Case Study: Toyota Europe, Campbell Soup Company, Sony Pictures

Case Study: Toyota Europe, Campbell Soup Company, Sony Pictures, and W.W Grainger: Making the Case for Enterprise Architects

What is the value derived from companies with mature enterprise architectures? Are there any downsides that you can see? Discuss.

There are many values that can be derive from companies with mature enterprise architecture. For example, mature companies have a shared knowledge opportunity compared to a non-mature organization. The people working in the organization can take advantage of the knowledge already acquired by other senior members. Different departments of such organization have efficient collaboration with each other. Due to better collaboration, the administrative redundancy can be kept to a minimum. Mature organizations can develop uniform standards that can easily be followed by its human resource because of the uniformity.

There are also some disadvantages of companies with mature enterprise. For example, such organizations may be slower to react the challenges that are posed to them by their competitors. Operations of mature organization might become flexible which consequently adds to an increase cost of acquiring new business units. In short, maturity might be a cause of slowing down an adaptation to changes in the business environment.

Answer 2

Companies with mature enterprise architectures tend to be efficient and effective companies that enable customers to realize major value in the business and practices. The value in enterprise architecture is that it focuses on evolving information systems and developing new systems that enhance the value. If implemented effectively, they can assist in improving the interdependencies and interrelationships among the organization business and using IT to support these operations. Possible downsides could be issues with cost overruns and dealing with marketplace pressures. These issues would cause a lack of improvement to the company. If enterprise architectures do not create an effective blueprint, the company can possibly have unexpected expenses for unseen circumstances. The enterprise architects are supposed to make sure this does not happen, however, there is plenty of room for error. Also, the marketplace is always changing, if the enterprise architects follow the trends instead of doing what is best for the company can contribute to further issues.