The Art of Transformation From Concept to Realization Nace

Abstract

Today, every bit organizations constantly accommodate their activities to run into ever-changing circumstances, continuous business transformation is taking place. However, planning and steering this transformation can be a daunting task as complexity has been built into the organization over the years. Enterprise Architecture (EA) has been widely adjusted as a planning and governance approach to manage the complexity and constant change, and to align the system toward a mutual goal. This article studies the EA do good-realization procedure past clarifying how EA benefits are realized. Specifically, the focus is on the strategies, resources, and practices which the EA benefits stem from. The findings, derived from an in-depth case written report, testify that the EA benefit-realization procedure constitutes a long, intertwined concatenation of activities. Organizations benefit from EA through diverse ways: from the initiation, when comprehensive understanding starts to class, until years later, when measurable outcomes such as cost savings materialize. Suggestions on what to comprise into EA programs are presented.

The Need for Enterprise Architecture

In today'south volatile business surround, organizations constantly adjust their activities to the irresolute circumstances—concern transformation ^{Footnote 1} is continuously taking identify. However, with the long legacy of organizational activities, processes, and IT evolution, planning and steering the transformation can exist a daunting task as complexity has been built into the organisation over the years.

The organizations often lack a clear overall view of their business functions, processes, information systems (IS), and individual technical platforms, such every bit servers and databases, and of their common dependencies. This makes it difficult to execute the transformation initiatives in the about beneficial manner. Every bit a result, business and IT improvement often takes place in silos, without comprehensively considering the organizational viewpoint and transformation as a whole. Transformation projects overrunning their budgets and schedules, unable to reach the overall goals, are all too familiar examples of this challenge (Bloch et al. 2012). Traditional transformation approaches such as strategic planning, process improvement, IT governance, and programme direction are, on their ain, unable to modify this form, as they lack the holistic picture and the "mucilage" that holds the transformation together.

The Enterprise Architecture (EA) approach has been widely adapted as a planning and governance approach to manage the complexity and constant modify, and to align organizational resources toward a common goal (Tamm et al. 2011). EA encompasses an organization's business concern capabilities, business processes, data, IS, and technical infrastructure, and facilitates the integration of strategy, personnel, business organization, and Information technology (Kaisler et al. 2005).

Despite obviously benign EA, EA implementation endeavors are oftentimes questioned and challenged every bit their benefits are difficult to dissect (Potts 2010; Rodrigues and Amaral 2010). In the literature, in that location is still no common agreement of EA, or how it should be developed, managed, and used to reap the about benefits from the approach (Dang and Pekkola 2017; Sidorova and Kappelman 2011). Particularly physical benefits resulting from EA have turned out to be challenging to demonstrate, not to mention the procedure of benefit realization itself: Where do the benefits actually stalk from?

There are a few empirical studies linking EA activities to bodily benefits (Foorthuis et al. 2010; Hazen et al. 2017; Kurek et al. 2017; Lange et al. 2012; Schmidt and Buxmann 2011). Additionally, the benefit-realization procedure itself has been addressed (e.g., Alaeddini et al. 2017; Foorthuis et al. 2015; Lange et al. 2016; Shanks et al. 2018). Despite these studies, it is unclear how EA benefits are realized and where the EA benefits really stem from, as the studies are oft abstract or contradictory. Equally a consequence, the challenges in planning and implementing EA practices and comprehending EA benefit realization are evident. EA implementation projects and their business organisation cases remain difficult to discuss.

In this article, nosotros dive into the EA do good-realization process by clarifying how EA benefits are realized. Especially, we focus on the strategies, resources, and practices, which the EA benefits stem from. Beginning, we take a brief look at the current enquiry on EA and EA do good realization. Then we report findings from an in-depth case study and show how the benefits establish from a long, intertwined concatenation of activities. We debate that organizations do good from EA through various means: from the offset day, when comprehensive agreement starts to form, until years later, when a measurable outcome—toll savings—materializes.

Current Research on Enterprise Architecture Benefit Realization

Enterprise Architecture and Its Use

EA is "the definition and representation of a high-level view of an enterprise'south business organisation processes and It systems, their interrelationships, and the extent to which these processes and systems are shared by different parts of the enterprise" (Tamm et al. 2011). This emphasizes EA beingness both a procedure and its product.

