Enterprise architects: 'turn your company upside down'

Summary: ‘It’s no longer enough for EAs to put a shared infrastructure in place and stand back and declare the business to be enabled.’

Some of the best service orientation case studies have been built on changes to the way enterprises view their business: transitioning from cultures centered around products to cultures focused on customers.

Jeanne Ross, director and principal research scientist at the MIT Center for Information Systems Research, recently spoke with SearchSOA’s Jack Vaughn about the impact that enterprise architects can make on corporate culture:

“A large insurance company such as Aetna, for example, may have built up thousands of products and all of their systems were organized around insurance products. And what they realized is that was not how they were going to ever satisfy their customers. They wanted to know their customers and the customers’ products, not the Aetna [view of] products and all the customers that bought it. If you want a single face to the customer you think of the customer as the center of universe, not the product.

Now, that’s a huge transition - to say, ‘I’m going to fix that. I’m going to change my capabilities so instead of knowing products I’m going to know customers.’ You basically turn your company upside down.”

Ross says it it’s no longer enough for EAs to put a shared infrastructure in place and stand back and declare the business to be “enabled.” EAs need to follow through on the process, she advocates. “People are too busy. They don’t take it on. Architects are going to have to take on greater responsibility and/or concern for the exploitation of capabilities.” That means a lot of follow-up with end users as they roll out new capabilities.

Many companies have built up rigid silos and structures built around products. The move to service orientation shouldn’t be limited to exchanging services between siloed systems, it means becoming service oriented toward the customer.

Joe McKendrick is an author, consultant and speaker specializing in trends and developments shaping the technology industry.

Disclosure Joe McKendrick

Joe McKendrick is an independent consultant, editor and speaker.

Joe has performed project work (white papers, articles, blogs, research and presentations) for the following companies in the IT marketspace:

CBS Interactive/CNET/ZDNet (this blog) ebizQ Evans Data Gartner IBM Informatica IDC Microsoft Systinet/HP Teradata Unisphere Reseach, a division of Information Today, Inc. WebLayers

Joe has also performed research work for the following sponsoring organizations in partnership with Unisphere Research, a division of Information Today, Inc.

IBM Luminex Noetix Oracle Corp. Teradata Informatica International Oracle Users Group Oracle Applications Users Group Professional Association for SQL Server International DB2 Users Group International Sybase Users Group SHARE (IBM large systems users group) Biography Joe McKendrick

Joe McKendrick is an author and independent analyst who tracks the impact of information technology on management and markets. Joe is co-author, along with 16 leading industry leaders and thinkers, of the SOA Manifesto, which outlines the values and guiding principles of service orientation. He also speaks frequently on Enterprise 2.0 and SOA topics at industry events and Webcasts. As an independent analyst, he has also authored numerous research reports in partnership with Unisphere Research, a division of Information Today, Inc. for user groups such as SHARE, Oracle Applications Users Group, and International DB2 Users Group. Joe is also an active SOA contributor for ebizQ/TechTarget. In a previous life, Joe served as director of the Administrative Management Society (AMS), an international professional association dedicated to advancing knowledge within the IT and business management fields. He is a graduate of Temple University.

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Enterprise architects: 'turn your company upside down'