Enterprise Architecture: SteelCo Case Study

Report: Part-I (Case Study)

Write a report on how should SteelCo structure its architecture function in terms of necessary architecture positions?

Answer: SteelCo is a well-run organization operated by structured and planned management. Still, a better architecture function is something that an organization can opt for, in order to increase overall efficiency and productivity. Enterprise Architecture of any organization looks into the overall structure of a business. It frames the business map that includes all sorts of relevant supporting systems and information technologies (Hazen et al., 2017).

SteelCo runs effectively, where two of its divisions run independently based on their respective functioning goals. Various organizational problems can occur from the source which needs to be resolved in a step-by-step procedure. The architecture function in the organization should be positioned accordingly. First, the application requirements need to be sorted out based on organizational shortcomings. Next, the function model for each of the application areas should be framed, followed by the main architecture model. The architecture model will feature the overall structural changes in terms of business strategy, information systems, and financial structure. The penultimate step would be creating a well-functioning RTL model for the same. A Register Transfer Level model is made to structure the digital flow between the hardware registers and the logical operators. A properly maintained, as well as the structured digital flow, is very much essential in terms of organizational system and framework. These planned EA strategies would definitely improve the workflow of SteelCo and optimize their production process. Once all the architectural positions are set, implementation of the same remains the final step to be performed (Kotusev, 2018).

How many architects does the company need for each of these positions? Provide a detailed explanation.

Answer: The architecture model will feature the overall structural changes in terms of business strategy, information systems, and financial structure. There are multiple positions to be involved when the structural changes will be made in the organization. The application requirements need to be sorted out based on organizational shortcomings. Thus, two simultaneous survey teams consisting minimum of 10 members each, are needed for examining the shortcomings of SteelCo’s two divisions. The Alpha division requires a closed survey in a particular area, whereas, the Beta division needs a broader examination, covering multiple aspects. The team in the Beta division can be broadened as per further requirements (Kitsios & Kamariotou, 2019). A Register Transfer Level model is made to structure the digital flow between the hardware registers and the logical operators. A properly maintained, as well as the structured digital flow, is very much essential in terms of organizational system and framework. These planned EA strategies would definitely improve the workflow of SteelCo and optimize their production process. Thus, the number of architects is segregated accordingly based on departmental requirements (Dang & Pekkola, 2017).

For development and improvisation in terms of the organization’s business strategy, a team of 5-10 expert architects, strategists, and business development managers are required. They will be responsible to structure the required changes in terms of modifying an established system. The involved members must be experts in their domains and should have core knowledge of the organization’s production as well as other operational systems. Business developments and strategic improvisations are considered to be two of the most important aspects in terms of boosting an enterprise’s efficiency and modifying an organizational structure. Thus, the core team should be well-fit for the same.

A minimum of 15 professional programmers and technological experts in total are required for developing as well as improvising the RTL structure of the organization. A well-structured digital flow is necessary for an organization’s stable production line. Finally, for implementation of the complete plan, a minimum of 5 teams consisting of managers, team leaders, analysts, and other ground-level workers are required. A total of 70-80 architects are required for completing the entire project.

Report: Part-II (Determining the Operating Model of a Multi-Profile Company)

What are the operating model of MultiCorp and each of its three strategic business units?

Answer: MultiCorp is a multi-profile company with diversified strategies. Three different segments run under the parent organization having different strategic units of each of them. Diversification is the operating model of MultiCorp. It requires low standardization as well as low implementation. Each of the 3 child segments of MultiCorp namely Alpha, Beta, and Gamma divisions have their own managers and operational staffs. The parent organization does not intervene in their individual systems and thus, does not require high standardizations.

Each of the three strategic business units runs on the operational model of unification. As the genre of each of these segments are specific as well as unique, operational methods of the same require high implementation and high standardization (Anthony, 2020)

. The Alpha division is focused on food management, the beta division is focused on restaurant management, and the gamma division deals with hotel management. Each of the three strategic units has its own priorities and specifications and thus, they follow the unification model of operation.