EA management operations, i.east. EA processes, provide management and support in the design and direction of the EA to support the organizational transformation (van der Raadt and van Vliet 2008). Often EA management (EAM) encompasses the direction activities conducted in an organization to install, maintain, and purposefully develop an organization's EA (Lange et al. 2016). EAM and EA processes include activities such every bit EA planning, which deals with decisions about the EA target land, documented in new and existing EA documents (Nikpay et al. 2017; Nowakowski et al. 2017). EA governance, on the other hand, seeks to ensure that the documents are used in and for guiding individual evolution activities in the arrangement's transformation journey, facilitating the compliance of solutions toward the EA (Shanks et al. 2018).

EA products are the outputs of EA processes, such equally documentation and services. Documentation includes architectural models, standards, principles, and other knowledge items describing the organization'south business, information, IS, and technology, on unlike levels of brainchild for varying needs (Aier 2014; Boh and Yellin 2007; Tamm et al. 2011). In improver to describing the current state of the organization, they describe the target state and a plan of how to achieve information technology (Hjort-Madsen and Pries-Heje 2009; Kaisler et al. 2005; Nikpay et al. 2017; Tamm et al. 2011). EA services, on the other hand, are communication and collaboration interfaces of the EA processes toward EA stakeholders (Lange et al. 2016; Shanks et al. 2018). They include EA implementation support services, facilitating and enforcing the conformity of development initiatives with the EA, and EA planning support services, supporting direction decision-making on the EA target land (Lange et al. 2016; Shanks et al. 2018; van der Raadt and van Vliet 2008).

EA products are primarily used for guiding the EA's realization in individual development initiatives (Kaisler et al. 2005; Tamm et al. 2011). EA plans are thus realized when systems and processes are implemented. In addition, EA products support decision-making and communication, strategic management, transformation governance, and Information technology and concern planning activities (Aier et al. 2011; Boyd and Geiger 2010; Harmsen et al. 2009; Simon et al. 2013; Wintertime et al. 2007).

Data systems are one type of element described in the EA products. Information systems can exist divers as an organized collection of IT, data, data, processes, and people (Hirschheim et al. 1995). Therefore, information systems consist of similar elements that are described in EA products. EA can besides be considered as a 2nd guild IS, supporting the alter processes of an organization, instead of supporting its business processes as traditional IS (Proper 2014). These commonalities betwixt the definitions of EA and IS have led some researchers to employ models from the IS domain to sympathise EA (eastward.g., Lange et al. 2016; Niemi and Pekkola 2009).

Realizing Benefits from Enterprise Compages

A multitude of EA benefits have been identified in the literature. Our review of the literature on EA benefits lists 250 different benefits. The review was based on four academic meta-reviews on EA benefits (Boucharas et al. 2010; Foorthuis et al. 2015; Niemi 2006; Tamm et al. 2011). They were selected because they present comprehensive literature reviews on EA benefits. For case, Tamm et al. (2011) present a meta-review of 50 studies on EA benefits. Equally we grouped similar benefits together, we arrived at a list of 40 individual benefits, illustrated in Table 1.

Table 1 Enterprise compages benefits synthesized from the literature

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The benefits range from very abstract ones such as business organisation–Information technology alignment and improved decision-making, to physical, measurable benefits such as reduced costs. This variety, and the fact that very few studies really ascertain the benefits explicitly, make information technology hard to encompass where they stem from, or what their mutual interrelationships are.

EA benefit realization research also lacks empirical evidence. Of a review of 50 studies, just six provided any empirical data (Tamm et al. 2011). Many studies have focused on hypothetical or potential benefits of EA, not on concretized benefits. Studies addressing actual benefits have appeared, even though they do not always clarify the benefit realization mechanisms (e.g., Aier et al. 2011; Kurek et al. 2017; Lagerström et al. 2011). While benefits can be realized from EA in some circumstances, the do good realization mechanisms need farther clarification. To investigate how EA benefits are realized, nosotros conducted a literature review to identify relevant studies. Although our main focus was on IS journals (including, but not limited to BISE, MISQ, JAIS, ISR, EJIS, JIT, JSIS, JMIS and ISJ), we expanded the sample past including also a search on Google Scholar. The following search terms were used: 'Enterprise Compages', 'Architecture' and 'Builder' with terms 'Benefit' and 'Value'. This resulted in 132 relevant articles. From these, 55 articles were nearly EA benefit realization. They were then analyzed to see whether they explicitly depict the benefit-realization process, and non just list some success or failure factors. Terminal eighteen articles, listed in Table 2, were included for analysis.

