2016 was a big year, and you would have had to have been living under a rock not to have heard the phrase 'Business Transformation' used at least one a week. But now we're in 2017, with a new year, new resolutions and new attitudes! Does that mean we can breathe a sigh of relief at the death of yet another buzz phrase?
Of course not! And we shouldn't want it to. Business Transformation is about making changes to your business. The word “transformation” implies massive, radical or innovative change – but in many cases business transformation is simply about the business responding to opportunities or threats of current trends and technologies. It’s also usually linked to strategy, as most people talking about business transformation also talk about aligning changes to visions and goals.
So why is Business Transformation different from any other buzz phrase that has grabbed the limelight in popular business discussions?
It’s a phrase that seems to have been widely adopted. It’s not just an IT fad, or a business fashion, or a management con. With stakeholders from management, operations and infrastructure all talking about BT, there’s a greater chance that it will make a difference. Enterprise Architects have been dreaming about getting this level and width of commitment for decades!
Business Transformation is also becoming a popular phrase at a time when there is actually a lot of transformation happening to business. And take note of that - the transformation is happening to businesses, rather than it being the businesses that are planning the changes. In other words, it is not so much businesses that are transforming; it is more that they are having to respond to transformations that are going on around them.
Which brings us to the third point – which is that we seem to have reached a tipping point in enterprise architecture. For a long time, architects have talked about architecting intangible, virtual, conceptual, or digital components but these components have also been quite invisible. Now by their very nature, a lot of EA components (such as software, services, capabilities, processes, data) are intangible and unseen. But the work of enterprise architects has often been regarded as being solely within IT. However, we are now at a point in history where digital and conceptual components are becoming common place throughout our lives.
So here is the exciting part about Business Transformation from an Enterprise Architecture perspective – the Business Transformation movement is, potentially, the time when management and business leaders really get to understand what enterprise architecture is all about!
So why would you want to dismiss it as just another buzz phrase getting in your way?
Still not convinced? Delve more into business transformation in our eBook, or start driving your own transformation with this free Business Capability Model Visio Template and Stencil.