Enterprise Architecture as Capability: Strategic Application of Competencies to Govern Enterprise Transformation

Enterprise Architecture is increasingly seen as transcending enterprise-wide IT architecture. In its exalted conceptualization, EA provides the link between strategy and execution and is driven by strategic considerations such as business transformation and business agility. However, academic research on the topic is still relatively incipient. In particular, there is a gap in the literature as to what is EA's scope in terms of the organizational structure. In this paper, we define EA as strategic capability: it pertains to the strategic application of competencies to organize and utilize the organization-specific resources towards desired ends. Its "area of value ownership" is at the organizing level, linking between strategy and execution, and guiding the evolution of the operational core. Anything "lower" is mere design, while anything "higher" goes beyond a single organization's scope. This platform of competencies is essentially socio-technical and calls for enterprise engineering perspective with qualitatively different kind of disciplinary premises than information systems perspective, in which EA has its roots. Furthermore, we posit that EA as capability is required to properly govern business-driven, value-oriented enterprise transformation.