Table ii Results of the literature review

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The studies from the literature review show that EA benefit realization resembles a process, ^{Footnote 2} i.e. a series of actions or steps that take to be carried out to realize the benefits from EA. Consequently, in this article the term "EA benefit-realization process" refers to the chain of constructs and their interrelationships leading to the realization of benefits from EA. In the literature, EA do good realization is oft seen as a simple process with only two steps: specific constructs are interrelated with specific benefits (east.g., Alaeddini et al. 2017; Bischoff et al. 2014; Lagerström et al. 2011; Schmidt and Buxmann 2011; van Steenbergen et al. 2011). Notwithstanding the benefits may likewise be realized indirectly through ane or more intermediary constructs (e.k., Foorthuis et al. 2015; Lange et al. 2016; Shanks et al. 2018; Tamm et al. 2011; Weiss et al. 2013). This suggests that EA benefits are realized through an impact chain of more than than three constructs, making the EA benefit realization a complex, multi-phased process. This resembles the benefit realization in the IS discipline (DeLone and McLean 2003).

At that place are different views on how EA benefits emerge. Some consider EA benefits to realize directly from high-quality EA products (Lange et al. 2016; Lange 2012; Schmidt and Buxmann 2011), EA processes (Schmidt and Buxmann 2011; Tamm et al. 2011) or EA services (Foorthuis et al. 2015; Shanks et al. 2018). A few add together more indirect sources such as EA use or implementation (Aier 2014; Lange et al. 2016; van Steenbergen and Brinkkemper 2008). Some as well consider the effects of EA implementation: an improved Information technology operating platform and the resulting concern process performance improvements produce benefits (Lux et al. 2010; Tamm et al. 2011). Even though a multitude of sources for benefits have been suggested, all, or fifty-fifty nigh of the sources are very seldom included in the EA benefit-realization process descriptions.

Social, cultural, and organizational issues, such as the organizational culture and the organization's understanding of EA and its foundations, have also been suggested to have impacts on the EA process (Aier 2014; Lange 2012). Utilizing EA is evidently not only a technical result, but also a social and political one (Weiss et al. 2013). For example, top-management commitment to EA, and stakeholder awareness and understanding of EA are crucial for bridging EA use and the quality of EA processes, products, and services (Lange et al. 2016). Acceptance of EA in the organization has also been considered disquisitional (Lange et al. 2016; Weiss et al. 2013). This indicates that the EA'south conceptualization and grounding in the arrangement supports EA use. Contextual factors, for example, organizational size and complexity, operating platform quality, operating model, and the charge per unit of organizational alter, legislation and regulations, demographic factors, and organization type likewise touch benefit realization (Lux et al. 2010; Schmidt and Buxmann 2011; Tamm et al. 2011).

The Instance Report

Our primary data source for this written report is a unmarried qualitative case study (Stake 2000; Walsham 1995) of a large Finnish public-sector organization, described in Tabular array 3. It has undertaken EA work for over 8 years. The kickoff author observed the situation for ii years before the written report took identify. It was therefore estimated that the maturity of the system's EA capability was advisable to provide adequate research data for the EA benefit-realization process.

Table iii Case organisation summary

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The information was collected through 14 semi-structured themed interviews. Initially, a set of five interviewees were handpicked from the system: the centralized EA team, all the main business units, and major ongoing projects. Then snowball sampling was used to identify the residue of the respondents. In improver, documentation on the EA and its framework and methodology were studied. Data collection connected until theoretical saturation was reached. Table iv presents the interviewees and their characteristics.

