6 Steps to Build an Enterprise Architecture Business Case
Hi! My name is Evan,
Business leaders today have a tough time staying ahead of the competition thanks to market shifts, growing corporate complexity, evolving customer demands, and unexpected competition. In order to succeed, business leaders need to overcome these challenges but how can they convince executives to help them get there?
Let’s take a look at six steps business leaders can take to build an enterprise architecture business case for executives.
Step 1) Define where you want to go
For business leaders to be able to properly define where they want the company to go, they must ask themselves:
What will the company look like in five years?
What are the most important goals for the company today?
In six months?
In a Year?
In five years?
Once business leaders can answer these questions, they’ll have a better idea of what they need to accomplish to achieve their goals.
Step 2) Define where you are
The next step to build an enterprise architecture business case is to define where the company currently is. For business leaders to properly be able to define this, they must ask themselves:
What are the major business challenges the company faces?
When business leaders can effectively answer this question, they’ll then be able to match operations with customer expectations and provide a complete view of technology resources to better help IT, teams.
Step 3) Identify your decision-makers and stakeholders
The next step for business leaders to be able to effectively state their business case to executives is to identify decision-makers and stakeholders. When business leaders can properly identify what matters most to these decision-makers and stakeholders, they’ll then be able to meet their needs and better benefit the company.
Step 4) Create your value statements
The best way for business leaders to create the best value statements for executives to approve their case is to use the BAF approach. This approach uses the company’s challenges, goals, and strategies to showcase the benefits, advantages, and features the company will see once the business case is approved.
Step 5) Show how enterprise architecture drives transformation for others
Executives today want to see how other companies have used similar approaches to achieve their success. Sharing success stories can help executives become confident that the company can reach the same level of success and give them more incentive to approve the business case.
Step 6) Demonstrate the value of enterprise architecture and ways to measure it
The final step to convince executives to approve the business case is to demonstrate the value this new enterprise architecture will provide. It’s very important to be able to show that the value of your enterprise architecture can be measured and demonstrated in ways that have meaning to executives and decision-makers, or else the proposal will not be approved.
With a good grasp of company goals, challenges, what’s important to stakeholders, and how the new enterprise architecture can help the company achieve its digital transformation goals, business leaders will have no problem convincing executives to approve their business case.
If you want to learn more about how to build an enterprise architecture business case, click the link below for more information.
