EAM - Enterprise Architecture Management
Stay on top of your IT landscape
Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) is an enterprise-wide discipline for continuously ensuring a secured IT architecture for an organization’s unique business purposes. Today’s IT departments are tasked with a wide range of responsibilities, from managing the application portfolio, monitoring technology risk, driving data flows and integrations, to cloud transformation. This can only be achieved by having full visibility of the IT landscape required by the business.
EAM stands for Enterprise Architecture Management and is an enterprise-wide discipline.
EAM creates the basis for an IT architecture that is aligned with business requirements and ensures their accordance at all times.
Enterprise Architecture Management also helps to reduce IT complexity, eliminate redundant systems, and deliver value such as cost savings and increased efficiency by making systems fit for business.
Benefits of Enterprise Architecture Management
As a first step, Enterprise Architecture Management creates a level of transparency in the IT portfolio that is usually unprecedented. This allows redundant systems with the same purpose to be identified and consolidated. The potential savings for annual licenses, services, and ongoing operations can quickly reach six to seven figures.
Consolidation also increases the utilization of existing systems and licenses. When more users take advantage of systems that have been implemented for individual business purposes, the immediate impact is gaining more efficient processes and better use of data.
EAM can also ensure that cloud license usage is transparent. For example, IT departments identify unused SaaS licenses (e.g. Office365, Salesforce, ServiceNow) and can save budget.
Every day, risks lurk in every IT portfolio due to outdated software and a lack of security precautions. Most companies already lack transparency as to which IT applications are business-critical, but without which ongoing operations can no longer be ensured. For example, can you name all your systems which are still not GDPR-compliant?
Enterprise Architecture Management provides help by keeping the lifecycles of all systems and IT components up to date on a semi-automated basis. Regular reports and security alerts help IT managers identify risks early and manage them proactively.
In IT budget discussions, the specific requirements of business units often play a secondary role. Oftentimes decision-makers lack basic information in order to identify areas where investment is urgently needed.
Enterprise Architecture Management enables companies to record all functions and departments and to record their requirements for IT in business area capabilities (so-called capability management). The use of suitable IT can then be determined and regularly re-evaluated from two perspectives: firstly, from the business unit’s point of view, in order to be able to perform relevant tasks and functions with IT support. Second, from an IT perspective, to answer questions such as IT security and architecture fit. Accelerate investment decisions with high-quality data from your enterprise architecture.
At the beginning of every digitization project, there is always the initialization phase. This includes the project goals, the project team, and the project environment. Often, companies lack the transparency needed to fully perform this task, which can be costly later in the project.
Ultimately, every digitization project is about data streams, IT systems, workflows and responsible persons with assigned access rights.
In the initialization phase of a project for e.g. the introduction of a new CRM system, these could be the following questions:
- What systems are already in place in the organisation that capture, manage or require customer data?
- Which internal teams have touchpoints with customer data and need to access the CRM system in the future?
- Which of our overseas subsidiaries are actually using which CRM system? Will they be replaced as part of the new rollout?
- What data protection requirements do our foreign subsidiaries have?
- Will our customer service team continue to work with the CRM system in the future, or will they continue to use a separate system? Will the two systems then be in communication with each other?
In order to answer these questions – if they are asked at all – project teams often have to invest a great deal of time and money in the search for answers. In the majority of cases, the project is already behind schedule at this very early stage. In addition, the questions are often not answered completely because nobody in the company can formulate the answers precisely and unambiguously due to the lack of an enterprise architecture strategy.
Enterprise Architecture Management provides the foundation for all of these issues. As an enterprise-wide discipline, EAM takes care of an architecture strategy to provide the basis for future architecture decisions. In addition, EAM creates the necessary transparency to be able to quickly identify relevant stakeholders, systems, workflows and interfaces for digital projects in the company.
However, the reality is often quite different: Systems are tracked in inadequate databases such as Excel, IT projects are managed decentrally and cause redundant implementations and unnecessary additional costs. Answering important business questions at the spot (e.g. Which apps are used globally? Who uses these apps? Which applications are already in the cloud?) is often simply not possible.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) is a strategic approach to designing and managing an organization's IT infrastructure. EAM includes tasks such as designing the enterprise architecture, monitoring technology standards, data management, the application landscape, and process optimization.
EAM offers a wide range of benefits. It supports the alignment of IT with corporate goals, improves the efficiency of processes and promotes the flexibility and agility of the company. By designing the IT landscape in a uniform and structured manner, companies can reduce IT complexity, minimize duplications in systems, and achieve cost savings and more efficient processes through suitable IT solutions.
EAM plays a crucial role in the digital transformation of a company. It creates a solid basis for the development and implementation of digital solutions and enables improved integration of new technologies. It helps companies adapt their systems and processes to digital requirements and drive innovation.
Implementing EAM involves developing an enterprise architecture, defining architecture principles, creating roadmaps, and continuously monitoring and adapting the architecture. It requires close collaboration between IT and business units and the use of appropriate EAM tools.
Responsibility for Enterprise Architecture Management often lies with specialized teams or departments that have in-depth knowledge of the corporate strategy, IT landscape and business processes. This team works closely with the various business units and the IT department to achieve the EAM goals.
Xtentio offers individual consulting and support for the introduction of EAM. Our analysis team conducts a detailed mapping of all business units, technologies, interfaces, data and user groups to create a transparent picture of the IT portfolio and business areas. Xtentio also offers an independent and neutral selection of the EAM system and accompanies the entire selection process from initialization to price and contract negotiation.
Our experienced EAM consultants and certified project managers are also available as enablers for your EAM implementation project during its introduction and sustainable use.