Making informed, data-driven decisions at pace with Enterprise Architecture

Making informed, data-driven decisions at pace with Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is one of the most effective tools companies can use to truly understand and oversee their enterprise’s infrastructure, according to Michael D’Onofrio, CEO, Orbus Software. We hear how enterprises can use Enterprise Architecture to gain a better understanding of their organisation and infrastructure.

Long gone are the days of gut feelings and hunches driving business decisions. Today, all major organisations are incorporating data analysis to drive decision-making. For this to be successful, CIOs need complete visibility over an enterprise, as well as the potential impacts and risks of their decisions. This is often easier said than done. In fact, 72% of companies have had at least one strategic initiative failure because of delays in decision-making, demonstrating how the decision-making process is now considered a top obstacle today to business success.

Good data analysis depends on having fast and accurate data. Without this, guesswork or delays will damage a CIO’s ability to enable informed decisions. To deliver the right information, enterprises need a better understanding of their organisation and infrastructure – and this can be achieved with the help of Enterprise Architecture (EA). Enterprise Architecture is the process by which companies organise IT infrastructure to align with business goals. These strategies support Digital Transformation, IT growth and the modernisation of IT as a department – necessary attributes when making accurate decisions at pace. 

The challenges CIOs face today

As Digital Transformation and innovation accelerates, the world is becoming more complex for businesses, both in the physical and digital world. Therefore business leaders are faced with more elaborate systems, and as a result, more complicated decisions. In fact, 65% of 200 decision-makers surveyed by McKinsey said business decision-making processes have become increasingly more complex in recent years. No doubt, this makes it harder for business leaders to make decisions and keep pace with their competitors. 

With competition fiercer than ever, firms need to be agile. And, as demonstrated by the pandemic, unexpected events are inevitable. Even though businesses have learnt to rely on data-driven systems to help them make tough decisions, disruption is always on the horizon. This has been even more relevant in recent times. In a poll of 200 business leaders in 2020, 60% said that since the pandemic began, they were forced to make faster decisions — and bigger ones too. Not only that, but Unicorn startups can emerge almost overnight to take over entire markets.

What this means is that CIOs have reached a critical point. Across business operations and different geographies, as well as across digital and physical barriers too, leaders are faced with more decisions, more moving parts and more repercussions. While many companies have turned to objective, data-driven decision systems to try and maintain their positions, many problems still remain.

The data problem

Poor data quality is a frequent problem for a lot of decision-makers, including not being able to find or access the required data, nor being able to flag its relevance. Enterprise data may even become isolated and inaccessible from the system – this is referred to as a data silo. Since a modern enterprise has several hundred assets and applications, and many different products, locations and operations – data silos are more common than not. 

Even a small decision can potentially have a domino effect on all different parts of the company, especially in fields where different operations are all connected, such as in IT transformation. Not being able to foresee the relationships between the entire company landscape raises the chances of decisions having an unfortunate impact on different parts of the system – and this is why enterprises need to make a step-change in their decision-making process. 

Even if an organisation has no data silos, how can they trust that all their information is accurate or fully up to date? There is always the problem of human error. Even though human judgement is important for decision-making, it’s not always best to rely on it completely. Of course, some human insight is still beneficial and can complement a data-driven platform’s decision-making capabilities by helping to picture the collected data, for example. But overall, digital platforms dramatically increase the accuracy of the decision-making processes. This is where data-driven systems such as Enterprise Architecture come in handy, to overcome the challenges that may occur due to human error. 

The role of Enterprise Architecture 

When properly implemented, Enterprise Architecture will portray every aspect of a firm’s technology and strategy, as well as the relationships between these different elements, enabling impact analysis. Additionally, Enterprise Architecture is ideal for the governance of data, ensuring that data collection and processing has standard rules and procedures, providing a single source of truth for all enterprise data. 

Decision-making is not just about being able to make the right choices, but also identifying the most crucial decisions to make for your enterprise. It is vital for companies to have the availability of up-to-date, accurate data across all sections of the business. Enterprise Architecture data systems will help identify any gaps and how individual choices may benefit an organisation’s overall business strategy. Enterprises that use data-driven Enterprise Architecture systems to make decision choices are 77% more likely to excel in meeting their business targets. 

Enterprise Architecture is one of the most effective tools companies can use to truly understand and oversee their enterprise’s infrastructure, and ultimately help CIOs strategise their business. According to Gartner, 52% of its staff questioned stated smarter decisions and investments were made once they incorporated Enterprise Architecture. It can help clearly identify various links and relationships between different parts of the organisation, as well as collect, govern and process all types of data. By identifying any changes beforehand, Enterprise Architecture helps businesses understand the impact of change and therefore is an ideal solution for the decision-making process. 

The bottom line

For a company to deliver value, decision-makers need complete visibility over the organisation and need to know the potential impacts of their decisions. Without fast and accurate data, guesswork or delays will foil a CIO’s ability to enable informed decisions. With the help of Enterprise Architecture, CIOs can make informed, data-driven decisions in real-time, leading companies to overall business success. 

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