Why a suitable Enterprise Architecture is crucial to maximizing value from investment in ICT

For most organisations, investment in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), whether the initial procurement of infrastructure or on-going maintenance and support, represents a significant slice of total available resources. However, the extent to which such expenditure is capable of delivering the value that justifies it and thus provides the anticipated return on investment depends a great deal on how it is deployed.
How each ICT component relates to the business structure, how data is organised and managed, and how different applications reflect activities and interact with each other – all of these must clearly support the short-term operational requirements of the organisation, as well as the longer-term strategic aspirations. These aspects are best collectively captured and defined in an Enterprise Architecture. Without this it is difficult for an organisation to know what is happening where, and ICT departments will be working in the dark, providing systems that are not fully compatible (and therefore incurring expensive, complex and time-consuming workarounds), or that fail to maximise the potential for using similar technology throughout the enterprise and gain economies of scale in both cost and skills.
Scope
PSM’s Enterprise Architecture service seeks to optimise the ICT supporting an organisation, ensuring its fit with the organisation’s strategy and goals, and defining how the optimum support can be provided at four levels:

• Business – defining ICT/business strategy, governance, organisation, and key processes
• Application – application systems, interactions between such systems, their relationships to business processes
• Data  – the structure of logical and physical data assets and data management resources
• Technology  – hardware, software and network infrastructure to support the above

We have been successfully designing and delivering complex enterprise ICT architectures for large and small clients for many years. Our work in this area is substantially based on The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) enabling the design and delivery of pragmatic and vendor neutral solutions.
TOGAF is an iterative approach, as illustrated in the diagram, working from the development of an architecture vision, through the development of architecture elements at business, information system (application and data) and technology levels (all of which can iterate to influence the overall vision) and on through planning and delivery elements, all of which can and do iterate to earlier steps. The outcome is a robust enterprise architecture that delivers support to the organisation’s key goals and strategies.

Competences

PSM has a strong TOGAF capability with 8 consultants who are TOGAF certified practitioners, one of the largest numbers amongst our peers. They are experts in balancing the needs and requirements of the business with the need to produce cohesive technical solutions that are easy to maintain, responsive to change, secure and efficient. Our consultants draw upon an average of 20 years ICT experience in senior management roles, which has given them not just first-class technical expertise, but also the skills to work in often politically charged situations with all levels of stakeholder from the board to the operative. They deliver practical, independent and objective recommendations that make a genuine demonstrable difference to operations and ultimately to the bottom line.

"We found your ICT consultants were easy to work with, effective at understanding our requirements and delivering on time and to budget."
David Carey, UK Software Procurement Manager, Becta