2018 International Conference on Information Systems and Computer Science (INCISCOS)

The Role of Enterprise Architecture as a Management

Tool

Joel Paredes-Gualtor and Oswaldo Moscoso-Zea Sergio Luján-Mora

Faculty of Engineering Departamento de lenguajes y sistemas informáticos
Universidad Tecnológica Equinoccial Universidad de Alicante
Quito, Ecuador Alicante, Spain
{joel.paredes, omoscoso}@ute.edu.ec [email protected]

Abstract—Today’s business environment is suffering a In other words, the architecture can be seen as the structure
constant change due to the emergence of new technologies. The and blueprint of organizations of any kind.
changes go from the customer needs until how these needs are
fulfilled by organizations and enterprises. This constant change In today’s business environment, an integrated business and
force decision-makers to adapt to these new scenarios and IT approach is essential. However, in many companies, this
overcome difficulties which are the only sure outcome of this integrated vision is very far from reality. The lack of a properly
evolution. Several directors and institutions have seen this new established Enterprise Architecture (EA) translates into
challenge and have developed tools, frameworks, guidelines, and problems in all the domains of the company such as people,
good practices to help and support enterprise management. business processes, applications and technological infrastructure
Frameworks such as Control Objectives for Information and [3].
Related Technologies (COBIT), Information Technology
Infrastructure Library (ITIL), quality standards such as the one In big and complex institutions with several years of
proposed by the European Foundation for Quality Management existence, the problem is even greater. On the one hand, there
(EFQM )and systems such as the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) are are many departments that work in isolation (silos) so there is no
widely spread through the world and are taught in higher correct strategic alignment. On the other hand, the tools
education institutions. Enterprise Architecture (EA), another available for designing EA do not contain enough modeling
well-known discipline, also assists in management as these other objects. This represents an issue for the creation of blueprints in
tools do. However, EA, as a discipline itself, is sometimes neither institutions with specific processes such as governmental,
mentioned nor used within these other tools. These paper aims to education, non-profits, etc., causing the abandonment of the
analyze the role that EA plays by comparing it with the guidelines initiative even before its implementation [4].
that other frameworks propose. The analysis that is done in this
paper verifies if EA can be used at the same time with other EA is a discipline in expansion worldwide. A study
frameworks or if they are not compatible. To answer that question, performed by Gartner in 2009 said that 60 percent of the
an analysis of the most important processes, good practices, executives interviewed view investing in improving their EA
perspectives and tools provided by each framework was capabilities as a top five priority for running their business [5].
performed. The current business competition forces industries to be in a
constant change. In the same way, business strategies and
Keywords— Business Management; COBIT; Enterprise objectives must be flexible to tackle sudden changes in the
Architecture; ITIL market. These changes have brought serious problems, delays,
loss of investment and customers. One of the main problems is
I. INTRODUCTION the lack of planning and strategic alienation which is most likely
solved with the implementation of an EA. The business
The term architecture comes from the Greek words arch
architecture allows a holistic vision of the organization, making
(ਕȡȤ) meaning chief and tekton (IJȑțIJȦȞ) meaning builder. This
it indispensable in the management of changes and in the start-
term is widely known in the design and construction fields. This
up of new initiatives.
happens due to the use of this word by the Greek to describe the
chief or leader of any construction. Within this context, The design of an EA facilitates technological management
architecture is both the process and the outcome of planning, and organizational change, allowing managers to prioritize high-
designing, and constructing buildings or any other structures [1]. level requirements and generate projects that positively impact
the organization.
Nowadays, the term architecture is also applied in
information and technology related sciences, and in business as This paper aims to analyze the role of EA within other
well. The IEEE 1471-2000 standard defines architecture as [2]: management tools, techniques, and frameworks that use
different approaches for improving business governance. In this
“fundamental concepts or properties of a system in its
way, we can help decision-makers in the process of
environment embodied in its elements, relationships, and in the
implementing EA in an organization based on the tools that are
principles of its design and evolution.”
being used at the time. As Vicente states [6], different

978-1-5386-7612-7/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 306

DOI 10.1109/INCISCOS.2018.00051
approaches may lead to duplication of investments, costs, and • What is supported by one IT system?
wasted resources, making imperative the need to establish the
critical areas where EA takes part. • How is this support realized?

