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The “Enterprise” is an entity that is formed to serve a purpose of value to society via visions, goals, and strategies. Let us review a few forms of an Enterprise. 

•  Federal, state and local government agencies
•  Non-profit organizations
•  Business companies 

All of the above-mentioned enterprises share something in common; they all have internal components that govern and guide operations. These components [must] be constantly improved to maintain and enhance the life of an “Enterprise.” 

The three “primary” components that govern and guide operations of the Enterprise are: 

• Enterprise Architecture Plan (EAP)
• Enterprise\Business Process Management (EPM or BPM)
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) 

Enterprise Architecture Plan 

The Enterprise Architecture Plan (EAP) is derived from the vision, goals, and strategies of its creators. The EAP will present the five W’s and the How of Enterprise Architecture. The following are the five W’s and the How. 

• The What of the Enterprise (Data)
• The Where of the Enterprise (Network)
• The Who of the Enterprise (Organization)
• The When of the Enterprise (Schedule)
• The Why  of the Enterprise (Strategy)
• The How  of the Enterprise (Function) 

Enterprise Architectural Principles 

The specifics of enterprise architectural principles will depend on the vertical market the Enterprise is in, the long-term strategy of the Enterprise (to-be), and the short-term imperative goals of the Enterprise (as-is). The following is by no means an exhaustive list of specifics to the architectural principles. This short list is the core elements of the architectural principles. 

The EAP should encompass some, of if not all, of these enterprise architectural principles: 

1. 1. Organization-enabling
2. 2. Value-enabling
3. 3. Brand-name advancing
4. 4. Market-share expanding
5. 5. Processes-simplifying
6. 6. Processes-minimizing
7. 7. Optimized-continually
8. 8. Customer-centric
9. 8. Scalable
10. 10. Reconfigurable 

These principles along with the five W’s and the How will lay the foundation to the construction of the Enterprise. 

Enterprise\Business Process Management

The flow of tasks, objectives, events, and transactions through the Enterprise is governed, managed, and implemented by processes. Theses processes have to be governed and management in a way that all tasks, objectives, events, and transactions flow efficiently within and outside of the Enterprise to accomplish the set goals and strategies. 

Process management in its simplest form is defined as tasks and or events that receive stimulus inputs that in turn produces a predetermined outputs (even in the case of exceptions). 

This is accomplished by and through human and technology process interactions. 

Let us use the case of an admittance or discharge to the hospital from the emergency room. 

One may feel ill enough to go to the emergency care at the local hospital. Once the person enters the doors of the ER and the receptionist greets the person, two essential processes are initiated into action. 

They are: 

• Collect information about the illness (human-centric)
• Collect information about the patient (human-centric) 

The collected information is then pushed to a database (technology-centric) for use by other processes associated to the emergency protocol. Based upon the illness or symptoms of the patient, the next [technology-centric] process will determine which doctor to summon to the assigned examination room (human-centric and or technology-centric). The doctor will then interact with the patient to determine, which course of action to take which will lead to an admittance process or discharge process. Now this is a very short and simple snapshot of actions taken for someone who may visit the emergency room but I trust you have the gist of have these processes interact for this given case. 

Therefore, you can see how Enterprise\Business Process Management is the heart of the Enterprise functionality. Processes MUST be well defined and optimized to provide best performance for an organization. This in turn will grant the enterprise agility and increase successfulness of the desired goals and strategies. 

Customer Relationship Management 

As the BPM provides functionality to the Enterprise, the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) methodology provides life to the Enterprise. Most enterprises operate in a product service-centric manner, which means they created product(s) and or service(s) without the thought of the customer in conducting business. 

A product service-centric enterprise is destined to demise for lack of customer integration. Here is a great quote that all members of Top management should hang on the wall:         

“Businesses are not paid to reform customers. They are paid to satisfy customers.” 

-Peter Drucker 

A CRM solution allows the enterprise to transform into a “customer-centric” entity. CRM in its general definition is; processes and methodologies which an enterprise uses to communicate, track, and organize its interactions with its current and prospective customers. 

