Bridging the Gap Between Technology and Business

by Jeff Tash

A best practice strategy for achieving successful integration begins with "consolidation."  The goal is to identify how and where to reduce the resources required to complete work already being performed.

This presentation discusses how companies can achieve this goal by using three distinct steps:

• eliminate redundancies, improve effectiveness, and be more efficient. 
• “standardization,” enables IT to apply reusable business processes and services to multiple different needs.
• “communication” establishes a common reference model along with a common vocabulary so that both technical and non-technical audiences can share a unified knowledgebase.

Using a reference architecture, which spans both technical and business issues, facilitates the exchange of ideas and enhances the enterprise’s ability to make better technology decisions driven by business strategy. IT needs to be agile enough to support what the business needs. But the business side has a responsibility too. They cannot simply view technology as just a support center where business people can say to IT, “You go figure it out. That’s your problem.” Instead, a reference architecture puts more of a balance into the relationship by serving as a guidepost for decision-making through effective two-way communication.

Jeff Tash will discuss his reference architecture models and show how you can achieve the above objectives by using a reference architecture approach.