With this background in context, the research question that • What resources are used to realize this support?
we want to answer in this paper is: • What costs are incurred? What benefits? What are the
What is the role that EA plays in comparison to the main gaps? What are the breaches and redundancies?
management tools and techniques in the market? • What objectives are met by the deployed IT systems?
After presenting the introduction of the study in this Section, What is the business case involved? What are the
this work is organized as follows: in Section II, a brief requirements that form the basis of the system?
description of the state of the art is presented, in Section III a EA is used as an instrument to manage the daily operations,
description and analysis of the current management tools on the activities, and development of the enterprise. However, EA is
market is shown, in Section IV the possibilities for the not the first nor the only instrument used for this purpose.
integration of the management tools with EA is presented. Through the years, several techniques, guides, and frameworks
Finally, in Section V conclusions are drawn. have been developed creating a wide range of options.

II. RELATED WORK B. Enterprise Architecture frameworks

An EA framework defines how to create and use an EA by
A. Enterprise Architecture definition and characteristics
providing principles, guidelines, and practices for creating and
EA is defined as the set of principles, methods, and models using the architecture description system. There is a big number
used in the design, production, and maintenance of the business of EA frameworks developed by consortia, governmental, open
architecture, organizational structure, information systems, and source, proprietary, etc.
technology architecture [7]. The director of the information
systems research center at the Massachusetts Institute of Some of the most outstanding are [13]:
Technology (MIT) defines EA as the business or enterprise • Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture.
aspects which are under analysis [8].
• Department of Defense Architecture Framework
EA can be seen as a blueprint that incorporates methods and (DoDAF).
techniques to create architectures or models in the different
objects of any organization. A well-established EA allows • The Open Group Architectural Framework (TOGAF).
accomplishing the perfect balance between IT efficiency and
business innovation [9]. At the same time, EA ensures that the • Federal Enterprise Architecture.
organization is aligned with the IT strategy [10]. Among others, these frameworks can be used to carry out the
EA provides a long-lasting view of the processes, systems, EA creation and use process.
and technologies used in an enterprise. This long-lasting view
enables the projects to build capacities on their own. In other C. Enterprise Architecture Role
words, the projects go far beyond than just meeting the As informed in the 2009 technical report by Infosys, EA is
immediate needs. The EA practitioners or enterprise “architects” expanding its role in strategic business transformation [14].
are responsible for analyzing the business processes and Studies show that measures, such as EA maturity, directly
structures to achieve effectiveness, efficiency, agility, and influences the effectiveness of IT resources for achieving
durability of the business processes established in the enterprise. strategic goals as shown in [15].
The main goal of EA is to optimize the organization process Niemann also states a very interesting role of EA,
in a cohesive environment which is ready to support incoming specifically, the EA Manager. He points out that the EA manager
changes and the business strategy [11]. That said, EA describes in various organizations just draws plans of the actual IT
the current state of the organization and bring forward the best landscape. However, their participation expands to participation
alternative to achieve the desired results. in projects, and even in business-related problem-solving tasks
According to The Open Group [11], EA provides the [12].
following advantages to the organization.
III. ANALYSIS
• A more efficient business operation.
The research process started by selecting the tools to be
• A more efficient IT operation. analyzed. The chosen ones were Balanced Scorecard (BSC),
European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM),
• A better return on investment (ROI), reducing the risk Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies
of future investments. (COBIT), and Information Technology Infrastructure Library
• Faster, simpler and cheaper results. (ITIL) as they provide guidelines to auto-evaluate, performance
measurement through indicators and different points of view
EA enables decision-makers to answer the following key [16] and these are the most used management tools in the largest
questions [12]: enterprises around the world [12][17][18].

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 After the tools were selected, a deep analysis of the
guidelines, processes, and layers of each tool was performed in
order to find the critic spots were EA is crucial.
Then, we present a summary and comparison between them
to establish the role of EA.

