Enterprise architechture - bridge the gap between business, IT and universities

Advancing technologies, emergent software development approaches, and economic conditions influencing corporate budgets are creating new challenges for the Application Services manager [4]. In one of the studies [10], Enterprise Architecture (EA) was ranked near the top of the list of issues considered important by the chief information officers. Enterprise Architecture is a distinct and developing discipline in the Information Technology (IT) profession [15]. The alignment of an organisation’s information technology to its business strategies is a recurrent theme in IS research [6]. The increasing complexity of today’s business and IT environments makes it more difficult for organisations to design an Enterprise architecture that supports the company’s business objectives and enables the IT staff to deliver applications that align with business goals. Enterprise Architecture is about understanding all of the different elements that go to make up the Enterprise and how those elements interrelate. The Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1996, better known as the Clinger-Cohen Act, refers to Enterprise architecture as an integrated framework for evolving or maintaining existing information technology and acquiring new information technology to achieve the organization\u27s strategic goals and information resources management goals [5]. It can be a critical component of IT alignment that ensures that organization\u27s goals are met, and that IT can scale with every new business demand. IT enterprise architecture can help with architectural process, but ultimately the IT-centric approach must give way to a business process-centric approach. An enterprise architecture that is organized around business process value chains provides a direct link between IT resources, corporate goals, and a process that generates products and satisfied customers