A well-implemented CRM solution will provide a ROI of increased customer loyalty and continuous growth of new customers. 

In Summary 

We have learned that the Enterprise is an entity that is formed to serve a purpose via visions, goals, and strategies. An Enterprise Architecture Plan (EAP) is then created from theses visions, goals, and strategies. The EAP will capture and present the What, Where, Who, When, Why, and How of the Enterprise. 

Processes within an Enterprise are controlled through Enterprise\Business Process Management methodologies.  Processes are all tasks, objectives, events, and transactions that flow within and outside of the Enterprise. Process management in its simplest form is defined as tasks and events that receive stimulus inputs that in turn produces a predetermined outputs (even in the case of exceptions). 

The Customer Relationship Management methodology is the bridge that connects the Enterprise to the customer and the customer to the Enterprise. A CRM solution allows the Enterprise to transform into a “customer-centric” entity. CRM in its general definition is; processes and methodologies an Enterprise uses to communicate, track, and organize its interactions with its current and prospective customers.  

Contact dotNet Framework Solutions for an evaluation of your enterprise! 

Stepping back from the current concerns with enterprise architectures, it is only fair to say that the IT people really began what has evolved into the current interest in architectures of all kinds. The earliest systematic use of the term “architecture” that is known of was in an article written by John Zachman, an IBM researcher, that appeared in the IBM Journal in 1987. The article was entitled, “A Framework for Information Systems Architecture,” and described how one could apply the concepts that building architects used to arrive at a number of perspectives that would help software engineers understand their own constructs.

A key idea was that an overall architecture was made up of a number of other architectures (LOBs) that were focused on different, specific areas of concern. Thus, the building architect created one diagram that he or she showed to the prospective buyers to give them an overview of what the finished product would look like.

Another blueprint was more detailed and described the rooms (using the analogy of building a house) within the structure, showing where the doors and windows would be, and so forth. Still more detailed views were created for the people who would actually build the infrastructure, while others were created for electricians, plumbers, and those who would finish the interior.

Zachman created a matrix that has six rows and three columns.

· The top row describes the Scope or overall context and is concerned with things a planner might consider.

· The second row describes a Business Model and is focused on things that might concern a business manager.

· The third row is focused on the System Model and is concerned with the logical elements that might interest a software designer.

The original Zachman framework was focused on Data, Functions, and Networks, and was properly identified as an “Information Systems Architecture.” In the past decade, Zachman has continued to expand his matrix. He has added three columns, People, Time, and Motivation, and has started calling it an Enterprise Architecture.

IT folks have a long tradition of using the term enterprise to refer to company-wide systems. Thus, Enterprise Applications originally referred to systems like accounting, payroll, and bookkeeping that were run on mainframes, maintained in central locations, and used to maintain a company’s accounts and generate all the paychecks.

Similarly, large companies have used layered diagrams to represent how their products can be arranged into a comprehensive IT solution, and, in the past few years, they have frequently referred to these comprehensive collections of products as an architecture.

If you view the Zachman framework, you’ll see that some of the cells within the matrix are described as architectures.

There are Application Architectures, Data Architectures, Human Interface Architectures and Network Architectures, among others. By the time Zachman completed the first version of this framework, he was convinced that he had identified all of the kinds of data that a company needed to keep track of, and, thus, the framework describes a kind of architecture of architectures. At the same time, the term “enterprise architecture” had become popular as a way of talking about all of architectures a company might need, and thus, the latest version of Zachman’s Framework has been termed an Enterprise Architecture.

Some would argue that Zachman’s Framework provides a comprehensive description equivalent to our use of the term Process-Centric Enterprise Architecture. A quick examination of the Zachman Framework, however, will suggest that business processes are not central to Zachman’s conception.

There is a lot of interest currently in the Zachman Framework. Some companies claim to use the Framework to organize their corporate data, and it is often cited as an example of an enterprise architecture. We well review other Enterprise Architectures in later writing.

Visit dotNet Framework Solutions for more information.