A. Balanced Scorecard
Traditionally, the administration has focused mainly on
financial aspects. Kaplan and Norton [19] say that financial
analysis is not enough to guide the management and
development of a company. Other indicators are needed such as
user and customer satisfaction, internal processes, innovation Fig. 1. BSC perspectives and layers
and environment [19]. BSC is used in over 50% of large US
firms [18].
B. COBIT
BSC suggests analyzing a company from four perspectives: COBIT is a good-practice framework created by the
• Consumer perspective: analyzes how the consumer international professional association ISACA for IT
perceives the company. This perspective uses management and IT governance. COBIT provides an
indicators such as satisfaction or customer retention. implementable set of controls over information technology and
organizes them around a logical framework of IT-related
• Financial perspective: analyzes the economic processes and enablers [20].
retribution of the business and the value created. It uses
EA is already tightly integrated into the COBIT 5
metrics as the income of shareholders.
framework. Within the “align, plan and organize” domain of the
• Internal business processes: analyzes the efficiency and COBIT 5 management area, there is a dedicated process called
effectiveness of the company's internal operations. “Manage Enterprise Architecture”. For this EA process, there
are five practices and several activities for each of those.
• Organizational capacity (originally called learning and
growth): analyzes the corporate and individual capacity Even though COBIT covers most of the activities of
to evolve and innovate. TOGAF, it describes them only at a high level and is mainly
focused on the IT perspective, lacking some business
For each of the four perspectives, the BSC establishes a perspective that is given by EA.
three-layer structure:
The overarching objective of both COBIT and EA is value
1. Measures creation, and to ensure that the requirements for the governance
2. Targets of enterprise IT and EA are in place to achieve the enterprise’s
mission, goals, and objectives.
3. Initiatives
The EA will have a special application in the perspective of C. EFQM
internal business processes or even from the perspective of EFQM is a quality model developed by the European
organizational capacity. Foundation for Quality Management, a well-known institution
with about 500 partners around the globe [21].
The shortcomings of BSC lie in the fact that the proposed
management indicators, which must be aligned with the The main criteria used by the EFQM are:
prioritization of the strategy, are difficult to identify using only
the strategic plan [16]. • Leadership

The BSC technique is perfectly complemented with EA • Strategy

adding specific metrics to measure the objectives. The difficulty • People
to identify the management indicators will be overcome by using
the EA generated models as shown in Fig. 1. These generated • Partnerships and resources
models will serve as inputs when the definition of targets and
metrics is needed. • Processes, products, and services

In this case, EA is used as an input before the BSC systems • Customers results
are carried out. This does not mean that EA must go first. In an • People results
institution which is already using BSC, the indicators (metrics
and targets) can be adjusted and improved based on experience. • Society results
• Business results

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 EFQM’s objective is to “evaluate the process of an the reference quality levels or measurement of quality
organization towards excellence” and it is applicable to improvement.
institutions of any kind.
The criteria in which EA could have major participation are
people and processes. Processes because they are presented in
detail in the EA models and people as the agents that carry out
the processes. A clearly established EA can, without any doubt,
ease the processes of excellence achievement providing the
necessary holistic view of all the components of the enterprise.

