When is the last time your leadership team met to discuss your business processes? Are you looking for better solutions aligned to your organizational goals? Business Architecture is the blueprint of what your organization does and how you do it by focusing on the areas of strategy, governance, operational capabilities, organizational design, data, and metrics.
In our experience, many organizations start out with a strategy and business processes evolve over time organically. Then rapid growth happens resulting in inefficiencies and then companies turn to us because they see a lack of integrated solutions in place that are either underutilized, under-integrated, and/or costly. Many businesses are focused on their own house and are not specialists in strategy and growth. They don’t think ahead multiple years on what needs to evolve as their business evolves. An assessment by a Business Architect and roadmap drives out strategic changes resulting in enhanced operational efficiency.Â
When it comes to business strategy and operational excellence, business architecture plays a big role and we’re here to break that down:
Business Architecture Drives Operational Excellence
Business architecture plays a crucial role in driving operational excellence by optimizing processes for efficiency and accountability. Business Architecture supports strategic planning, governance, cultural alignment, and project delivery. A well-designed business architecture plan includes getting the right people on board to lead this initiative and should at least include a business architect to create the framework, and a CIO (or fractional CIO) for IT alignment to business goals. Together they will create a Business Process Design and ensure there is a Business Intelligence solution to transform data into actionable insights for data-driven decisions. A CIO will ensure that IT solutions are aligned with business goals for enhanced infrastructure and application strategies.
Operational Excellence emphasizes efficient execution over improvised approaches. Like in the scenario above, rapidly growing businesses can get caught up in a defensive mode by finding a solution to meet the immediate need, then moving on to the next solution, and the next; kind of like playing whack-a-mole. Instead, the best practice is to take a step back and dedicate the time needed to truly understand and identify the issues, create a plan, and then execute that plan.Â
Who Benefits from a Business Architect
Most businesses turn to a business architect while in the early planning stages. Doing this allows them to create a cohesive business strategy that ensures success from the moment they launch. An experienced business architect will look at the bigger picture, bring a fresh perspective, and create a framework to meet the business goals and overall strategy.Â
The business architect will look at your business’s current methods of operation and then sit down to manage and improve things in a way that allows all the various components of your business to flow together smoothly. The primary goal of the architect is to work closely with your team to create the best possible operating standards that will lead to total operational excellence.
While there’s no denying that a new start-up greatly benefits from the services of a business architect, established businesses can also experience highly lucrative growth. A business architect can help any business at any stage identify and correct operational and strategic issues that are hindering growth.
The primary duties of the business architect are:
- Helping to clarify and strengthen your business strategy
- Assessing your business’s capabilities
- Assessing your business’s current assets and determining the most effective way to utilize them
- Providing you and your team with a contextual view
- Helping you create a solid approach to complex business problems
- Measuring the effectiveness of your business strategy
- Identifying potential opportunities
The simple truth is that good business architects provide both new and established organizations with the perspectives and frameworks needed to help the business meet their business goals and obtain operational excellence.
Contact 5P Consulting Today!
At 5P Consulting, we hold tight to the belief that operational excellence is critical to helping your business evolve, optimize, and scale effectively. We are all about digital transformation and we help our clients achieve operational excellence through a variety of services that include:
- Business process design with our business value roadmap toolkit
- Information Management
- Fractional CIO through our Program ManagementÂ
- Business Intelligence solutions
- Data Integration solutions
Reach out to us today to get started with a complimentary consultation to see if we are a good fit!Â