In 2010, Gene Leganza introduced the inaugural winners of Forrester’s Enterprise Structure (EA) Awards with these phrases:
“Readers of this weblog are all more likely to agree that EA is vital, nevertheless it’s additionally true that EA groups wrestle for affect, laboring mightily within the shadows, out of the limelight … Properly, OK, we might not be capable to do loads concerning the struggling and laboring mightily, however we will definitely do one thing concerning the limelight … ”
Towards that finish, over the previous 14 years, we’ve acknowledged 66 EA Award winners, showcasing how accountable, agile, steady, influential, pragmatic, and precious EA practices drive organizational adaptivity, creativity, and resilience.
You’ll be able to see the complete year-by-year checklist of award winners on the finish of this weblog, however right here’s three tales from previous years that illustrate the kind of outcome-driven structure that we’re searching for. And in case you suppose your follow suits the invoice, submit an entry to the 2023 EA Awards, which shall be co-judged by Forrester and The Open Group (the writer of the TOGAF® Normal). The deadline for entries is Monday, June 19, 2023. To view full award nomination standards and submit your entry, go to right here (NA), right here (EMEA), or right here (APAC).
USAA (2011):
“Generally, an organization merely outgrows its structure. That’s what occurred at USAA, which has offered a full vary of economic companies together with banking, insurance coverage, retirement planning, funding companies, and recommendation to army professionals since 1922.
The EA staff at USAA shortly acknowledged that the required adjustments couldn’t be dealt with with a single architectural self-discipline, so it shaped a cross-discipline, cross-organization staff liable for enabling the enterprise to alter processes, strategies, and construction to align with broader member wants and newly out there applied sciences.
USAA branded this architectural strategy Unified Structure, a customer-centric strategy solely targeted on assembly the wants of its members. It supplies a single highway map, bringing collectively individuals, processes, expertise, and data, slightly than stand-alone course of design and IT roadmaps. The strategy represents all architectural disciplines, together with enterprise structure, info structure, IT structure, change administration, and organizational design. The main focus is on delivering enterprise design processes and strategies versus fashions and requirements.
Essentially the most troublesome problem has been serving to the group, significantly its enterprise companions, to acknowledge the worth of the strategy. As one member mentioned, ‘Few organizations are prepared to simply accept a unified structure. It’s a protracted highway to teach the gamers, and it must be achieved by grassroots efforts, discovering champions, and displaying success by pilot tasks that ship worth.’
The worth of Unified Structure is realized in value financial savings, value avoidance, discount in enterprise threat, elevated capabilities, lowered complexity of the enterprise mannequin, and elevated confidence in enterprise designs — and it has already yielded success. Early identification of widespread enterprise capabilities enabled mission sponsors to see potential redundancies throughout organizational models. In a single latest engagement, the UA staff helped cut back program labor prices by greater than 1 / 4 of one million {dollars}.”
South State Financial institution (2016):
“The biggest financial institution headquartered in South Carolina, South State Financial institution is an $8 billion monetary establishment targeted on retail banking, business banking, loans, and wealth administration. Like most banks, it has skilled altering buyer conduct and confronted growing competitors, together with from fintech startups.
To handle the altering panorama — and to maintain up with bigger banks and their bigger budgets — an EA program was established to assist South State Financial institution adapt. The purpose of the EA group was not solely to assist the financial institution put together for digital transformation however to additionally act as a catalyst for change.
‘Agile’ EA would appear counterintuitive, on condition that EA sometimes units requirements and follows a ritualistic strategy derived from EA frameworks. South State Financial institution, nevertheless, has tailor-made the TOGAF framework to suit its Kaizen strategy. This has enabled steady architectural enhancements to drive particular enterprise outcomes whereas eliminating the overhead of many EA formalities.
The structure staff serves the financial institution as a complete — as part of mission groups or in participating with leaders of enterprise divisions. Architectures and transitions are designed shortly utilizing EA instruments to provide numerous collateral that may be consumed by architects and nonarchitects alike. Working hand in hand with enterprise expertise specialists, the financial institution has efficiently reduce typical time to market in half.