D. ITIL
The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is
a set of detailed practices for IT service management that
focuses on aligning IT services with the needs of business [6].
ITIL describes processes, procedures, tasks, and checklists
which are not organization-specific or industry-specific [22].
ITIL has grown to be an industry standard (not a standard
itself), having thousands of practitioners. What differentiates
ITIL from the other tools reviewed is that ITIL has been created
to support IT services. Both EA and ITIL provide guidance for
design, but EA lays at an enterprise level and ITIL at a service
level.
Fig. 2. ITIL Service LifeCycle
ITIL defines a service as a mean of delivering value to
customers by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve
without the ownership of specific costs and risks. As ITIL IV. TOOLS INTEGRATION
centers itself on the services lifecycle, it can be considered as an
To establish how the studied tools, integrate and collaborate
iterative tool and focuses on the process maturity.
in the management of a business IT department, it is necessary
The ITIL Service Lifecycle is compound by five processes to perform a comparative analysis between the models. This
described in the following list: analysis is summed up in Table I.
• Service strategy: guidelines on how to design, develop A few studies have been carried out on how these tools can
and implement service management. work together or what are their comparable characteristics.
COBIT itself, in its introductory chapters, describes the relation
• Service design: guidelines on how to design within ITIL and the BSC [23].
appropriate and innovative IT services.
ITIL, COBIT, and EFQM can be valuable for IT service
• Service transition: guidelines on delivering services to management, governance of IT assets and quality management
meet current and future agreed business requirements. respectively. Organization managers should consider using ITIL
• Service operation: guidelines to coordinate and carry to define strategies, plan, and processes for the creation and
out process delivery and management. management of IT services. COBIT is necessary for establishing
metrics, benchmarks, and audits [24]. If implemented correctly,
• Continual service improvement: guidelines on how to both COBIT and ITIL provide the necessary framework of good
maintain the value of customers through the continual practices that enable an IT organization to clearly align itself
evaluation and improvement of the business services. with the goals of the business. Neither ITIL nor COBIT includes
a mechanism to evaluate the reference quality levels. Thus, we
ITIL divides these processes into “books”, which are suggest using EFQM to fulfill the quality management needs.
distributed as shown in Fig 2.
As shown in the gathered data, the main role of EA is to act
EA can participate mainly in the early stages of the service as a support tool for the definition of the current and future state
lifecycle. During the service strategy process, ITIL establishes of the organization. Every analyzed management tool can be
business requirements, which are provided by the EA models. supported by EA with valuable information of the status and
On the other hand, EA provides input as well as requires input characteristics of the organization.
from ITIL. It is a two-way dependence relationship.
Every enterprise seeks for efficiency and effectiveness by V. CONCLUSION
implementing value creation strategies. One of the suggested
strategies is the implementation of ITIL to ensure the best EA can successfully work with most of the existing
outcome possible in the service management process. One of the management tools and techniques available in the market these
shortages of ITIL is that it does not offer mechanisms to evaluate days. It is important to point out that governance boards must be
aware that, even though these practices are compatible and can
be integrated, they are used to tackle different organizational

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needs and therefore, in many cases they will work without an market. EA represents the foundations on which other practices
integration approach. can be designed and implemented. As expected, these
foundations must be clear to give the needed support making the
In this work, we have analyzed the main management tools management process smooth and straight-forward.
in depth to understand their outcomes and the role they play in
IT and business. Furthermore, we have studied the possibilities The tool which has major compatibility with EA is COBIT,
for integration and we have recommended the best alternatives as it explicitly makes use and provides a set of good practices
for using them together. for EA. Within the models and frameworks presented in the
analysis section, we have seen that EA is an indispensable
Before starting to use or merge the management tools, it is component for enterprise management and together with COBIT
necessary to perform a situational as-is analysis to have a clear can support directors on decision making and to align all the IT
picture of the functioning of the evaluated enterprise. This assets and endeavors to the strategic plan of the organization.
analysis is perfectly fulfilled by EA with the creation of models
that present a diagnosis of the enterprise objects and their We strongly suggest decision-makers to establish EA before
relations. making use of any of these frameworks and tools as it will lower
the costs and enhance the frameworks and good practices carried
In this work we have answered the research question. We out without any difficulty or blurry information.
have analyzed the role that EA plays as a management tool and
compared it to other techniques and frameworks existing in the

TABLE I. MANAGEMENT TOOLS COMPARISON

Tool Suggested perspectives Main focus Inputs Outputs

BSC 4 perspectives of analysis Strategic planning and Mission/vision/values Strategic initiatives
management
• Financial Metrics (supported by
EA)
• Customer
• Process
• Organizational capacity
COBIT 5 processes groups Covering the enterprise end-to-end Service capabilities Service capabilities
(identified in EA)
• Evaluate, direct and monitor (identified in EA)
• Align, plan and organize
• Build, acquire and implement
• Deliver, service and support
• Monitor, evaluate and asses
EFQM 5 quality evaluation criteria: Quality achievement Processes, products, and Business results
services (determined by
• Leadership EA)
• Policy and strategy
• People
• Partnership and resources
• Processes
ITIL 5 books (service lifecycle): Service management As an iterative process, one process’ outputs are
other’s input (carried out with support from EA)
• Services strategy
• Service design
• Service transition
• Service operation
• Continual service improvement

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