by AI

and Machine Learning
For several years, big data, machine learning (ML), internet of things (IoT), and
the like have infiltrated every business. It’s safe to say machine learning isn’t going
anywhere and Enterprise Architects need to learn how to incorporate it into their
processes or risk falling behind.

A massive amount of data is produced each day, 1.45 trillion MB to be exact9.

And this number is only increasing at an exponential rate. The right data is a treasure
trove of information on how to optimize your operations and processes. As quoted
from McKinsey, “Building ML into processes, leading organizations are increasing
process efficiency by 30% or more while also increasing revenues by 5-10%.”10

8
Gartner: Executive Leadership: Enterprise Strategic Planning and Execution
9
TechJury: How Much Data is Created in 2023?
10
Mckinsey: Operationalizing Machine Learning in Processes
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 Volume of Data Created

Yet, getting the right data and applying it to the proper context and purpose
is key to seeing those stat line increases. There’s where machine learning comes in.
Machine learning improves the quality of your data over time by inputting solution sets
of data deemed correct by your organization. Your data will begin to be cleaner and
cleaner as time moves on and remove inconsistencies.

However, there is no single source of truth or solution to every problem. Where

ML comes into play is allowing you to see different solutions within different contexts.
While we still don’t know exactly how EA will be leveraging AI in ten years’ time,
we’re moving towards things like AI assistants. For example, in the future, expect
an Enterprise Architect to have an AI assistant that can automatically determine
the possible impact changes in strategy or direction could have on the rest of the
organization. In short, ML allows architects to identify risks, and present possible
solutions and areas of improvement in their IT landscape while simultaneously
supporting the entire organization with their decision-making.

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 Take that same AI assistant. It can be continuously interpreting and analyzing data
on objects relevant to change. This assistant provides an overview of the information
to the Enterprise Architect showing the impact these changes have on the different
architectures within the landscape. This type of information supports intuitive, data-
driven decision-making throughout the organization. These scenarios are the future of
EA, one driven by data and machine learning. Its role will become apparent whenever
there is a change within an organization’s landscape. As this new reality of AI, big
data, and low-code apps rises, the boundaries between technical roles and business
functions fade. This fading gap moves Enterprise Architecture into the entire business.

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CHAPTER 4.

Conclusion

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 We’ve looked at trends happening in the world today and how the role of EA
must expand to address those changes. Yet, any of those adaptations take time and
are difficult to implement on your own. The question becomes, what can you do now to
change your strategy and adapt to those changes?

Three Main Ways EAs Can Help

Organizations Achieve
Their Goals:
1. Communicate with business leaders - help analyze,
address threats and opportunities, and enable growth and
transformation

2. Create new ways of enhancing current business capabilities -

source new technologies and ideas most relevant to current
business needs

3. Prioritize the right digital investments - assess the impact,

current landscape, and execution of organizational goals to
offer the cost vs. benefits of transformation projects

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 At ValueBlue, we aim to bridge the gap between architecture practice and
business outcomes – helping organizations seize transformation opportunities and gain
competitive advantage. ValueBlue’s BlueDolphin platform enables cross-functional
teams to take a truly agile, collaborative, and data-driven approach to business
transformation.

By bringing architectural landscapes and organizational data together with

progressive solution design and portfolio management in one central platform, digital
transformation that delivers tangible business value can become a reality for your
organization.

Key Take Aways

1. Adapting to new technologies is important; however, it is more
important to adapt in ways that consider the future implications
of said technology - not just how it fits into your current business
model.

2. As EA moves into the business at large, it must support business

technologists and fusion teams – this can be achieved via
collaborative tooling.

3. EA must get better at converting strategy into operational

execution – tools like the Enhanced Business Model Canvas can
help with this

The Future of Enterprise Architecture | ValueBlue 22

To learn more about how ValueBlue
can help with your transformation,
get in touch for a tailored,
1:1 demo.

SIGN UP FOR YOUR DEMO

The Future of Enterprise Architecture | ValueBlue 23