| | MAY 201919CIOReviewTRANSFORMING BUSINESS THROUGH EA By Chad Neal, Chief Enterprise Architect, Mount Sinai Health SystemWhile the ecosystem has changed, and the approaches are refined, EA is still staying true to its core mission of helping create business value with technology. IT has been a shifting landscape since its birth decades ago. Its history is punctuated by cycles of refinement of a single core principle. Data is a valuable resource. The growth of IT and its ever-increasing prevalence, ironically, has been marked by a path littered with obsolete technologies old ideas are addressed in ever new and better ways. EA has followed suit in lockstep. The core principle remains the same, drive value from IT, but the approach and the ecosystem have changed. EA has shifted from supporting foundational IT projects and service architecture to leveraging emerging technology to support business strategy and transformation. Of course, it's never that clean in reality, and EA is best practiced as a custom tailored program that takes into consideration industry specifics and organizational maturity and culture. One size EA does not fit all and platonic EA based on stodgy frameworks and views of the universe detached from the realities of the current organizational context are always reviled as irrelevant ivory tower programs that create little or no value. As a matter of my practical reality, my current EA program is divided into four key focal areas. First, EA establishes core principles to support foundational IT service delivery. Beyond ITIL based best practices, EA helps drive reduced complexity, reduced cost, and increased service quality. Emerging technology plays a role here too as we move to virtualized cloud-based infrastructure capabilities and away from legacy data centers and on-premise infrastructure. These difficult transitions, while inevitable, need to be navigated carefully and EA can help plot a course that is right for the IT organization and its level of maturity and culture. Secondly, EA leverages foundational capabilities and emerging technologies to improve business processes and support business strategy. This is really where the business begins to see the value of IT. Foundational capabilities are taken for granted like plumbing or electricity....it's only noticed when it's absent. When IT leverages something like robotic process automation (RPA) to create a set of automation services for the business, the impact and value are obvious. We move from the background to the foreground when we leverage technology to improve or achieve business outcomes. Thirdly, EA focuses on supporting business strategy and transformation. Emerging technology plays heavily in this area where IT leverages new capabilities like AI and advanced analytics (ML, DL, etc.) to transform the business. In healthcare, where I've spent much of my career as an Chad Neal
< Page 9 | Page 11 >