Strategies to overcome challenges when implementing an Enterprise Engineering Innovation Life-cycle

The delivery of innovative IT solutions that support business strategy is an increasing, growing competitive aspect of organisations in the financial sector. Previous research has shown the need to follow an innovative or a more agile and flexible methodology when delivering IT solutions to save cost and enable the solutions to reach the consumer market as soon as possible. To apply agile/innovative methodologies across large organisations requires more alternative approaches than to implement them in small enterprises. The organisation used in the case study, implemented an enterprise engineering innovative lifecycle (EEILC). Limited research has been done concerning the challenges and strategies during implementation of an EEILC. The purpose of this study was to investigate the strategies to overcome the challenges when implementing an EEILC. The research was inductive qualitative following an in-depth case study approach. The researcher conducted a case study using documentation analysis, informal interviews, in-depth interviews and observations with multiple stakeholders who are experts in their fields of software design and development. An inductive grounded theory approach was followed using a case study within an organisation in the financial sector in South Africa. Results show there are seven core category challenges when implementing an innovation life cycle. Each of these core challenges has a core enterprise strategy to address the challenges occurring in the applicable domain. The core challenges are: (1) innovation process challenges (addressed by an agile product delivery innovation strategy) (2) invention challenges (addressed by an idea management strategy) (3) business model challenges (addressed by a client’s value proposition strategy), (4) commercialization challenges, which include implementation and operations challenges, (addressed by a product portfolio management strategy), (5) culture challenges (addressed by an innovation culture strategy) and (6) knowledge management challenges and strategy, and (7) innovation management related challenges and strategy An innovation management strategy will manage all these challenges. Most prominent is the innovation management strategy which has links to all other categories in other domains. The relationship between enterprise client value proposition strategy show that enterprise client value proposition serves as a coherent link between how the innovation life cycle is adopted or changed to address the enterprise client value chain. This is driven by demand management to align between business and IT regarding the business model and application portfolio alignment. Thereafter, the alignment between the demand for enterprise application capabilities and the business service portfolio is shown. This is supported by service-oriented architecture (SOA) services. The resource management has to make sure the right resources, competencies and skills are available to deliver the product portfolio. During innovation and life-cycle's execution, there is a lot of interaction between individuals and teams. Therefore, communication and culture play a vital role to create synergies by collaboration of work practice and living the values of the organization. Through grounded theory analysis, a practical theory was developed, to show how challenges that occur during implementation of an innovation life-cycle, based upon enterprise engineering principles, can be addressed by best by putting the right strategies in place. This theory contributes to the body of knowledge by providing data and analysis from practical insight into how an innovation life cycle can be implemented. The challenges thereof and the mitigating strategies make it work. This study also suggested the key re best practices for enterprise architecture driving such an implementation. The research is an area of interest for development or customizing an Innovation Life-cycle using an Enterprise Engineering Framework

An enterprise engineering approach for the alignment of business and information technology strategy

Information systems and information technology (IS/IT, hereafter just IT) strategies usually depend on a business strategy. The alignment of both strategies improves their strategic plans. From an external perspective, business and IT alignment is the extent to which the IT strategy enables and drives the business strategy. This article reviews strategic alignment between business and IT, and proposes the use of enterprise engineering (EE) to achieve this alignment. The EE approach facilitates the definition of a formal dialog in the alignment design. In relation to this, new building blocks and life-cycle phases have been defined for their use in an enterprise architecture context. This proposal has been adopted in a critical process of a ceramic tile company for the purpose of aligning a strategic business plan and IT strategy, which are essential to support this process. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.Cuenca, L.; Boza, A.; Ortiz, A. (2011). 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Enterprise architecture in practice : from IT concept towards enterprise architecture leadership

