Multidimensional value of enterprise architectures

The increasing complexity of organizations and the environment around them are increasingly demanding for a better and deeper knowledge about how to organize and use IT in order to fulfil the organizations mission, strategies and goals. In the past two decades, in order to obtain a description of the current IT and business state and/or to establish the desired future state, a significant number of organizations began to build Enterprise Architectures. Despite the efforts done, the resources spent and the benefits expected practitioners and researchers recognize that it is still difficult for organizations to assess and measure the Enterprise Architecture value, given the process complexity and the nature of some value factors. In this paper a multidimensional value approach is presented, that considers four value dimensions in Enterprise Architectures value analysis: strategic value, operational value, user value and economic/financial value. © 2010 IADIS.- (undefined

Governance Framework for Cloud Computing

In the current era of competitive business worldand stringent market share and revenue sustenance challenges,organizations tend to focus more on their core competencies ratherthan the functional areas that support the business. However,traditionally this has not been possible in the IT management areabecause the technologies and their underlying infrastructures aresignificantly complex thus requiring dedicated and sustained inhouse efforts to maintain IT systems that enable core businessactivities. Senior executives of organisations are forced in manycases to conclude that it is too cumbersome, expensive and timeconsuming for them to manage internal IT infrastructures. Thistakes the focus away from their core revenue making activities.This scenario facilitates the need for external infrastructurehosting, external service provision and outsourcing capability.This trend resulted in evolution of IT outsourcing models. Theauthors attempted to analyse the option of leveraging the cloudcomputing model to facilitate this common scenario. This paperinitially discusses the characteristics of cloud computing focusingon scalability and delivery as a service. The model is evaluatedusing two case scenarios, one is an enterprise client with30,000 worldwide customers followed by a small scale subjectmatter expertise through small to medium enterprise (SME)organisations. The paper evaluates the findings and developsa governance framework to articulate the value propositionof cloud computing.. The model takes into consideration thefinancial aspects, and the behaviors and IT control structures ofan IT organisation

Fatores determinantes do valor das arquiteturas empresariais

Tese de doutoramento do Programa Doutoral em Tecnologias e Sistemas de Informação.Nos últimos anos, as Arquiteturas Empresariais têm vindo a ser alvo de uma considerável atenção quer no meio académico, quer no meio empresarial em virtude do reconhecimento da sua utilidade e importância para as organizações. Fruto deste reconhecimento, diversas organizações têm vindo a desenvolver esforços significativos na implementação de projetos ou programas que visam a conceção, implementação e manutenção/evolução de Arquiteturas Empresariais. Todavia, apesar de ser amplamente referido que as Arquiteturas Empresariais proporcionam inúmeros benefícios às organizações, ainda subsiste a ideia de que os investimentos em projetos desta natureza apresentam um fraco retorno. Dado o atual contexto económico e a crescente necessidade de justificar os investimentos realizados, os responsáveis por projetos de Arquiteturas Empresariais têm vindo a ser cada vez mais pressionados para analisar e determinar o seu valor. A investigação desta problemática permitiu constatar que a análise e determinação do valor das Arquiteturas Empresariais ainda está numa fase embrionária e que ainda se apresenta muito difícil para as organizações, em virtude das diversas questões que condicionam o processo de análise e determinação do valor. Duas dessas questões são a dificuldade das organizações em identificar os fatores determinantes para o valor, já que é praticamente impossível e extremamente complexo avaliar todos os benefícios das Arquiteturas Empresariais, e as características em termos de tangibilidade e de horizonte temporal que diversos fatores apresentam, que dificultam não só a sua quantificação como a sua determinação no curto prazo. Perante estes problemas, procurou-se neste trabalho proceder à identificação, validação e caracterização dos fatores determinantes para o valor das Arquiteturas Empresariais. Para o efeito procedeu-se à realização de um estudo Delphi com três rondas, que contou a participação de vários peritos internacionais com antecedentes quer em Gestão quer nas Tecnologias e Sistemas de Informação e com uma vasta experiência profissional em cargos relacionados com as Arquiteturas Empresariais. No final do estudo Delphi foi obtida uma lista com um conjunto de fatores determinantes do valor das Arquiteturas Empresariais, para os quais foi estabelecido um ranking em função da sua importância para as organizações e ainda identificadas as suas características de tangibilidade e de horizonte temporal. Após a análise e interpretação dos resultados foi possível destacar e propor uma lista reduzida com os 15 fatores determinantes do valor, considerados como os mais importantes para as organizações. Para além disso, a caracterização destes fatores em termos de tangibilidade e horizonte temporal combinada com a identificação dos potenciais relacionamentos entre eles permitiu a proposta de um modelo que permite contextualizar e explicitar o que é mais importante na análise do valor das Arquiteturas Empresariais.Over the last years, Enterprise Architecture has gained considerable attention both from academia and industry due to the recognitiori of its usefulness and importance for organizations. As a result of this recognition several organizations have been making signiflcant investments to implement Enterprise Architecture projects ar programs. However, despite being widely reported that Enterprise Architecture can provide numerous benefits to organizations, there stili remains the idea that investments in projects of this nature have a iow return. Given the current economic pressures and the growing need to justify ali the investments, Enterprise Architecture managers and senhor managers have been increasingly pressured to quickly determine its value. Our research revealed that Enterprise Architecture value analysis is stili in its infancy and due to several issues that affect the vaiue assessment process it still is a very difficult task for organizations. Two of these issues are the organization's difficuity to identify the key value drivers orEhterprise Architecture, since it is virtuaily impossibie and extremely compiex to assess ali the benefits, and the intangibie nature e timeframe characteristics of severai value drivers which make difficult not oniy to quantify de value but also to assess it in short term a period The aim of this work was to identify, validate and characterize the key value drivers of Enterprise Architecture for organizations. To this end, we carry aut a Delphi study with three rounds, in which participated 63 internationai experts with either management ar IT background and with an extensive professionai experience in Enterprise Architecture related positions. At the end of the Delphi study we obtained a iist of 29 value drivers of Enterprise Architectures, for which a ranking of its importance for organizations was estabiíshed and aiso it was identified its tangibiiity and timeframe characteristics. After the analysis and interpretation ofthe resuits it was possibie to highiight and propose a short iist with 15 vaiue drivers considered as the most important to organizations. Furthermore, the characterization of these factors in terms of tangibiiity and timeframe combined with the identification of the potentiai reiationships between them, ailowed the proposai of a framework that contextuaiizes and makes expiicit what is importarit in the analysis of the Enterprise Architectures vaiue.Ao Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto (ISCAP), ao Instituto Politécnico do Porto (IPP) e à Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) pelo apoio concedido, nomeadamente através através da redução so serviço docente e do apoio financeiro através dos Programas de Formação Avançada (ISCAP/IPP) e PROTEC (FCT-PROTEC SFRH/BD/49266/2008)

Enterprise architecture value model

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is gaining acceptability as an approach for strategic alignment of business and IT. While it is widely accepted that EA is essential for optimizing the value of IT in organizations, most IT managers find it difficult to communicate the value of EA using terms meaningful to business decision makers. This paper presents a Value Model for expressing the business value contribution of EA function in organizations. The model aims to communicate the value of EA to stakeholders and senior management using a language that can be understood by business leaders. This simple, two dimensional model relates major Enterprise Architecture activities to key business objectives. High level business metrics are used as a basis of the evaluation of the maturity of Enterprise Architecture function