“Why do we need Enterprise Architecture?” someone asked me.

My response was:

    How can you guarantee enterprise success when you only manage divisions in isolation?

    Who manages the enterprise as a whole?

What is the commonality among these organizations:

    o Bear Stearns

    o Lehman brothers

    o AIG

    o Citi Group

    o Fannie Mae

    o Freddie Mac and

    o GM

They obviously are all bust.

Most importantly, none of them had enterprise wide models (Enterprise Architecture) to aid them in change management and the impact of it on the business.

Let me explain.

When you are managing the finance department well and everyone is getting big bonuses it is good. How do you ensure that changes made in the marketing department has a positive effect on the finance division and vice-versa? You would not know and neither be able to understand the impact of a change unless you have an enterprise wide model. This model is simply a picture that demonstrates the inter-relation among “things” across the enterprise. These “things” are business entities, systems, people, data, processes, business cycles and goals. The current information age accelerate change at an ever-increasing impact on enterprises. Businesses of tomorrow will not survive without enterprise architecture today!