In the end, the success of EA is outlined by anticipated enterprise outcomes throughout quite a lot of initiatives. At South State Financial institution, these included the profitable launch of on-line mortgage purposes, which took solely three months; a four-month overhaul of the financial institution’s enterprise imaging system, which concerned a redesign of the structure and exterior interfaces from the bottom up; and a newly designed platform for the financial institution’s mortgage processing system.
The EA staff considers its largest success to be a buy-in from IT and non-IT of us alike, due to a profitable observe file of delivering change. The structure portal is used extensively throughout numerous traces, from strategic decision-makers to software assist specialists. The EA staff is now a trusted useful resource for almost all of initiatives on the financial institution.”
A.S. Watson (2022, APAC):
“A.S. Watson Group is the world’s largest worldwide well being and wonder retailer, with presence in Europe, Asia, and the Center East, serving over 5.3 billion clients yearly. In 2021, the corporate introduced an formidable, customer-obsessed O+O (offline plus on-line) platform technique, with the purpose of delivering seamless buyer expertise (CX) throughout 16,300-plus bodily touchpoints, a 130,000-strong customer support workforce, 120-plus e-commerce platforms, and a base of 142 million loyalty members.
Key EA initiatives embrace creating a bunch IT individuals technique, known as 6T (belief, expertise, coaching, teamwork, transparency, and thanksgiving); performing hole evaluation for tech abilities and IT capabilities; and breaking down the worth levers and mapping them into actionable workstreams. The staff’s efficient supply manners linked up deliveries with enterprise KPIs, such because the affect of common basket worth (ABV), conversion price, or excellent order share. The profitable completion of those initiatives entailed the IT staff constitution altering from positioining as enterprise enablers to strategic enterprise drivers.
A.S. Watson’s EA staff confirmed adaptivity with expertise groups near enterprise stakeholders and the power to evangelize self-service as a core working precept. A composable structure constructed upon APIs, reflecting the agency’s enterprise capabilities, encourages builders to be artistic when optimizing CX, whereas a worldwide structure board ensures that IT initiatives align with the architectural targets.
The A.S. Watson EA staff as professionals are trusted companions who affect and align enterprise and expertise to long-term options whereas permitting groups the autonomy to determine implementation particulars. ‘Simply sufficient’ EA follow identifies boundaries, determines answer readiness, and evaluates upkeep overhead.
Particular consequence examples embrace the discount of failed orders attributable to incorrect stock. Following the structure transformation, a listing enterprise service out there by way of API changed legacy siloed techniques and point-to-point batch file integration resulting in inaccurate inventory info. E-commerce websites and retailer digital touchpoints now use this API for inventory queries to make sure information consistency.”
If you wish to be taught extra about A.S. Watson’s story, try this report: Case Research: A.S. Watson Leads With An Outcomes-Pushed Enterprise Structure Apply (consumer entry solely).
Enterprise Structure Award Winners:
2010: Aetna, Barclays Financial institution, Uncover Monetary Providers, Skandia UK & Worldwide, Wells Fargo
2011: American Categorical, Bayer Healthcare, First Knowledge, Procter & Gamble, Singapore Ministry of Schooling, USAA
2012: Nationwide Grid, Northwestern Mutual, Sberbank, Scottish Widows Funding Partnership, Telstra International
2013: Cisco, Mastercard, Nationwide Financial institution of Abu Dhabi, Verizon, Yum Manufacturers
2014: Allstate Insurance coverage, Australia Publish, Dell, Dubai Customs Home, Molina Healthcare, State Farm Insurance coverage Corporations
2015: British Gasoline, Capital One, Idaho Nationwide Lab, Nationwide Grid, Tata Communications Ltd.
2016: Aetna, Cummins, Humana, MassMutual, South State Financial institution
2017: ABN AMRO, Nationwide Financial institution of Abu Dhabi, RasGas, World Financial institution Group, XL Catlin
2018: Asurion, CIBC, Sberbank Group, Verizon, Vodafone
2019: Arizona Public Service, Metropolis of Antwerp, Ford Motor Firm, Mars, Verizon
2020: CSL Behring, Lexmark, Sunlife, Thomas Jefferson College and Jefferson Well being, Verizon Communications
2021: Financial institution of America, Nation Monetary, Deutsche Telekom, Vale, VTB of Russia
2022: Blue Cross/Blue Protect of North Carolina (NA), Michelin (EMEA), Normal Financial institution (EMEA), A.S. Watson (APAC)
