Successful organizations have acknowledged and capitalized on the role of information technology (IT) as an enabler for enterprise-wide transformation. But transformation requires a vision, a framework, a blueprint to guide the integration of business planning, business operations, automation, and the technological infrastructure. This is the role of the Enterprise Architecture (EA).
EA is the master plan that describes—from a business perspective as well as from a technology perspective—how an organization operates today, how it intends to operate in the future, and how it intends to invest in technology to transition to this future state. As prepared by Dante, the EA blueprint provides a common, shared vision for the business stakeholders and the IT professionals, greatly increasing their ability to make informed decisions about the implications of today´s IT investments on tomorrow´s business.
The scope of the EA engagement will dictate delivery of one or more of the following services:
Strategy
Today, people can access, create, analyze, and exchange information in ways that, until recently, were unimaginable. That is why it is increasingly important that your IT strategy is aligned with your business strategy.
Loyalty to a particular technology or vendor may make it difficult to adapt to a better way of doing things. That is why Dante offers vendor-independent, technology-neutral Strategy Services. We can help in the development or revision of your plan to prioritize needs, allocate resources, and develop or expand services.
A strategy engagement begins with our team of experts gaining an understanding of the client's business-led IT/IS strategic planning processes, followed by a review of the technical infrastructure. This equates to grasping the business drivers and implications of technology change - for example, business goals, timeframes, current problems, future direction, and compliance with government regulations.
Application Portfolio Roadmap
Constant demands for new and improved applications must be evaluated and prioritized in relation to ongoing projects and the availability of resources. To help manage this process, Dante offers its Application Portfolio Roadmap Service, also referred to as Project Portfolio Management or PPM.
Dante´s objective of Application Portfolio is to align projects, funds, and IT resources with organizational priorities. The process helps you maintain control of your IT projects and deliver meaningful value to the organization.
Portfolio Management begins with Dante specialists gathering a detailed inventory of all the projects in your organization. Dante then organizes your projects into a single portfolio, documenting the status, objectives, costs, schedules, resources, risks, and other factors for each project.
Dante´s approach allows you to manage your IT assets like a financial portfolio; riskier strategic investments can be mixed with more tactical investments. A regular review of your portfolio will help immeasurably in reallocating resources to produce the optimal ROI.
Dante also provides a roadmap which is based on the business processes, data, and application models. In a non-biased manner, business drivers are linked to essential technology changes, and the impact of those changes on the system is highlighted. Overall, the roadmap provides detailed insight and recommendations by comparing the current status of the Application Portfolio to where it needs to be in the future.
Vendor Selection
When you select Dante to evaluate and recommend a vendor, we will not give you vague attribute criteria like "best-of-breed" or "preferred vendor". Instead, our assessments will focus on whether a technology will:
- Yield desired business benefits
- Integrate with existing systems across the enterprise
- Align with the short- and long-term corporate vision and strategy
Some of the typical measures used for assessing vendors are:
- Functionality - the ability of the technology to meet functional business needs
- Flexibility - the ability of the solution to adapt to evolving business requirements
- Technical Architecture - the soundness of the foundation on which the solution is built
- Integration - the ability to integrate the solution with other enterprise systems
- Operations - the manageability, performance, and security of the solution in a production environment
- Cost - the total cost of ownership (TCO), including "build vs. buy" evaluations
The result is a weighted, objective assessment that makes clear the implications of choosing one vendor over another.
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