The Added Value of Enterprise Architecture

Abstract

Applying architecture implies that it provides added value across an enterprise. Although widely adopted, this claim has only been scarcely investigated, not to mention quantified. This document describes the results of a case study to quantify the effects of applying Enterprise Architecture within a financial institution called FinCom. For confidential information reasons, the name of this company is fictive. The thesis attempts to capture several factors at project level with respect to the application of Enterprise Architecture and its subsequent financial benefits. The study analyzed 40 projects, with regard to time and budget overrun. In order to collect these data, a total of 35 business, enterprise and domain architects were interviewed on their experience with these projects. Among factors taken into account were architecture type, project compliance to architecture and experience of the architect. Consequently, these factors are recorded in hypotheses that relate to the budget and time figures of the project. These hypotheses are incorporated in the 'Architecture Effectiveness Model' and statistically tested with the acquired data. This led to more than 12.000 calculations to show the subsequent benefits of Enterprise Architecture.