Alex Cullen

Just about every company Forrester works with tells us they are driving to become Digital Businesses.  But not just ‘digital’ as a technology imperative – they are investing in digital to dramatically change how they serve their customers – with target benefits rippling over to customer retention and acquisition.  We call this focus Customer-obsessed Digital […]

Forrester and InfoWorld set the theme for this year’s awards as ‘Speed and Responsiveness – And EA”.  The underlying premise is that business leaders are demanding that their business moves faster – everything from updating digital capabilities to bringing more agility in how firms work with customers and suppliers.  In theory, enterprise architecture is a […]

Businesses of all types are experiencing the ramifications of an accelerating pace of change. Everything, from economies as a whole to the competitive landscape to consumers’ tastes, is more dynamic. As a consequence, business leaders are demanding that their businesses move faster. ‘Moving faster” may encompass continually updated mobile capabilities, digitized products, and more agility […]

One of the winners of this year’s Forrester/Infoworld Enterprise Architecture Awards segmented their EA practice into two disciplines: Innovation Architecture and Effectiveness Architecture. These two words describe the range of winners selected by our judges. Before I announce the winners, let me tell you about why these two words are significant. The Forrester/Infoworld EA Awards […]

Enterprise architecture programs deal in change – that’s where EA provides value.  And the businesses and government organizations they are part of are in the midst of a lot of change.  Witness the accelerating turnover in the Fortune 1000, or how Apple is poised to be a powerhouse in electronic payments, or how healthcare is […]

I have never put ‘Wow’ into the title of a blog before – but for this one it’s fully justified.  This is the fifth year InfoWorld, Penn State University Center for EA, and Forrester have run the annual Enterprise Architecture Awards. When I compare the winners of five years ago – all excellent EA programs, […]

I’m seeing many signs of an evolving role and recognition for enterprise architecture.  This is changing how we ourselves see the practice of EA. For example, one of the more frequent inquiries I get from EA leaders is around customer experience and the customer lifecycle – where our clients want to know how EA should […]

The practice of enterprise architecture is about your business – guiding decisions and designing solutions for better, more sustainable business outcomes.  Pretty much every EA leader would agree with this statement – but only a small percentage can say that this describes their program. Whether due to the situation they are in, or their own […]

The healthcare industry is undergoing transformation.  What’s driving this?  A wide range of factors, from new regulations and government programs, to new treatments and approaches,  to perpetually rising costs.  To thrive in this environment, , Forrester believes healthcare providers and payers must embrace four critical imperatives that will provide the most transformational impact: The Age […]

The InfoWorld/Forrester Enterprise Architecture Awards recognize excellent EA programs — ones that due to their business focus, and strategic yet pragmatic orientation, provide sustained value to their business. I caught up with two of our 2012 winners to find out what they have been doing in the year since their award submission. I was specifically […]

As architects, we all know the importance of context. The right architecture for one context – say, an organically growing company – doesn’t work for a company growing by acquisition. The right technology strategy for a medium-size American company doesn’t work for a China-based one.  Well, the context for enterprise architecture itself is changing. We’ve got […]

I recently had a conversation with a new EA practice leaders in the investment management business unit of a large multi-line insurance company.  They wanted to hear my perspectives on what a world-class EA program should look like.  They knew of all the traditional EA building blocks: standards and roadmaps, architecture domains, methodologies like TOGAF.  […]

In Forrester’s EA Practice Playbook, we describe high-performance enterprise architecture programs as “business-focused, strategic, and pragmatic.” They are business-focused so that the direction and guidance EA provides has clear business relevance and value. They are strategic because the greatest value EA brings is to help its business to achieve its business strategies. They are pragmatic because, well, […]

The pace of business change is accelerating. The reason why it is accelerating is the mushrooming of disruptive factors: your customers expecting anytime/everywhere access to you through their mobile devices, competitors leveraging big data technology to rapidly execute on customer-centric value propositions, and new market entrants with lean business models that enable them to outmaneuver […]

Uli Kalex from Alfabet, whom many of you know, has provided us with a guest post addressing one key fallacy which underlies much of IT’s work with their business. I hope you enjoy it and feel free to comment. —————————————————————————————– As a mathematician and product manager, I strongly prefer the reliability of analysis over the […]

Some enterprise architecture programs become a key capability for the success of their business: ensuring aligned plans, shaping business transformations, or boosting the business value of IT. But other EA programs struggle, with nebulous missions, immature practices, and limited impact. If the first statement describes your EA program, I’d like to invite you to submit […]

      I just recently had a conversation with Peter Hinssen, one of our keynote speakers at Forrester’s colocated CIO Forum and EA Forum in Las Vegas (May 3-4) and our EMEA CIO Forum and EA Forum in Paris (June 19-20).     Peter is both a dynamic speaker and a provocative thought-leader on the rapidly changing […]

You already know it. Technology is completely pervasive in our lives, and in how businesses operate. It’s pervasive in how business execs think — they know that every change they make has a technology aspect to it. As my colleague Randy Heffner says, “It’s no longer enough to say that technology supports business. Today, your […]

Awkward title, I know. But this blog is about two related points.  Forrester has long believed that business and technology have become inseparable. The Business Technology organization that embraces this reality is replacing the Information Technology organization that thought of itself as separate from business.   Enterprise architecture is also shifting — from a technology and application-centered function (“IT […]