Table 4 Interviewees and their characteristics

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The interviews were conducted by using examples, "stories," to derive the arguments for each theme. The themes (come across the Appendix; bachelor online via http://link.springer.com) followed the application of the DeLone and McLean IS success model to the EA context (Niemi and Pekkola 2009). They included the quality, use, user satisfaction, and benefits of EA products and EA services. For each theme, get-go an example was requested, and then clarifying "why and how" questions were asked. We desire to emphasize that the IS success model was used but to include and illustrate dissimilar themes. This made information technology possible for informants to tell their stories, from their own viewpoints, without influencing them unnecessarily (Walsham 2006).

The sound-recorded and transcribed interviews that lasted approximately 57 min were conducted between October 2011 and January 2012. Detailed notes were likewise taken to facilitate data analysis, and to identify relevant bug for subsequent interviews. All the interviews, except one, were conducted past telephone.

An interpretative inquiry approach was used in the information assay (Klein and Myers 1999; Walsham 1995). Figure 1 illustrates the analysis process by providing examples of the coding categories that emerged in each step. The interview themes were first searched as initial coding categories. So, the data and these categories were iteratively reanalyzed and then that all attributes and interrelationships relating to EA benefit realization were identified. Similar attributes were then grouped as constructs. Subsequently, the interrelationships were mapped to attribute pairs and and so generalized as interrelationships betwixt the related constructs. This analysis resulted in a set of interrelated constructs describing the EA benefit-realization process.

Fig. 1

Data assay process

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Findings from the Report

The assay resulted in eight factors and 695 interrelationships having an bear upon on the EA benefit realization. Moreover, 51 descriptive attributes related to the constructs were identified. Table 5 presents the constructs, their definitions, and attributes. The resulting EA benefit-realization process is depicted in Fig. 2.

Table 5 Constructs and their attributes in the enterprise architecture benefit-realization procedure

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Fig. 2

Constructs and interrelationships in the enterprise architecture benefit-realization process

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EA do good realization is a multi-phased process where viii constructs are interconnected in a complex manner. EA do good realization begins with the EA Process Quality construct, referring to the twenty-four hours-to-day operations of the EA part. Its attributes relating to EA methodologies, frameworks, tools, organization, and stakeholder participation have an extensive impact on the process. Apparently, information technology has a direct affect on the quality of the results of the EA processes—represented by the EA Production and Service Quality constructs. It also directly impacts the realization of several benefits. This signifies the role of having a solid basis for EA work in the benefit realization, as the processes of EA planning, documentation, and governance can immediately contribute to improved understanding of the organisation and its components.

Additionally, EA Results Employ results in a multitude of EA Benefits. Utilizing EA products and services in use situations by EA stakeholders, such as architects, projects, and management, is some other mode (in addition to EA processes) in which EA benefits are realized. The use situations include, for case, project and solutions planning, Information technology and business decision-making, training, and further EA planning. Most of the attributes of use, including its motives, involved stakeholders, EA results, and timing of use have an issue on benefit realization.

EA Results Use is impacted by EA Process and EA Results Quality. This means that having an advisable ground for EA work and loftier-quality EA products facilitates their utilise. EA Procedure and EA Results Quality are also mutually intertwined. While high-quality EA products are required to deliver loftier-quality service, appropriate EA services besides improve the quality of EA products.

In addition, organizational factors, external to EA (conceptualized as the EA Social Environs construct), have a significant mutual relationship with most other constructs, as those influence and are influenced by EA Social Environment. This means that loftier-quality EA processes, services, and successful EA employ further build upwardly an environs that is favorable for the utilization of the EA approach. In that location is likewise a counter-touch from EA Benefits to EA Social Environment, every bit gaining physical benefits from EA promotes it further.

The benefits resulting from the EA processes are numerous. While almost benefits result from EA activities, there are besides some benefits that are impacted by others, forming bondage of benefits, where a do good may trigger other benefits to exist realized. The benefits range from immediate benefits to EA users or the EA stakeholders participating in EA planning (e.1000., place dependencies or provide overview), to indirect benefits, such equally improved understanding (due east.yard., improve decision-making) that are a result of the firsthand benefits. There are also benefits that can only exist realized over time. For example, an improved Information technology platform is implemented in compliance with EA (e.yard., increase interoperability betwixt solutions). Most of the benefits are on an private or projection level, while some are more at the organization level in nature. Finally, while at that place are concrete, measurable benefits such as cost savings, most of the benefits are somewhat abstract and are non easily measurable. Examples of benefit-realization chains from the data are included in Table 6.

