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IT architecture is often assumed to follow business strategy, to align IT with the business's strategic objectives.
Increasingly, though, many business strategies depend on specific underlying IT capabilities. To develop a synergy between business strategy and IT architecture, firms must develop organizational
competencies in IT architecture. My research has identified four IT architectural stages, each with its own requisite competencies. The "application silo architecture stage" consists of IT architectures of
individual applications. The "standardized technology architecture stage" has an enterprise wide IT architecture that provides efficiences through technology standardization. The "rationalized data
architecture stage" extends the enterprise wide IT standards to date and processes. And the "modular architecture stage" builds onto enterprise wide golobal standards with loosely coupled IT components to
preserve the global standards while enabling local differences. Each stage demands different organizational competencies to implement the architecture and prepare the firm to move to the next stage. |
