Initiativesofarchitecture

Business architecture is a “glue” to bridge the silos, deepen understanding of business context, and improve organizational GRC effectiveness.

Business Architecture provides enterprise context to deal with the variety of complexity, bridge the multitude of viewpoints, balance multi-facet of facts and information, identify gaps, assumptions, risks, etc. It’s also a great tool for business management to know how to tap various resources, be inclusive and recognize merit, set priorities, to achieve a situational compromise or trade-off contextually.

From a GRC enhancement perspective, the effective business architecture orchestrates the interrelationship between people and process, make strategic alignment, advising, monitoring, to enhance governance, increase risk intelligence, optimize compliance, and develop integral GRC practices.

Risk reduction is a core of architectural practice and a fundamental requirement for GRC enforcement: Risk assessment in business architecture enables the business management to have the right attitude to ask good questions, make a reasonable assessment of varying risks such as resource availability, talent proficiency, timeline for deliveries, as well as make the risk profile of the enterprise performance deficiencies. It is a fundamental component of all business architectures to identify where architecture has the most positive impact in enterprise risk management such as identifying loopholes or blind spots, reducing business risks in making certain investments, funding business initiatives, or managing a program portfolio etc,

In specific, business architecture is an effective communication tool to facilitate risk management related conversations and a business alignment mapping tool to clarify cause-effect logic: Why-list of reasons behind the risks. What-listing the expected and unexpected events. How - methods to mitigate the risks. Where - locations that are susceptible to the risks. Who - list of persons who 'own' the risks. When - list of events that are responsible for the risks.

Business architecture is a governance tool to raise visibility and transparency: Business governance is the complementary approach to optimize management and improve business effectiveness and maturity. Business architecture provides important business context, encompasses some interfaces of the current or target ecosystem, deepening understanding of business relationships, ecosystem perspectives, market dynamics, the interconnections between related business functions to enhance the scientific discipline underneath it, and enforce business governance practices.

Enterprise-architecture as a governance enabler can be used to raise visibility and awareness for many interrelated business issues that are captured at the different levels of the organization to ensure the enterprise is running in the right direction and well heading to the destination with a premium speed. 

Business architecture enhances compliance related knowledge & practices: Business architecture includes certain GRC related content and components such as business rules, legal requirements, operational requirements rules, financial compliance: GRC should influence the level of performance of all the members of the company. Having an in-depth understanding of the business knowledge such as vision, mission, strategy by applying business architecture as an orchestration tool will ensure that an appropriate compliance management discipline is realized without being bureaucratic or misaligned with business objectives.

An effective compliance platform built through architectural level of knowledge carries high-level accountability and provides important input into the feasibility and appropriateness of policies that have a direct impact on business effectiveness. The management then works with implementers to ensure proactive compliance solutions. Ensuring compliance is an essential part of the governance body such as corporate boards. Business architecture is an orchestration tool to integrate holistic GRC solutions and enable the BoDs to monitor performance and enhance compliance.

Business architecture is a “glue” to bridge the silos, deepen understanding of business context, and improve organizational GRC effectiveness. The architectural views involve diverse aspects of the enterprise concern to varying stakeholders, representations of which can be linked to strategic planning & development, GRC enhancement, and performance improvement.

Posted in: Board Room,EA,GRC