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Enterprise Architecture As Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution Kindle Edition

by Jeanne W. Ross (Author), Peter Weill (Author), David Robertson (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 407 ratings
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Does it seem you’ve formulated a rock-solid strategy, yet your firm still can’t get ahead? If so, construct a solid foundation for business execution—an IT infrastructure and digitized business processes to automate your company’s core capabilities. In Enterprise Architecture as Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution, authors Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, and David C. Robertson show you how.

The key? Make tough decisions about which processes you must execute well, then implement the IT systems needed to digitize those processes. Citing numerous companies worldwide, the authors show how constructing the right enterprise architecture enhances profitability and time to market, improves strategy execution, and even lowers IT costs. Though clear, engaging explanation, they demonstrate how to define your operating model—your vision of how your firm will survive and grow—and implement it through your enterprise architecture. Their counterintuitive but vital message: when it comes to executing your strategy, your enterprise architecture may matter far more than your strategy itself.
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  1. Print length
    272 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Harvard Business Review Press
  5. Publication date
    August 8, 2006
  6. File size
    4562 KB
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Peter Weill is Director at the Center for Information Systems Research, MIT Sloan School of Management. He lives in Cambridge, MA.

David C. Robertson is Professor if Technology and Strategy at IMD International.

Jeanne W. Ross is Principal Research Scientist, MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004OC07EE
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard Business Review Press (August 8, 2006)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 8, 2006
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4562 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 407 ratings

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  1. Peter Weill

    Peter Weill

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    Peter D. Weill is the Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Chairman Emeritus of the MIT Center for Information Systems Research (CISR). His work centers on the role, value, and governance of digitization in enterprises and their ecosystems. Ziff Davis recognized Weill as No. 24 of The Top 100 Most Influential People in IT, the highest-ranked academic. His writing and research has appeared in Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, and the Wall Street Journal.

    He is a passionate researcher and an engaging speaker, working on digitization issues with executive committees and boards of more than 50 companies globally. Peter has coauthored ten books including: Future Ready: The Four Pathways to Capturing Digital Value, What's Your Digital Business Model? Six Questions to Help You Build The Next-Generation Enterprise, IT Savvy, Enterprise Architecture as Strategy, and IT Governance – all published by Harvard Business Review Press.

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  2. David Robertson

    David Robertson

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    David Robertson is a Professor of Practice at the Wharton School where he teaches Innovation and Product Development in Wharton's undergraduate, MBA, and executive education programs. From 2002 through 2010, Robertson was on the faculty at Switzerland's Institute for Management Development (IMD), which received the #1 worldwide ranking by the Financial Times for its executive education programs. At IMD he held the title of the LEGO Professor of Innovation and Technology Management, and was Program Director for IMD's largest program, the Program for Executive Development.

    Robertson is the author of The Power of Little Ideas: A Low-Risk, High-Reward Approach to Innovation and Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry. Robertson was co-author, with Jeanne Ross and Peter Weill, of Enterprise Architecture as Strategy. He has published in Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, and many other journals. Robertson has consulted and led educational programs for a wide range of companies, including EMC, Credit Suisse, HSBC, Georg Fischer, Braskem, Banco Santander, Skanska, Swisscom, Russell Investments, Novozymes, GMAC, Grundfos, BT, Microsoft, Heineken, Philip Morris, Globe Telecom, Tieto Enator, and AXA.

    Prior to IMD, Robertson was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, a consultant at McKinsey & Company for 5 years, and an executive at four enterprise software companies. David received his MBA and PhD from MIT and BS from the University of Illinois.

    To learn more about David Robertson visit: http://www.robertsoninnovation.com/

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  3. David Robertson

    David Robertson

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  4. Jeanne W. Ross

    Jeanne W. Ross

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    Jeanne Ross is a principal research scientist at MIT's Center for Information Systems Research. She enjoys lively debate about her research findings.

