A "customer-intimate" style of architecture can be defined at both the business and IT level. A financial services company, for instance, that was pursuing a customer intimacy strategy would base its architecture on a generic style for that purpose, recognizably similar to the architectures used by other companies targeting the same value discipline. But it would then add in ideas and capabilities of its own, reinforcing its strengths and differentiation through its distinctive business model, business processes and IT infrastructure. The resulting business architecture will set the rules as to how the business and IT functions are not only put together, but also how they are interrelated.

Creating business architecture this way will not be an easy step for most companies. It will take time to move on from the old ways of doing it. But a phased approach can usually be taken, depending on the extent to which the business depends on its IT systems and on the rate of change that characterizes its markets.

The business process changes needed to support the switch to a unified business architecture will take time and effort and may incur considerable costs. Only those companies where the issue is most pressing should start to do it immediately. For other businesses, a more gradual and orderly transition can be considered, based on principles of natural wastage and cyclical replacements. Realigning the way this vital planning is done over a period of two to four years will be quite challenging enough for most companies.

Predictions

For most businesses, enterprise architecture will remain a back-office function until at least 2005. Business ability will be restricted because many companies simply cannot codify and plan the evolution of their own business models. Even where this is not a problem, the idea of simply handing over specifications for new functionality after all the planning is finished is a deeply ingrained habit.

Enterprise architecture will shift from being an IT concept to be a combined business and IT function - the business architecture. The interdependency between the two disciplines means that only a holistic view can avoid delays and misunderstandings.

Leading companies will appoint a board-level executive to provide an overall business architecture. Where industries are changing rapidly, events have already forced some companies to take steps to improve the alignment between business needs and IT architectures.

Recommendations

Create a business architecture linking all aspects of the business model with the enterprise architecture. Strategic planners should use scenarios linked to the value discipline pursued by the organization to identify the generic architecture style.

Appoint a board-level sponsor responsible for ensuring business architecture objectives are defined and met. This role will not be to provide cost and contract oversight but to define, codify, evolve and review the business architecture for the company. If the strategic planning function exists, the new post should reside in that department.

Make the CIO and the chief technology officer understand that they no longer own the enterprise architecture. They should be aiming to deliver the IT elements needed to satisfy the larger business architecture.

Alexander Drobik is a Gartner analyst