Many companies in the current economic climate are experiencing changes within their organisations. Whether these changes are small and subtle or larger and more noticeable, the effects such changes within organisations can be huge. This book provides a useful practical guide to anyone who may be involved in organising the changes of a company. Whelan and Meaden provide a variety of different tips and practical advice for people to better understand and implement business architecture into their own organisations.
Whelan and Meaden start off this book by describing exactly how the book should be used in the preface. The authors make it clear which chapters will be useful to the different kinds of readers as not all chapters would be applicable if you are a general reader or have a specific role within an organisation. This ensures that readers are not reading the whole book and wasting time focusing on chapters that have not been written with them in mind. From looking at this, the book is most suitable for business architects but specific chapters are also useful for chief executive officers (CEOs), chief financial officers (CFOs), project managers, those considering a career in business architecture and general readers.
The first chapter in this book provides a good starting point to the book by giving the reader an idea of the “big picture” and exactly why business architecture is so important due to all the recent changes in the global economy. Although the authors write in a formal and educational way, their writing style makes it much easier to follow the text and makes the book more enjoyable to read overall. In this chapter, the terminology is also explained and definitions are provided of key words used within the book. For those readers who are already familiar with the topic of the book, this chapter could potentially be skipped but for the rest of us who do not know much about the topic (general readers) it is essential to provide this information.
Chapter 2 discusses the types of changes that organisations are currently experiencing; relevant and well-known examples are used such as Nokia, Amazon and ITunes and the authors give a brief explanation of how some of the most successful companies did not start out trading in the type of business they are now famous for. This is a good way to highlight that even the most popular companies did not start off that way. The influence of technology is also something that is particularly picked up on which is a useful reminder for readers as this has had a big effect on the way in which companies conduct their businesses and the way in which customers purchase products and services.
The rest of the book focuses on the more practical aspects of business architecture; these include integrating business architecture into the organisation, describing business architecture, architecture building blocks, practising business architecture and architecture resources. Rather than organising the book as a small number of large chapters, the book consists of 18 shorter chapters. This again makes the book easier to follow and a more effortless read.
In particular, Chapter 10 is a useful aspect of the book which looks at the risks of different types of businesses. Although this is not the focus of the chapter, it is mentioned towards the end. The types of risks considered are specifically the health, safety, environmental risks, operational risks and information security risks. Examples are provided for each of these to emphasise that there are always risks related to businesses, i.e. if the organisation is part of the financial sector, the risks associated with this type of organisation may be human error or fraud. These are all risks that should be taken into account when implementing a change and using business architecture within organisations as if they are not considered, this can lead to a major failure in an organisation.
Chapter 12 also deals with problems and barriers that people may come across when using business architecture. These are barriers such as the stigma associated with business architecture as it is still seen as a new discipline by some, having an architect that does not have the required skill set and organisational immaturity of managers. These are problems that a business architect must keep in mind as if these barriers can be overcome, the success of the organisation can be increased tenfold.
Whelan and Meaden's book ends with Chapter 18 which considers the future of business architecture. The authors highlight that business architecture is still a very new discipline and refer to is as being in “level 1” of its maturity due to the un-standardised methodology and definitions. However, they suggest that the need for business architecture will grow once the economy recovers from the financial crisis. Similarly, they propose that for business architecture to fully develop and evolve there is a need for real-life case studies to demonstrate how to make use of it and how much it helps organisations to succeed; examples of its success need to be highlighted and emphasised to the wider public in the media.
Overall, I can see that this book would be of benefit to the target audience, i.e. business architects, CEOs, CFOs and individuals training to have a career as a business architect. As for the other types of readers, I do not believe that someone who is reading about business architecture for the first time (general readers) would fully understand the ins and outs of the book as business architecture is clearly a complex and difficult topic to fully comprehend. For this reason, I would suggest that general readers look elsewhere for a book on the basics of business architecture before reading Whelan and Meaden's book. However, for those who are already familiar with the topic, I have no doubt that this practical and detailed guide to business architecture will be extremely useful.
