It’s 1987, and you’re an enterprise architect arriving at the office for another busy day. Your company’s upcoming merger needs a tech strategy. You’re pitching the merits of email to the CEO. And the pride and joy of your organization’s IT is a state-of-the-art desktop with an impressive 1MB of RAM.
The scene might be completely foreign to an IT professional today; a bedtime story from the days of slow-moving corporate tech. Since then, as technology has evolved, so have enterprise architects, embracing change as part of their DNA.
Now, as agile companies harness technology to disrupt the status quo, it’s time for architects to evolve once again – or risk being left behind.
Businesses are redeploying their talent
As disruption makes its march across everything from food service to healthcare, new companies’ innovations are directly influencing the role of enterprise architects.
In response to the competition, enterprises are turning to an option startups can’t: retraining and redeploying their architects. This evolution in the architect’s role has even been named by Deloitte as one of the defining business tech trends of 2020.
What does this evolution mean day-to-day? Put simply, strategically-minded architects are bringing their creative thinking to other roles like software development – applying their leadership to help these teams succeed, while taking responsibility for achieving business outcomes.
In this climate, architects must be willing to evolve – including sharpening their strategic and creative focus, and bringing their big-picture view of IT, to work in more collaborative ways.
Creativity leads to opportunity
For architects and their employers alike, embracing this evolution opens fresh possibilities. By developing their skills and linking up with other roles, architects become in-demand collaborators among their IT peers and the business as a whole. An effective architect is one who can:
Help their organization innovate faster
Coming from a big-picture background, IT architects can drive the acceleration of complex projects with software developers and other colleagues – resetting the playing field with agile disruptors.
Thrive with greater accountability
As leaders of their new multidisciplinary teams, architects will gain more visibility over the budget and schedule of each project, so they can be accountable for ongoing performance and transformation.
Bridge the gap from IT to the business
While organizations have changed how they use architects to meet business goals, the architect’s next frontier is leveraging their influence to unify IT’s ambitions with the business’ overall direction.
Finding the right blueprint to evolve
If you’re an architect today, evolving isn’t just an ambition – it’s part of the job. But where do you start?
To successfully transition into new ways of working, develop your skills, and earn the recognition of your IT teams and your wider business, you need the right blueprint. The good news is, you don’t have to go it alone.
Now the evolution is in full swing, you can enjoy unprecedented access to the knowledge developed by Cisco’s system integration architecture experts. You can exchange ideas and work through difficult use cases with Business Critical Services’ 1:1 coaching sessions, interactive webinars, and expert reviews.
No matter where you are on your technology journey, this hands-on guidance can become your most valuable asset to confidently architect new business innovation, and accelerate transformation with certainty for your organization.
For more on transforming at speed, visit Cisco Business Critical Services.
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