AlephZeph Consulting assists Sun International to improve the relationship between business and IT through increased collaboration in the enterprise architecture process.
AlephZeph Consulting will in the next year advance the maturity of Sun International`s enterprise architecture by establishing tight collaboration between its business units and IT. John Lee, awarded "Private Sector CIO of the year 2003", identified enterprise architecture as a key enabler of the IT department`s objectives. The main objective is to develop a valued partnership between IT and business through predictability and consistency, transparency and measurability, sustainability of performance and continuous improvement.
Over the past year AlephZeph Consulting helped Sun International to establish a repeatable enterprise architecture process within the IT department. The process was mostly internally driven with limited collaboration with business.
The initial emphasis was to map the current position and give guidance of future requirements. Most of the enterprise architecture deliverables was delivered in Microsoft Office documents. The initial benefits gained from this deployment were more effective budgeting for IT expenditures and improved cost control through standardisation.
Phase two, the advancement of enterprise architecture maturity, aims to involve the whole organisation in the enterprise architecture process. The model of choice is where architecture is a enterprise-wide activity with a small enterprise architecture team functioning as the custodian of the enterprise architecture process. The targeted level of maturity can only be sustained by supporting the enterprise architecture process with a software application. The architecture team of Sun international evaluated eight of the leading enterprise architecture applications and selected Archi as its tool of choice.
Archi (also called EA WebModeler in the USA) was selected based on functional excellence at the most affordable price. The toolset was selected as the best fit for Sun International`s strategy due to its emphasis on collaboration.
Archi`s concurrent user licences and totally web-based interfaces delivers an affordable solution for enterprise-wide collaboration. The information centric approach and ease of use makes the toolset an ideal pervasive environment to manage enterprise architecture knowledge and strategies. The enterprise architecture tool will ensure transparency of the IT strategy and continual alignment between IT investments and business objectives Chief architect Kuben Naidoo sets the deadlines for deployment as:" Within 6 months enterprise architecture access must be available to the organisation as a whole. After 12 months the system must be incorporated within Sun International`s operations."
Business units, the central project office, the IT service desk, IT centres of excellence and IT management will all use the architecture tool to collaborate with the enterprise architecture team. Business units communicate key trends and requirements while IT centres of excellence ensure that Sun International benefit optimally from new technological developments. The project office is the delivery mechanism of enterprise architecture solutions while the service desk becomes responsible to maintain an updated view of the current enterprise architecture. The central repository of information will ensure that collaboration is driven by one view of the truth.
As enterprise architecture implementation partner AlephZeph consulting focuses on advancing enterprise architecture maturity that realises more value from IT investments in a measurable format. The value of IT is determined by its contribution to the successful execution of business strategies and the financial return realised.
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