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
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407 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Joseph N. Starwood
5.0 out of 5 stars A Compelling Case for Enterprise Architecture Now!
Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2010
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"Enterprise Architecture As Strategy: Creating a foundation for business execution" presents a compelling case for adopting, advancing, and maturing Enterprise Architecture as a key component in the business strategy. This tightly-written book provides actionable guidance without being overly prescriptive. Jeanne Ross, Peter Weil, and David Roberson base their guidance on extensive business research, academic study, and statistical analysis of real-world business results. The authors illustrate their findings through readable business case studies that business professionals will appreciate.
The authors make a clear case that companies adopting enterprise architecture to build their foundation for business execution can achieve stellar results, and avoid the undesirable consequence of agility-favoring natural selection in the marketplace. They provide a concise and understandable framework for building the foundation for business execution, and remind us to apply patience and provide support while we build architecture maturity and learn from each step in the framework.
The authors set the high-watermark for enterprise architecture books. They reveal how enterprise architecture is at the nexus of business and technology, and how it can and should be used to align IT with the business operating model. This alignment builds synergy throughout the organization. Though not said in as many words, the point is clearly made that even professionals in the IT department must consider themselves as business professionals first and foremost. They are business professionals who know and apply information technology to enable business capabilities.
I highly recommend this book.
__Joseph Starwood
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Erik Gfesser
4.0 out of 5 stars Enterprise architecture insights from more than 200 companies
Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2008
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In much the same way that the classic "The Mythical Man Month" by Frederick P. Brooks (see my review) has repeatedly been sighted across two decades by numerous publications, this work by Ross, Weill, and Robertson has been referenced so many times in industry periodicals over the last couple years that it needs to be read at least once by everyone in the business world involved in this space. A cursory review of the texts currently available on enterprise architecture shows quite simply that this subject is still rather new. And experience has shown that the topic of enterprise architecture itself can at times cause confusion, misunderstanding, and even divisiveness within a firm, with reasons ranging from difficulty of definition to business or IT politics. The authors of this book tackle the subject well, and provide many examples throughout the discussion. In fact, the quantity of text associated with examples far outweighs the overall discussion in a majority of the chapters. Given that the reader audience here is primarily the executive, and especially executives who are unfamiliar with enterprise architecture, it makes sense that this is the case, but for readers who are already rather familiar with enterprise architecture strategy the heavy weight toward examples can be a bit much. Unlike some of the other books available on this subject, the tables and figures dispersed throughout are presented very simply so that anyone following the text can grasp their meaning, although occasionally these are reminiscent of what one might find in Computerworld magazine (especially those involving surveys of CIOs, where the survey sample is very low, leading one to wonder whether the implications drawn truly reflect the industry). According to the authors, this book is "a call to action for those companies that have not yet started on this journey [building a foundation for execution] and a handbook for those who are in the midst of building their foundation", and the following main steps are discussed: defining an operating model, designing and implementing an enterprise architecture, and adopting an IT engagement model. The discussion of the first step is a strong area of the book, in which diversification, coordination, replication, and unification are presented to help the reader decide in which quadrant their company or business unit belongs. According to the authors, assessing one's business in this manner is important since these operating models position companies for different types of growth. In the mind of this reviewer, another strength of this book is a discussion on the stages of enterprise architecture maturity: business silos, standardized technology, optimized core, and business modularity. While the engagement model and level of enterprise architecture maturity can and should evolve in many cases to achieve corporate success, the authors stress that stages should not be skipped due to the high risk involved with such a strategy. The third strength of this book is the discussion on benefits of enterprise architecture. Successful implementation of each stage of an enterprise architecture, the authors demonstrate, generates new or expanded technology and business benefits: reduced IT costs, increased IT responsiveness, improved risk management, increased management satisfaction, and enhanced strategic business outcomes. One of the best quotes included in "Enterprise Architecture as Strategy" is the following, by Doreen Wright, the first corporate CIO of Campbell Soup Co.: "Looking at the IT function is like having the company look at itself in the mirror: Whatever's wrong with the company will show up in the IT function." Another, by Albert Einstein, might already be familiar to you: "The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them." One premise behind enterprise architecture is that business and IT need to work together, and the ability of this book to drive home this concept is what makes it required reading.
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JustSomeDude
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for your CXO
Reviewed in the United States on November 2, 2006
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This book should be on the reading list for CXOs of all types unless your business is untouched by technology. This is a must read for both IT & business folks alike.

The issues discussed in this book resonate strongly with the daily grind at my company. Add to that the fact that this is based on some thorough research from Harvard lends a lot more credibility to this book & I do not hesitate in recommending it to my non technical peers.

It provides a good frame of reference to help you understand the different organizational / IT ecosystems & what sort of characteristics differentiate them. Something to remember before embarking on any enterprise architecture strategy.

It then follows with real life case studies / examples of various such scenarios. I really like the fact that this book is written in a very matter of fact way without the hype that is driving the Enterprise Architects of today insane.

I did reflect a lot upon everything it talks about & also found the core diagrams that it mentions (I think chapter 2/3) really useful. They have served as great discussion starters with business for Tech/Business alignment.

IMO, this book is like a good single grain malt, one that you want to sip very slowly & savor.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Mohammed Abdulla
5.0 out of 5 stars Very Good Book
Reviewed in India on January 9, 2023
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The quality of the book(Both paper and printing) is good and the content is valuable.
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Anderson Santos
5.0 out of 5 stars Leitura obrigatória para entender o cenário atual da transformação digital
Reviewed in Brazil on November 1, 2019
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Um clássicos, se você ainda não leu não entenderá porque para algumas empresas a transformação digital parece algo simples e natural.
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Jose Luis Soria-Ibañez
4.0 out of 5 stars Buena compra
Reviewed in Spain on September 21, 2020
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Libro en muy buenas condiciones, prácticamente nuevo. Algunas páginas subrayadas que no estaban indicadas en la descripción del artículo, aunque no afecta a su lectura.
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Cliente de Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Great reading about Enterprise Architecture!
Reviewed in Mexico on February 13, 2018
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This book gives you great guidelines to begin your journey with Enterprise Architecture. A must-read for every Enterprise Architect! Very good examples of successful enterprises applying EA fundamentals.
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Prakash Krishnamoorthy
1.0 out of 5 stars Lousy
Reviewed in Singapore on August 29, 2020
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Lousy
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