Today, most businesses are eager to embrace technologies that can enhance their operations, allowing them to stay competitive and thrive in new ways. However, many organizations add new technology in a piecemeal fashion, lacking an overarching strategy.
Enterprise architecture represents a reliable answer to this common problem. In uniting a company’s technology infrastructure around clear processes and strategic goals, a streamlined effect is achieved.
This cohesive, comprehensive approach is more important than ever in an era where many teams are going entirely remote or hiring independent talent. You can now optimize software testing across your distributed team in ways that don’t disrupt daily operations and even engage remote developers to assist your company through digital transitions.
This article serves as a guide to enterprise architecture, its core aims, and the benefits it can yield for your business.
Enterprise architecture: Key concerns and goals
The main purpose of enterprise architecture is to help businesses modernize through digital transformation. The phrase “enterprise architecture” refers to the manner in which companies build and codify their IT infrastructure in alignment with their stated business goals. Enterprise architecture strategies promote technological modernization and the expansion of IT as a fundamental department within a business.
Virtually any business can benefit from keeping pace with industry innovation or ensuring that its software tools work together. Trends toward a flexible workforce that have characterized recent business changes make organizing IT components a crucial part of staying relevant in the new normal.
Enterprise architecture can help any business adjust to operating a remote team or aid in the process of staying agile by hiring independent tech talent.
How an enterprise architecture approach could benefit your business
Countless benefits abound when enterprise architecture becomes a fundamental part of your company’s inner organization. No matter what sector of business or industry you serve, being able to track and maximize your business’s resources cuts down on the work you have to do to manage projects and the cost of completing them.
One unseen bonus of updating and smoothing out your company’s technological infrastructure is that it simultaneously allows you to secure your IT borders. Being able to work securely with independent professionals is now paramount to any business’s success.
The following list provides a few more of the major benefits associated with implementing enterprise architecture.
1. Align technological investments with your organization’s strategic priorities
No one wants to spend money on instituting technology that’s irrelevant to their business’s stated values and established practices. In expanding your IT department, you should look specifically at enterprise architecture that serves your organization’s strategic priorities. This means many different things to many different businesses.
For example, if you’re the project manager of a large public relations firm, and your business thrives primarily on the tenet of keeping client information secure, you may have security concerns about moving to cloud-based technology. With the right independent IT professionals on your team, your business can design its own cloud space and write the code for its encryption, thus eliminating this stressor from the equation.
By contrast, a busy printing company may care most about turnaround times on freelance projects. This business’s approach to the right enterprise architecture might focus on designing timeline and deadline platforms for team members to share or honing in on one communication app that works for all time zones involved.
2. Allow technical teams and other departments to work toward shared goals
Having your own IT team means that your existing workers now have team members who can iron the wrinkles out of technological processes that may be currently costing your business time and money. Being able to place enterprise architecture in such a way that IT professionals or technical project management become a part of everyday operations means goals can be met faster and with greater accuracy.
Let’s say your company does not presently have the cybersecurity to take on a project from a high-security client. Engaging independent talent who can quickly place and actively monitor the right firewalls or encryption programs helps your business grow in potential clientele and revenue.
3. Prevent or mitigate compatibility issues
Businesses without an enterprise architecture strategy often face technological compatibility issues. Your current tech setup will largely dictate what apps or platforms you can incorporate into your daily operations, as will the talent you have on hand to run those apps and platforms.
Maybe your industry has been revolutionized by a particular software system, and you discover that it does not run on your current computers. This is where enterprise architecture and IT professionals are needed to mitigate this kind of conflict.
Not only do your established team members likely need to learn how to use the new tech coming in, but also what would best serve your business’s progress requires a full technological remodel. Talent and tech gel into a more cohesive working unit when you have professionals who can seamlessly incorporate what you have with what you need.
4. Define a framework for evaluating and buying new technologies
Enterprise architecture allows you to orchestrate guidelines for bringing new forms of technology into your organization. With web development controlling so much of business trajectories these days, you want to stay on top of cutting-edge systems and apps that could revolutionize your industry.
Having independent tech professionals—like those you can engage with on Upwork—on your team who have internal knowledge of digital changes is helpful in many ways. Businesses that blindly buy into the newest and latest technologies can find themselves out of a great deal of money, going toward technology they can’t really use.
Having enterprise architecture designed to implement or suggest only what is truly beneficial to your team puts you ahead of your competitors.
5. Recognize and respond to impending technological changes
The need for businesses to achieve digital literacy gains momentum on a daily basis. With new technologies coming down the pike frequently, it’s very easy to fall behind competitors if you do not have a built-in method for responding to impending technological changes. Enterprise architecture helps your company remain vigilant when it comes to recognizing vital digital upgrades.
For example, suppose you run an advertising agency and find out too late that all of your competitors have switched to an app for customer/public interactions. In that case, your organization will lose business and appear obsolete. You need independent professionals on hand to set up and manage a remote IT infrastructure that can predict any shifts in your industry.
6. Establish consistent and comprehensive security measures
Running a successful, distributed workforce means staying alert to security challenges at every turn. Powering your secure flexible workforce through the right enterprise architecture means never having to wonder if key components of your business’s sensitive information are vulnerable.
For a law firm, this could mean new platforms serving encrypted emails. For a cargo company, it could result in bespoke check-in apps that help monitor drivers and keep customers in the loop.
Make the most of enterprise architecture with Upwork
Enterprise architecture optimizes all of the technologies that help your business thrive. You want an IT infrastructure that is targeted to your business’s unique needs and requirements. No matter how you’re looking to accelerate your digital transformation, Upwork has a global talent pool of independent workers who can successfully build out your IT team.