What business processes are standardized company-wide and within each of its business units?

Answer: Managing, Operating, and Supporting is the business processes that are standardized company-wide. Each of the business units namely, the alpha, beta, and gamma division follow all these specific processes according to their needs (Korhonen et al., 2016). The Alpha segment of the company would involve operating as well as managing processes as they deal with food and other accessories related to it. The supporting process is necessary but at a lower degree in this particular segment (Korhonen & Halen, 2017).

The beta segment of the company deals with the restaurant’s needs, thus, all the three business strategies namely Managing, Operating, and Supporting are required to be standardized in this particular area of business. The gamma segment too deals with all the three business processes and thus the strategy, as well as the objectives of the same, remain similar to that of the beta division (Kotusev, 2019).

As the three segments operate independently based on their specific objectives, a common standardization against all three of them won’t work. Thus, the parent company MultiCorp runs with a business strategy concerned specifically about Managing the complete system as a whole and provide the individual entities with necessary supports. It does not look into the operational procedures of the individual entities namely, the alpha, beta, and gamma division.

What specific types of data are integrated across the whole company and each of its business units?

Answer: There are three different business units of the organization and each of the segments is integrated with their unique as well as different types of data. In the Alpha division, various statistics-based data and information are required since there are fewer scopes for logic-based programming in this particular area. The degree of Alpha division in the company’s overall IT landscape is thus pretty low and the degree of data integration in this particular segment is minimal as well. The beta division looks after restaurants that require a good amount of IT assets in their operations. Since running a restaurant requires hundreds of gigabytes of data featuring customer’s information, customer’s feedback, and chat supports, data integration is highly required based on statistics as well as high memory storage (Gong & Janssen, 2019.

The beta division stands pretty high in the organization’s IT Landscape and mostly, the customer-based data like bills, offers, coupons, payment records, and others are needed for integration. The gamma division of the company deals with hotels, resorts, and lodging. Thus, this division features high in the company’s IT landscape as the IT support in this division keeps the record of customer’s information, customer’s feedbacks, chat supports, and others. As a result, this particular segment needs data integration based on customer records as well as records of the various lodging and hospitality assets (Lnenicka & Komarkova, 2019).

The parent company’s management requires a thorough checkup and analysis of all the three divisions as a whole and thus, the data integration in terms of summarization of all the three divisions is required.

What is the highest-level structure of the IT landscape in the company and in each of its business units?

Answer: IT Landscape denotes a framework featuring all sorts of IT-related assets within an organization. It is generally viewed in the form of a diagram that gives an overview of the company’s actual figure of the total number of assets and their types. An IT Landscape is different from IT Architecture as the latter is framed with various principles, norms, rules, regulations, and legal aspects of a company.

The company is basically in three different segments. In the Alpha division, the number of IT assets is minimal considering the type of work it deals with. Nothing more than a few statistics-based data and information is required in this segment hence the degree of Alpha division in the company’s overall IT landscape is pretty low. The beta division looks after restaurants that require a good amount of IT assets in their operations. Since running a restaurant requires hundreds of gigabytes of data featuring customer’s information, customer’s feedback, and chat supports. Thus, the beta division stands pretty high in the organization’s IT Landscape (Rahimi, Gøtze & Møller, 2017).

The gamma division of the company deals with hotels, resorts, and lodging. Thus, this division features high in the company’s IT landscape as the IT support in this division keeps the record of customer’s information, customer’s feedbacks, chat supports, and others. Thus, the IT landscape of this particular enterprise is very much dependent on the beta and gamma units of the company MultiCorp. An IT Landscape denotes a framework featuring all sorts of IT-related assets within an organization. It is generally viewed in the form of a diagram that gives an overview of the company’s actual figure of the total number of assets and their types (Hendy et al., 2020). The total number of IT assets present in each department and division of the organization determines the overall degree of IT-reliability of that specific organization.

Report: Part-III

What is wrong with the installed EA tool?