Informaatioteknologia (Information Technology, IT) on kaikkialla ja liiketoimintakriittisesti välttämätön osa yritysten nykytoimintaa, viestintää ja tulevaisuuden strategioita (Nolan 2012). Informaatiota tarvitaan ihmisten ja organisaatioiden hyvinvointiin, kasvuun ja selviytymiseen. IT muuttaa liiketoimintaa, työtä ja työnjakoa nopeammin ja laajemmin kuin mikään aikaisempi tekninen keksintö. Teknologiaa käytetään informaation hankkimiseen, hallintaan ja jakamiseen. Teknologioiden, tietojärjestelmien (Information Systems, IS) ja informaation hallinta vaativat uutta ajattelua, konsepteja ja välineitä työn organisointiin (Orlikowski 2007). Tämä opinnäytetyö tutkii kokonaisarkkitehtuurin (Enterprise Architecture, EA) mahdollisuuksia hallita teknologioita ja digitalisaatiota osana nykyaikaista liiketoimintaa. EA-käsitteellä ei ole vakiintunutta määritelmää. Burgess, Ramakrishnan, Salmans ja Kappelman (2010, 252) raportoi 10 erilaista tapaa määritellä EA-käsite, joista korkeimman abstraktiotason määritelmä on “kaikki tietämys yrityksestä”. EA-käsitteen moniselitteisyys johtuu osittain informaatioteknologian nopeasta kehityksestä ja hyvin teknisestä näkökulmasta. Viimeisen 20 vuoden aikana kokonaisarkkitehtuurin hallinnan (EA management; EAM) idea on kasvanut tietotekniikasta ja IT-arkkitehtuureista kohti hallinnollista innovaatiota, jolla ohjataan organisaation rahan käyttöä (Luftman & Ben-Zvi 2011, 206), tietojärjestelmien kehitystä (Makiya 2012, 6) ja strategian toteutusta (Simon, Fischbach & Schoder 2014). EAM on uusi käsite, joka lupaa moninaisia hyötyjä, mutta sisältää samalla ristiriitaisia odotuksia ja monimutkaisia systeemisiä ja sosiaalisia haasteita mahdollisten hyötyjen realisoimiseksi. Tämä työ tarkastelee kokonaisarkkitehtuuria IT-käsitteenä ja monimutkaisena sosioteknisenä ilmiönä. Etenemme EA:n tietoteknisistä juurista, arkkitehtuureista, liiketoiminnan ja tietotekniikan samansuuntaisuuden (alignment) kautta kokonaisarkkitehtuurin hallintaan. Kokonaisarkkitehtuurin hallinnasta jatkamme toiminnan teorian (Vygotsky 1978, Leontiev 1978, 1981; Engeström 1987), toimijaverkostoteorian (Actor-Network Theory, ANT: Latour 1999a; Monteiro 2000), strukturaatioteorian (Giddens 1984) ja sosiomateriaalisuuden (Orlikowski 2007) avulla kohti kokonaisarkkitehtuurin johtamista (EA leadership). Teoriaosuudessa esittelemme kolme viitekehystä ja näkökulman analysoida organisaation tietotekniikan, kokonaisarkkitehtuurin ja tietämyksen hallinnan sosiomaterialistista kokonaisuutta. Opinnäytetyön kokeellinen osuus on tapaustutkimus kohdeyrityksemme kokonaisarkkitehtuurin kehittymisestä. Teoriaosuuden viitekehyksiä testataan analysoimalla kohdeyrityksen kokonaisarkkitehtuurin kehityksestä tehtyjä etnografisia havaintoja vuosilta 1996-2011. Seitsemän lyhyttä kuvausta (vignettes) kertovat kohdeyrityksen kokonaisarkkitehtuurin kehitystarinoita, joita arvioidaan IT, EA, EAM ja tietämyksen hallinnan näkökulmista. Tämä työ osoittaa kokonaisarkkitehtuurin hallinnan mahdollisuuksia parantaa informaatiotekniikan tuottavuutta integroimalla liiketoiminnan, prosessien ja tietojärjestelmien/tekniikan kehittämistä. Kokonaisarkkitehtuurin hallinta vaatii lisää systeemistä ymmärrystä miten sosiomateriaalisia rakenteita ja käytäntöjä tulisi (uudelleen)määrittää ja sovittaa yrityksen tietämyksen ja muutoksen hallinnan tehostamiseksi. Tutkimuksessa esitettyjä viitekehyksiä voidaan jatkossa käyttää pyrittäessä kohti reflektoivia kokonaisarkkitehtuurin hallinnan ja johtamisen käytäntöjä

Innovation-Driven Enterprise Architecture

Organizations don't use Enterprise Architecture (EA) to leverage innovation as much as they should. And this while the organization's ability to innovate is an essential capability in a competitive market. IT can enable business innovation and EA is rooted in IT. Therefore, IT is considered the common denominator between EA and business innovation. This exploratory research provides new insight to bridge a knowledge gap on how EA can enhance an organization‘s ability in IT-enabled business innovation. It reveals that organizational learning is critical to the innovative capabilities of organizations. With this in mind, the most important capability domains have been determined: Knowledge, Collaboration & communication, Information processing & coordination, and Ideation. To facilitate these capabilities, several technological and organizational assets are identified: Key stakeholders, Collaborative organizational culture, Web technologies, Knowledge management systems, and Data Analytics. We developed a conceptual model which positions the capability domains and key assets. This model has been validated through a case study, conducted within a global manufacturing company. Conclusion is that EA is a viable approach to systematically address and facilitate IT-enabled business innovation. By focusing on the capabilities and facilitating these through organizational and technical assets, organizations can enhance their ability in IT-enabled business innovation