In recent months there has been a noticeable resurgence in the need for Business Architecture at both tactical and strategic levels. In my experience, there are many Enterprise Architects (EA’s) thinking about Business Architecture, but very few who are really doing Business Architecture.

The Standish Group, an IT research organisation, documents this annually and has historically found that 31.1% projects are cancelled before completion, 52.7% of projects will cost 189% of their original estimated cost and only 16% of projects are completed on-time and on-budget. (more…)

As organizations adopt Business Process Management (BPM) as a transformation initiative, they are faced with the challenge of choosing the right BPM technology/product.  This decision can be made at the Line of Business (LOB) level or at the enterprise level depending on the urgency and the intended level of adoption. After a major consolidation in the BPM products market over the last 3-4 years, the market today has about 20 major players. Some of them are pure-play vendors and others are enterprise stack vendors. Organizations typically face a few key challenges in navigating the BPM technology selection process (more…)

Broadband and ubiquitous Internet access have fed the growth of the World Wide Web (WWW) and led to the  birth and growth of cloud computing and Software as a Service (SaaS), which in turn have started affecting the traditional Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). ISVs were instrumental in defining and giving momentum to the software market during the 1990’s and 2000’s.  Today, however, SaaS is driving the world’s 60 fastest-growing software companies. Existing ISVs are feeling the pressure from pure SaaS start-ups. Calls from the market for SaaS alternatives to their traditional licensed product offerings further add to their woes. What’s an ISV to do? (more…)

The exercise of application rationalization is certainly complex.  Reconciling the needs of many constituencies within an organization and reconciling those needs against a large and byzantine IT portfolio is a daunting task.  In an effort to eliminate waste, streamline the IT estate and create a more “lean” environment to support, this kind of software engineering project must evaluate the needs of the business and assess a harvesting of the best components of the current application population.  Common service layers can be created and new application support can be created in technologies like BPM.  This is one facet of a business transformation process.

What about the financial justification for this kind of project?  Is the cost an expense or an investment? (more…)