Answer: According to the Chief Information Officer of FinCorp, the newly installed EA tool is nothing but a sophisticated repository of the present state information. The CIO thinks that investing in the same is nothing more than wasting money as it does not add any value to the organization’s productivity. Also, it’s a fact that not more than 4-5 employees in the total organization use this specific EA tool, that too only the architects which do not add any value in terms of collective decision making of the company as a whole. The company’s stakeholders are not benefitted from the tool as well and it does not contribute anything in terms of the enterprise’s original objectives. Thus, even though most of the employees, significantly the architects are pleased with the implemented EA tool, the CIO finds it to be useless. To him, it is nothing but a waste of resources as well as money. The discussed points above, are the main reasons behind the issue with the implemented EA.

How can the tool be used to facilitate business and IT alignment? What should be done to maximize the value of the tool for the company?

Answer: As per the present scenario and according to the Chief Information Officer of FinCorp, it is clear that the newly implemented tool does nothing but waste valuable capital of the organization. Neither it adds any value to organizational productivity. Thus, the architect must find a generalized way to make the tool beneficial as well as usable for most of the employees, aiming towards organizational productivity. The architects can find different ways to make the best use of the available tool to find the desired output. It should be done in such a way that it abides by the organizational policies as well as its core values.

The value of the tool can be maximized by linking up supplementary software tools and add-ons to the existing EA tool. This will in turn increase the productivity and efficiency of the organization as a whole as the internal employees will be well adjusted to the inbuilt system. The architect must find a generalized way to make the tool beneficial as well as usable for most of the employees, aiming towards organizational productivity.

The core concepts of data and information architecture and how the newly implemented EA is the best option for FinCorp.

Answer: Users, content, and context are three of the main concepts of data and information architecture. The EA tool that gets implemented in an organizational structure must go synchronized with the organization’s core values, vision, and objectives. The concept of appropriate users defines the category and segment of the organization that will take care of the EA tool basics. The context would feature various organizational policies, cultures, traditions, politics, and other goals and resources. Content will feature all possible user data, information, videos, and other productive resources. These are the core concepts of data and information architecture, needed for FinCorp (Gampfer, et al., 2018).

The value of the tool can be maximized by linking up supplementary software tools and add-ons to the existing EA tool. This will in turn increase the productivity and efficiency of the organization as a whole as the internal employees will be well adjusted to the inbuilt system. The architect must find a generalized way to make the tool beneficial as well as usable for most of the employees, aiming towards organizational productivity (van de Wetering, 2019).

In your report discuss the role of audit and compliance standards in EA and how the newly implemented software tool would facilitate informed decision-making among business stakeholders in FinCorp.

Answer: The newly implemented software will improve the roles of the business stakeholders as a whole. Compliance audit determines the degree of adjustments to rules and regulations by the company. It determines how well the employees, as well as management of the company, abide by the standards, internal laws, codes of conduct, and other legal systems. The audit also determines the effectiveness of a company’s management as well as its core control. The types of audits vary according to the departments and the specific objectives of the same. The newly implemented software will take care of the compliance audit system of FinCorp as well. The stakeholders would be benefitted as well as they would get equal importance as that of the investors and employees of the organization. Once these stakeholders get enough privilege to use the EA tool, they will effectively be able to take part in decision making in the organization.

Discuss how the newly installed tool would contribute to achieving the original objectives of the EA initiative to improve business and IT alignment.

Answer: The newly installed tool will increase the productivity and efficiency of the organization as a whole as the core employees will be well adjusted to the inbuilt system. The architect must find a generalized way to make the tool beneficial as well as usable for most of the employees, aiming towards organizational productivity. If the newly adjusted tool gets implemented in an organizational structure, it will go synchronized with the organization’s core values, vision, and objectives. The concept of appropriate users defines the category and segment of the organization that will take care of the EA tool basics. The context would feature various organizational policies, cultures, traditions, politics, and other goals and resources. Content will feature all possible user data, information, videos, and other productive resources (Shanks et al., 2018). These are the core concepts of data and information architecture, needed for FinCorp and with the added-on software, it would be easy for the employees to work better with the improvised tool.