Issue 3-1

It’s hard for me to believe that the magazine we started two years ago to educate and popularize new concepts for aligning IT strategies with business demands has grown to a circulation of twelve thousand subscribers and has become a voice of confidence for many emerging enterprise architecture and governance programs. But with this issue, I believe we have accomplished that and more. I am pleased to announce that Architecture and Governance magazine has garnered another strong endorsement of our vision with our new partnership with Gartner.

Technologists use the term business intelligence (often shortened as BI) to encompass not only analytics–the use of data to analyze, forecast, predict, optimize, and so on–but also the processes and technologies used for collecting, managing, and reporting decision-oriented data. BI usually consists of two major types of activities: reporting and analytics. Reporting is desirable and important, but analytics–the use of sophisticated quantitative tools to model, predict, and optimize business processes–can provide substantial competitive advantage.

“The ability to learn faster than your
competitors may be the only sustainable
competitive advantage.”
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Arie de Geus
“The Living Company,” 1997

Whether implementing a common portal solution for a group of trade associations or helping city government agencies pool resources to implement enterprise solutions, one thing is clear: there are myths that must be exposed and clarity needed around the drivers for “success” in the “not-for-profit” and government workplace. These issues must be resolved before such organizations can achieve their potential through the use of business-driven metrics.

(Editor’s Note: Evolving Enterprise Architecture programs quickly discover that information is at the center of their enterprise universe, leading them to ask several important questions: What is the difference between data and information? What business value does our information provide to us, and how can we get more? can we effectively manage the changing data landscape as it relates to our current and future strategies, processes, and systems, and deliver it in the most effective way possible?

(Editor's Note: What follows is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of Klaus D. Niemann’s book From Enterprise Architecture to IT Governance–Elements of Effective IT Management. Niemann is the Managing Director of act! Consulting GmbH (http://www.act-consulting.de/), which specializes in enterprise architecture and IT governance. Niemann has more than 20 years of first-hand experience in this area. His book can be purchased at Amazon.com.