Achitectingglobalcompany

 With today’s business velocity and frequent digital disruptions, companies leverage Business Architecture to orchestrate dynamic planning processes, encourage cross boundary management disciplines.

The world becomes more dynamic and hyper-connected, the geographical, functional or industrial territories are blurred, there is much in the world we do not know nor understand and because of that limitation, we need to choose to continue to learn, grow, and innovate. 

It’s important to manage the boundary between the organization and the external world, enforce cross boundary communication and collaboration, and build a highly mature global organization.

Business architecture as an effective communication tool can help an organization understand and manage globalization: Nowadays, the oceans or mountains cannot stop us from communication or collaboration. Digital disrupts not only the business boundary but also industry boundary and geographical boundary. We all bring different perspectives and our boundaries could change based on open dialogues, learning agility, and flexible approach to problem-solving. Architecture is an effective communication facilitation tool; while communication is the tool to solve problems; consistent, clear communication between all stakeholders is the key to harmonize business relationships and improve management effectiveness. Cross-boundary communication enhances holistic problem-solving.

Organizations face numerous distractions and all sorts of challenges, striving to build global companies. Business architecture cannot be defined with a fixed set of deliverables such as value chains, functions, etc, but a strategic communication tool to ensure all related parties are on the same page, enabling “mind crafting” and strategic alignment, for advising, monitoring, deliberating, sustaining a balance of diversified viewpoints, democracy and unification; individualism and teamwork, for riding the tide of digital transformation.

Business architecture as an effective knowledge management tool to enforce information flow and knowledge update: We live in the digital era with knowledge abundance. The digital boundary is not for dividing, but permeable to enable information, ideas, and knowledge flow. The digital boundary with information fluidity is a necessity for responsibility taking, problem-solving and efficiency achieving. Digital leaders should break down their reductionistic management pattern and leverage nonlinear thinking and cross-boundary knowledge to understand the density and intensity of the digital dynamic.

There are the inherent dangers of too much knowledge particularly because of the inconsistencies and incoherence in the body of knowledge that surrounds us. There is also the danger of super specialization, which can deprive people of a holistic understanding. An architecture is a useful tool to optimize processes with expanded business boundaries, enabling information, knowledge, and idea flow by reducing tensions, frictions, and conflicts that arise, and help to develop the culture of learning and innovation, building a real-time intelligent organization.

Business architecture as a governance tool to improve business globalization, digitalization, and maturity: The digital boundary with fluidity is a necessity for sharing knowledge and ideas, taking responsibility, enhancing flexibility, and improving efficiency. Governance can create good performance and enhance compliance. An effective business architecture is an important governance tool to to monitor varying governance activities such as delegation of authority, auditing, or strategy monitoring, etc, to improve business effectiveness and efficiency, enforce business supply chains, influence/comply with relevant regulation, manage its partnerships, assess and execute M&A in the global scope.

Digital boundary is not static, but dynamic. Governance as a discipline is a living breathing entity to build a global organization. There should be a governance mechanism embedded in all crucial business processes, and there are governance practices to enforce accountability at every level of the organization. Architecture can be used as a multi-disciplinary effective governance tool and an enabling vehicle that provides a platform for determining sound corporate attitude, behavior and structured decision-making for improving business maturity

Boundaries is a very broad term that encompasses all sorts of things, strict or fluid; boundaries can be good, bad, or indifferent depending on the application. We all bring different perspectives and our boundaries might have changed based on open conversations and taking the time to think about the specific issue of boundaries thoughtfully in order to solve problems effectively. With today’s business velocity and frequent digital disruptions, companies leverage Business Architecture to orchestrate dynamic planning processes, encourage cross boundary management disciplines, pay continual attention to current changes in the organization and its external environment, and how this affects the future of the organization, with the goal to lead transformative changes successfully.

Posted in: EA,Global Perspective