Chill out.. Relax..

While browsing the internet, I came across two articles on Linkedin that pertain to this week’s readings. I always love reading good opinion pieces as I’m just naturally curious bout what other people think and the different perspectives they have.

The first article, Halt the Hype! Say less, sell more written by Steve Leavitt, discussing how hype affects the IT industry. I don’t have any first hand experience with perpetuating the hype but I can see where he is coming from. The health and fitness industry definitely perpetuates the hype which makes it so difficult for the average person to know what’s right and what’s wrong. If I end up listening to all that hype, I will be eating 2 olives and a cracker everyday just to be healthy and fit. Steve offers technology companies some advice by advising that they copy the food or toothpaste industry’s methods in that instead of going for the extreme just do a little less. I can see how that relates to the digital disruption or digital transformation phase we are currently. Instead of new companies now claiming that with their service they can turn into Facebook, they should position their service to be more realistic. #haltthehype

The second article, The 10 Commandments of Digital Transformation written by Jaspreet Bindra, piggy backs off of a Gartner article and gives us the top ten commandments when embarking on a digital transformation journey. I won’t list all of the commandments here but the main one that jumped out to me was commandment 3: Think the Customer Journey. I can see how companies would get so excited about starting a digital transformation that they completely disregard the end user throughout the process change. Assumptions are made that no matter what they company changes that the end user will love it and will be onboard. Investing in a transformation that will also be beneficial for the customer is key.

Source:

Bindra, J. (2016, September 7). The 10 Commandments of Digital Transformation. Retrieved August 30, 2017, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/10-commandments-digital-transformation-jaspreet-bindra?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_search_srp_content%3By1QlKnWbRUmOIkXSYxOBrw%3D%3D&licu=urn%3Ali%3Acontrol%3Ad_flagship3_search_srp_content-object

Leavitt, S. (2017, August 28). Halt the Hype! Say less, sell more. Retrieved August 30, 2017, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/halt-hype-say-less-sell-more-steve-leavitt?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_search_srp_content%3By1QlKnWbRUmOIkXSYxOBrw%3D%3D&licu=urn%3Ali%3Acontrol%3Ad_flagship3_search_srp_content-object

Change is going to come…

Digital transformations are an important topic within businesses these days as it is a major component of keeping up with today’s competition. Often times, a business might use digital transformations within silos, fixing one issue but not really elevating the business as a whole. In one of this week’s articles, Finding your digital sweet spot, it spoke to how a digital transformation can drive value within business. “Technology drives value in businesses in four ways: enhanced connectivity, automation of manual tasks, improved decision making, and product or service innovation (exhibit)” (Olanrewaju & Willmott, 2013). If done well then digital can provide value across the whole organization.

I came across another article written by the CEO of Verndale, Why Digital Transformations Fail, which dives into the four main reasons why digital transformations fail. Simply put, the four main reasons are: Too little investment up-front, a lack of vision, inconsistent communication, and leadership skills gap. With many companies just trying to hop on the digital transformation band wagon and fast as they can, I can see why they would succumb to these failures. Digital transformation is a buzzword and many companies blindly start working on digital projects with no real vision or goal.

Olanrewaju and Willmott offer some key steps on how to successfully tackle a digital disruption and take on a digital transformation. The four steps include: estimate the value at stake, prioritize, take an end-to-end view, and aligning the business portfolio accordingly. Estimating the value at stake requires that companies have a clear vision as to how this digital disruption will benefit the business. Once the value add is clear than the company can put a larger investment in the areas that need a transformation. Estimating the value goes hand-in-hand with aligning the business portfolio accordingly, as developing a clear vision will lead way into determining which lines of business to invest or divest in. Prioritizing will provide focus in that decisions can be made on which transformation needs to happen first in order to deliver the greatest return on investment. Taking an end-to-end view will ensure that no steps are skipped in the process. Although digital transformations may happen rather quickly, they also need to be done correctly.

Source:

Olanrewaju, T., & Willmott, P. (2013, November). Finding your digital sweet spot. Retrieved August 29, 2017, from http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/finding-your-digital-sweet-spot

Pisapia, C. (2016, September 1). Why Digital Transformation Fails. Retrieved August 30, 2017, from http://www.verndale.com/insights/blog/2016/september/why-digital-transformation-fails/

 

Back at it again…

We are back at it again with another semester and I’m pretty excited.

Not only because it is one more semester closer to graduating but also because I am continuing to learn and expand on the knowledge I’ve already gained. EA 874 hones in  on how security and IT play a role in the implementation of Enterprise Architecture. Our first step on this knowledge train is learning about application architecture. Application architecture is essential to EA as it aligns with the idea that EA is meant to combine and configure the enterprise’s business, technology, and strategy objectives.

This week’s Gartner article, Defining the Discipline of Application Architecture, brought up a great point. Why should one care about application architecture? Why is it so important and what value does it bring? With technology playing such an important role in businesses of today, “application architecture benefits include, but are not limited to: better fulfillment of business needs, cost savings, easier system integration, faster application delivery, improved system performance, lower maintenance effort, and greater resilience and adaptability to change” (Blechar, Sholler, & Bradley, 2008). Seriously, who wouldn’t need that.

In another article from this week’s readings, Back to Basics – The Enterprise Architecture (EA) Stack Simplified, it highlights where application architecture fits in to the enterprise architecture stack. All layers of the stack can interact both horizontally and vertically in that they any one layer can produce services for the layer above and/or below it. The application architecture layer is fourth down and essentially facilitates the capabilities and services that need to be created to support the business processes needed.

From here, I can see how IT Architecture fits in and it was beneficial to start off gaining this context.

Source:

Back to Basics – The Enterprise Architecture (EA) Stack Simplified. (2014, January 20). Retrieved August 28, 2017, from https://dalbanger.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/back-to-basics-the-enterprise-architecture-ea-simplified/

Blechar, M., Sholler, D., & Bradley, A. J. (2008, June 12). Defining the Discipline of Application Architecture. Retrieved August 27, 2017, from https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/33170273/874/Docs/defining_the_discipline_of_a_155773.pdf