by Leslie Robinet – Corporate Services Director – MEGA International, a Bizzdesign company
Enterprise Architecture (EA) plays a pivotal role in accelerating enterprise transformation. Yet, for too long, EA initiatives have been perceived as overwhelming and foreboding, with distant value realization. In reality, with the right approach, organizations can achieve concrete and visible results within one to three months. A structured, outcome-driven EA strategy ensures immediate impact while laying the foundation to drive future projects in its wake for sustained business agility. Here’s how to drive rapid ROI while enabling long-term enterprise transformation.
1 – Establish a solid foundation
Successful EA begins with an initial analysis to acquire a clear understanding of the organization’s purpose, high level capacities, and macro value chains. Identifying strategic objectives, current critical challenges, and business priorities, helps orient and frame the EA initiative. The reason to be of the organization is the north star for profitable enterprise architecture; It enables clarity on areas with the greatest potential for value creation – and what has become obsolete, redundant, or missing altogether.
2 – Launch targeted pilot projects
Large, complex projects can become difficult to deploy, risking failure or a loss of focus on their original objectives. Pragmatically, working through micro-projects is the most relevant strategy. A focused, time-bound approach – typically one to three months – centered on delivering high-value outcomes ensures maximum impact.
It is crucial to be precise when selecting the services, processes, and digital solutions involved – whether it’s an HR process, a given portfolio of business applications, or redundancies. However, even within a well-defined scope, avoiding excessive detail is indispensable to keep the process manageable during and after its set-up. The goal is to move quickly and efficiently, validating the approach, delivering rapid results that satisfy stakeholders (technical teams, business teams, and management), and effectively communicating outcomes to pave the way for future initiatives.
3 – Enable visibility and adoption
Enterprise architecture is not just about organizational structure. Success in an enterprise architecture project requires a methodical approach that actively engages teams in a collaborative process at every stage. This involves two key aspects regarding accessible and actionable insights.
First, providing hands-on support to the “doers,” whether technical or business-oriented, by leveraging existing resources such as regulatory compliance frameworks (e.g., UCF) and specialized enterprise architecture tools, including automated workflows, data mapping, and bulk data processing.
Second, effectively communicating results across the organization through clear reporting. From intranet portals to dynamic dashboards, gaining buy-in (especially from senior leadership) is essential to ensuring long-term success and alignment with business objectives.
4 – Measure success with business-relevant metrics
Productive communication beyond the project team relies on key performance indicators (KPIs) to demonstrate progress and obtain support. While technical indicators, such as data completeness or the rate of modeled processes, are useful, they mainly address the project team and enterprise architects (first-level indicators).
At the second level, KPIs should show tangible value, such as reducing the number of technologies, tracking end-of-life applications, or eliminating redundancies.
Level three indicators offer a broader view, like the balance between resources spent on maintaining the information system versus driving innovation. Innovation can come not just from new applications but also through adding value with enhanced features on existing systems.
By framing EA results in terms of business value, organizations can transform the perception of EA from a niche discipline into a strategic growth driver.
It is important to recognize that the most compelling spokespersons may not always be the EA gatekeepers themselves; therefore, efforts should focus on serving end users rather than internal priorities.
5 – Scale and sustain the transformation
Once the approach is validated, positive results are achieved, and general management’s support is secured through the pilot project, it can be deployed more largely to other business areas with the same method.
Then the goal is to quickly launch subsequent projects with the same principle: focused scope, fast deployment, and quick ROI. Referring back to the foundation work, the enterprise architect can expand the scope to include additional use cases or deepen the existing scope by adding additional information to the previously deployed technical or business elements.
Most importantly, an enterprise architecture project is never truly closed after deployment. Staying active and relevant requires ongoing monitoring, data quality maintenance, team engagement, and continuous tracking of KPIs to ensure it evolves with the company’s developments.
Well-structured EA, applying an incremental approach, guided by the business objectives doesn’t just optimize current operations – it provides a scalable foundation for an agile and resilient enterprise.
About the author
Leslie Robinet is Corporate Services Director at MEGA, a Bizzdesign Company. Of American origin, Leslie Robinet graduated from Virginia Tech with a major in Industrial Systems Engineering. After working in the US in process optimization with a Lean approach, she settled in France in 2005 and joined MEGA International to accompany different clients in their Enterprise Architecture projects. She evolved from a Solution Engineer to Project Manager, then was responsible for Professional Services for the francophone, and German territories. Now, as Corporate Services Director, she mobilizes with all regions, to improve methods, processes, offers and skills, for a better customer experience of services. Member of MEGA’s CSR Committee since 2022, she is CSR Ambassador since 2023. In parallel, she is one of the founders of the association “Mon Epice’Rit”, a cooperative grocery based on the principles of participation, ecology, and solidarity.
About MEGA
MEGA, a Bizzdesign company, is a global SaaS software company offering solutions for Enterprise Architecture, Business Process Analysis, Governance, Risk & Compliance, and Data Governance operating with a global presence. MEGA created HOPEX, a collaborative platform that provides a single repository to help companies collect, visualize, and analyze information to plan better and adapt to change. In 2024, MEGA merged with Bizzdesign and Alfabet, forming a €110 million group with 2,000 customers and 600 employees worldwide, now operating as Bizzdesign. www.mega.com
