Enterprise Architecture represents the fundamental organization of an enterprise embodied in its components, their relationships to each other, their relationships to the environment, and the principles guiding the enterprise’s design and evolution.
Public- and private-sector organizations use EA to increase the confidence level of executives when deciding on:
- The business case for strategic change
- Innovations in business strategy, operations, or supporting technology
- Changes to enterprise supply chains or delivery channels, including shared services, outsourcing, and offshoring
- The business value of investments in information and technology.
Enterprise architects use standardized models or “blueprints” to analyze the design of an enterprise to identify business improvement opportunities. They then create a “roadmap” of change projects that are traceable to the strategic intent of the business. Improvements might include innovations in products and services, organizational structure and business processes, the quality and timeliness of business information, or the contribution of its information technology.
EA is an emerging leading practice within governments and large corporations across the world. Governments at all levels in Canada and the US are building an enduring change capability by creating permanent EA programs. Most large financial services telecommunications, and manufacturing corporations in Canada have implemented or are currently implementing EA function.
In Canada, with the acquisition of Chartwell IRM Inc, KPMG’s EA Service is a leading authority on the implementation of enterprise architecture reference models in public sector transformation projects. KPMG’s enterprise architects authored the standard set of reference models used for transformation planning by all levels of government across Canada: Governments of Canada Strategic Reference Models (GSRM); Public Sector Reference Models (PSRM), which was adopted by the Ontario Public Service; and Municipal Reference Models (MRM), a suite of business and IT planning models adopted by numerous municipalities nationally.