Why invest in Enterprise Architecture
“In business, you’re either growing or you’re decaying: there’s no middle ground. If you’re standing still you’re decaying.” Alan Arkin. The business world is deterministic – that is to say, every cause has an effect. It is also very complex. The combination of determinism and complexity is chaos and chaotic systems are not readily predictable. What we do know is that to thrive a business must address the perceived threats. We have Security people to address security threats by adjusting the Security Architecture – analogously we are adjusting for Privacy threats and generally we evolve by adjusting for different commercial threats. These include new laws and regulations, process and quality improvements by competitors and a whole myriad of other external changes that threaten our corporate well-being. Understanding how to accommodate responses to subtle threats within our complex corporate environment requires a dispassionate and holistic view which is not easy when it feels like fire-fighting. The role of the Enterprise Architect is to support continuity of business whilst analysing and understanding these threats, then design optimal system modifications to accommodate, reconcile or resist them. This webinar is designed as an overview to the thinking processes that can be used to rationalise the ‘non-security’ commercial threats with a view to understanding the particular skill-set of the Enterprise Architect.