Enterprise architecture management (EAM) and business process management (BPM) can be a powerful combination.
If you have a growing family, meal management is something you need to take seriously. When a teenager arrives home with others in tow, you really need to know what you have on hand and what you can do with it – or you’ll face a very hefty pizza bill.
If you don’t know what’s in the pantry or refrigerator, you can’t plan a meal. If you don’t have some reliable recipes up your sleeve, all the ingredients in the world won’t help feed the hungry hordes.
It’s the well-balanced coordination of essential information that keeps everyone happy and well-fed. When it comes to effective business, the focus shifts to customer outcomes, but the same balancing act is required between knowing what you have and how to best implement it. This is the vital communication between EAM and BPM!
EAM: Your kitchen inventory
EAM is a discipline that usually sits within the IT realm. It ensures that the technological tools and systems that undergird a business’ operations are catalogued and managed. In many ways, it’s like having a really good inventory of your kitchen. It allows the IT team to know what’s available, what’s due to expire, what works well together and what needs replenishing or refreshing.
Enterprise architecture maps your business capabilities and how they’re supported by various systems and tools. This information is vital for reducing overhead and ensuring effective coverage of organizational needs. By mapping capabilities and cataloging systems, IT can minimize duplication and ensure essential business capacity is covered, limiting waste and maximizing efficiency.
BPM: The recipe book for success
On the operational side, BPM is like the recipe book for successful business activities. Well-documented processes, those that are clear and easy to follow, provide a roadmap for great customer outcomes, strong governance and efficient workflows.
Within an effective process management platform, these process maps offer clear guidance and visibility for risk management and continuous improvement in a way that is accessible to both frontline teams and process experts alike. Systems, tools and tasks are captured and referenced, providing a clear picture of what needs to happen to keep customers happy.
The challenge: Bridging the gap between EAM and BPM
While this seems pretty straightforward, many businesses face a significant challenge: aligning these two essential functions. Too often, they exist in silos. EAM sits within IT, focusing on complex architecture catalogues, while BPM is nestled in operations with an eye on continuous improvement in practice. Without a strong connection between the two, there is enormous potential for waste and inefficiency.
When enterprise architecture doesn’t communicate with BPM, there is a real risk of business disruption. Part of the EAM mandate is rationalizing systems and tools to reduce costs. If those decisions aren’t informed by the operational processes, it opens up the possibility of vital systems being deprecated or decommissioned based on usage frequency rather than business relevance.
For example, if a tool is vital to industry or legislative compliance reporting, but only used every six months, IT might wrongly assume it’s underutilized or unnecessary, leading to a crisis when the reporting deadline arrives.
On the other side, operations can be one of the worst culprits when it comes to ‘shadow IT.’ When teams on the frontline see the need for a tool but lack easy access to the EAM catalogues, they may independently pursue a product that seems to meet their needs, potentially duplicating already existing solutions. Manual steps prone to error, labor-intensive data handling and workarounds become normalized, although IT might have elegant solutions ready to accelerate workflows and free staff for value-added work.
The solution: Integrated communication
The key lies in communication and connectedness. An integrated solution like GBTEC’s BIC Platform brings the breadth of EAM knowledge into conversation with the depth of process expertise, resulting in better business outcomes across the board.
By connecting EAM and business processes, there is an immediate reduction in waste. Duplicate systems can be identified and existing tools can be brought to bear on processes to enhance their execution. IT teams can be certain of not just what’s on hand, but how it’s being used and why. With operational references built into the architecture catalogues, they’re better equipped to make decisions around maintaining, replacing or refreshing systems and tools.
Access to that directory of tools also empowers process experts to make the best use of them. Operations can be adapted more effectively and with greater confidence as the available systems are brought to bear on existing processes. Continuous improvement gets a jump-start through the visibility of systems and tools that may have application beyond the initial scope, in ways that aren’t immediately apparent to IT.
Ultimately, bringing together BPM and EAM within a tool like BIC Platform allows a business to deliver more consistent customer outcomes, more efficiently and effectively. Like a chef with a well-organized kitchen, a business that allows these vital functions to communicate through an integrated platform has both a clear idea of what is at hand and a solid grasp of what can be done with it. It’s a winning recipe that builds on the strength of both functions and ensures that, at the end of the day, the customer won’t go away unsatisfied.