Tabular array half-dozen Examples of do good-realization chains

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Give-and-take: Reflection to Literature

Our findings suggest that EA benefits are realized either direct from certain EA activities, or indirectly, through a concatenation of several interconnected constructs and attributes. This is supported by several studies (Aier 2014; Foorthuis et al. 2015; Lange 2012; Schmidt and Buxmann 2011).

This ways that the processes of EA planning, documentation, and governance can immediately contribute to the improved understanding of the organisation and its components, thus providing a footing for more informed decision-making and evolution. A prerequisite for this seems to exist a solid basis for EA work, with appropriate EA tools and frameworks, adequate resourcing, and stakeholder participation. Although the office of rigid EA processes has been identified before (Foorthuis et al. 2015; Schmidt and Buxmann 2011; Tamm et al. 2011), they are non oftentimes seen as a precursor for benefits. Process factors take also been emphasized elsewhere (Banaeianjahromi and Smolander 2017; Kotusev 2018; van der Raadt et al. 2007, 2010). Some studies (Foorthuis et al. 2015; Schmidt and Buxmann 2011; Tamm et al. 2011) share our view that benefits can arise straight from EA processes.

Most EA benefits seem to be realized from the advisable employ of EA products and services. The view that EA use contributes to do good realization directly or indirectly is shared by several authors (Aier 2014; Boh and Yellin 2007; Foorthuis et al. 2015; Lange et al. 2016; Lange 2012; Lux et al. 2010; Schmidt and Buxmann 2011; Shanks et al. 2018; Tamm et al. 2011; van Steenbergen and Brinkkemper 2008). The significance of the use perspective has also been emphasized by Bischoff (2017). Similarly to EA processes, EA use can immediately effect in improved understanding, as the information gathered from EA products facilitates a comprehensive view of the system and its components. An obvious benefit is getting a clear overall view of a specific subject area, its components, and interrelationships. For example, during a project, some selected EA products can be used to amend understanding of the project'south interrelationships to processes, solutions, and to other projects. In our case, for instance, project architects used the EA documentation from simultaneous neighboring projects and existing systems as a basis for deciding which interfaces were required and defining loftier-level requirements for them. EA use thus facilitates projection and program management, speeds up projection initialization, and may lead to meliorate decisions.

EA results use also has more indirect implications. As EA is used to guide evolution activities, information technology may, over time, ameliorate the organizational Information technology platform (Tamm et al. 2011). This leads to further benefits such equally increased interoperability between solutions, reduced redundancy, and increased standardization in the solution portfolio. In plow, this can atomic number 82 to measurable cost savings. Although our data referred specifically to these IT benefits, nosotros tin can safely speculate that similar benefits can exist realized regarding improved concern processes and business–Information technology alignment. Indirect benefits probably have many years to appear, as large improvement programs have several years, where the office of EA, as a form of guidance, tin be somewhat limited at starting time. The realized benefits tin too exist dissimilar in different organizations and contexts (Aier et al. 2008). Our results, indicating that achieving certain benefits can in plow lead to other benefits, is in line with literature (Foorthuis et al. 2015; Lux et al. 2010; Shanks et al. 2018; van Steenbergen and Brinkkemper 2008).

Our results highlight the extensive affect of EA social surroundings in the benefit-realization process, as it has an influence on the entire procedure. The function of cultural bug and EA's organizational grounding accept as well been highlighted before (Aier 2014; Lange 2012), Other literature also underlines the significance of EA's credence in the organization (Kotusev 2017; Weiss 2017).

Like kind of comprehensive view on the EA benefit-realization process is not provided elsewhere. For example, the apply of EA results and high-quality EA processes have not been empirically demonstrated to have a direct influence on benefits, although both take individually been implied to have such effect. Too, our case did not testify that EA product or service quality directly leads to benefits, as in some of the before studies (Boh and Yellin 2007; Foorthuis et al. 2015; Lange 2012; Schmidt and Buxmann 2011). Instead, we contend that it has a more indirect role in the benefit-realization process. High-quality EA products, supported past useful EA services, contribute to EA use which in plough leads to benefit realization.

Other studies have also presented less circuitous benefit-realization processes, in terms of constructs and interrelationships. For example, they do not refer to the "feedback loop", in which successful EA employ and realization of benefits lead to grounding of EA in the organisation, although this effect has been hinted to in some studies (Kotusev 2017; Schmidt and Buxmann 2011; van der Raadt et al. 2010).

Implications

Based on our findings, EA benefit realization constitutes a long, intertwined concatenation of activities. Consequently, at that place are various ways in which the organisation tin can benefit from EA at various points in time. This has impacts for how the EA exercise should exist organized and for how the objectives of EA initiatives should be set. In the following, we will discuss the implications of our findings.

Implications for Enterprise Architecture Management

The findings highlight the importance of EA processes. Non only tin benefits be direct realized from EA operations, but they too impact all the other parts of the EA benefit-realization process. Therefore, there should exist a solid ground for EA work with appropriate resource, organisation, tools, methods, and frameworks. Physical endorsement for EA work from the top management is also crucial. To avert the "ivory tower syndrome" in EA planning, EA activities should be integrated with the strategic, concern, and IT planning processes of the organization. EA stakeholders should also exist involved in EA cosmos (Nakakawa et al. 2010). How this should be done depends on the organization. At that place is not a single right way of carrying out EA work but different approaches should be applied in dissimilar organizational contexts (Aier et al. 2008). It is also significant to note that EA does not replace existing methodologies just provides a tool for more informed planning and decision-making. In any case, advice and collaboration are crucial for the success of EA (Banaeianjahromi and Smolander 2017), equally with any enterprise endeavor.

The employ of EA products is some other central activity in the benefit-realization procedure. This is logical, as the guiding result of EA on evolution is established through its usage. Even though the quality of EA products has been emphasized before, the products are useless from the benefits point of view if they are not properly used (Lange et al. 2016). EA employ cannot be in a vacuum, and then EA managers should plant a clearly communicated and instructed set of EA use situations in co-operation with the existing development governance methodologies (such as projection direction, plan steering, and IT investment direction). EA use situations should exist planned and managed comprehensively, including their objectives, central stakeholders, the EA results used, and the timing of use. Especially in development initiatives, the timing of when the EA results are used is critical. The initiative should be captured within EA support already in its initiation phase.

EA services' function in do good realization is often understated or omitted. In our instance, the services mainly support deriving useful information from the EA products. This is emphasized for those EA users who are not familiar with architectural thinking, such every bit business conclusion-makers. These stakeholders demand support when interpreting and selecting EA products in detail situations, and what issues to consider in terms of the EA products. At that place are also EA services to guide evolution initiatives, such as project compages reviews. At the same fourth dimension, these EA services better the quality of the EA products as they guide stakeholders to create architecture that is consequent with the standards. All the same, it should exist noted that EA services should not exist overly laborious for the stakeholders. Similar documentation should not be required in different formats for the needs of each governance methodology. EA is there to serve the stakeholders, non the other way around (see also Kotusev 2017).

Implications for Measuring Enterprise Compages

Traditionally, investments have been assessed by their measurable impacts. According to our findings, this is a rather curt-sighted approach with regard to EA as an investment. We debate that measurable toll savings can be expected years from the initiation of EA work, at best. Thus, investing in EA requires confidence and faith that the benefits will eventually come up; the traditional year-long budgeting cycle is plainly too short to find whatsoever measurable benefits from EA. Information technology should also exist remembered that virtually of the EA benefits are at the individual level and are non easily measurable. Still, over time, they volition build up an environment that facilitates EA activities and the realization of organisation-level benefits.

Still, in that location are some measures that can be used to track the EA initiative to ensure that it is heading in the right direction. Process and production quality measures tin be used to ensure that the EA processes result in loftier-quality EA products and services (Tamm et al. 2011; Timm et al. 2017). User satisfaction measures may give an idea as to whether the EA results are useful to the EA stakeholders. The IT portfolio can be reviewed, and the complication measures, such as the number of interfaces and technologies, can be tracked. The EA itself can provide tools for evaluating IT and the business in the form of useful organization and process blueprints. These indirect measures can provide the necessary success stories at the start of and throughout the EA journey.

Limitations

The chief limitation of the study arises from its nature. As the study was carried out every bit a unmarried case report in a public-sector organization, the generalizability of its results is limited. It cannot be claimed that the identified constructs and interrelationships are similar in other settings. Actually, some studies even suggest that the fashion of doing EA should be dissimilar in dissimilar kinds of organizational contexts (Aier et al. 2008). Therefore, also benefit-realization process could be different.

There is also a limitation related to the qualitative empirical data collected as "stories". Even though the stories describe what was of import for our informants, important details might still be missing. Therefore, our model of constructs and interrelationships in the EA benefit-realization procedure is past no means a complete or perfect description of EA benefit realization everywhere. It is a model that resembles the case. As it is aligned with the literature, nosotros believe the model tin be practical elsewhere, perhaps appended and amended.

Determination

In this commodity, we accept studied how EA benefits are realized through an in-depth case study. We have focused on the strategies, resources, and practices which the EA benefits stem from, and have clarified the nature of the EA do good-realization procedure. The process turned out to be more than circuitous and extensive than assumed and previously described. It constitutes a long, intertwined concatenation of activities. Our results indicate that EA benefits stem from solid EA processes, likewise as from the advisable apply of EA products and services. Social and cultural factors also play an of import part in the process. The results also shed light to the fourth dimension dimension of EA benefit realization. Organizations tin can benefit from EA from day ane, when comprehensive understanding starts to form, until the later years, when measurable outcomes—cost savings and then on—materialize. This is like to the IS domain, where a large number of constructs, including system quality, information quality, service quality, IS use, and user satisfaction, have been observed to influence benefits—too in the long run (Petter et al. 2008).

Our findings help researchers and practitioners to sympathise how EA benefits are realized. This insight can exist used to better organizational EA practices and procedures, and to study them. The results tin can be used equally a basis for developing both EA products and their employ, and also for improving EA governance structures, methods, and practices. While it is important to invest in the quality of EA processes, advisable use of EA results is peradventure even more than important. The comprehensive use of EA results by the EA stakeholders, such equally projects, management, and architects, is emphasized. The usage also requires some support services to be provided for the stakeholders. This is the only ways to ensure that the primary function of EA as a guide for organizational evolution is realized.

Although there does not appear to be a simple mode to build up a cultural grounding favorable for EA utilization, the findings suggest that loftier-quality EA processes and results directly contribute to this (Lange et al. 2016). Yet, this is a chicken and egg problem: to gain high-quality EA processes and results, a favorable culture is needed. Yet an EA-favorable culture necessitates loftier-quality processes and results. This result is emphasized with novel, organizationally unknown concepts, such every bit EA.

Finally, even though we have focused on EA as an organizational office, information technology should non be forgotten that EA is not a separate island in the organization. EA is securely intertwined with other planning, direction, and governance approaches and practices. Therefore, it is non sufficient to merely better aspects of EA such as its quality or fifty-fifty its utilization. Dialogue between EA and the organization at large should be initiated to integrate EA in parallel with other planning and management approaches, minimizing the overlap and extra effort required. Seamless integration and alignment are required to maximize the benefits from EA.

Notes

1. Transformation, in the context of organizations, is a fundamental change that significantly alters an organisation'southward human relationship with 1 or more of its key constituencies, such as customers, employees, suppliers and investors (Proper et al. 2017).

2. The Oxford English Dictionary defines process as "a series of actions or steps taken in guild to reach a particular end".

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1. Coala Ltd, Helsinki, Finland

   Eetu Niemi

2. Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University, Tampere, Republic of finland

   Samuli Pekkola

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Correspondence to Eetu Niemi.

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Accepted later on 1 revision by Jelena Zdravkovic.

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Niemi, Eastward., Pekkola, S. The Benefits of Enterprise Architecture in Organizational Transformation. Bus Inf Syst Eng 62, 585–597 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-019-00605-3

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• Received: 31 July 2018

• Accepted: 03 May 2019

• Published: 19 June 2019

• Issue Engagement: December 2020

• DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-019-00605-3

Keywords

• Enterprise architecture
• Organizational transformation
• Do good-realization procedure
• Value
• Case study

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