Enterprise Architecture Report: FinCorp, SteelCo, and MultiCorp Cases

This report analyzes three case studies: SteelCo, MultiCorp, and FinCorp, to explore enterprise architecture concepts. SteelCo's organizational structure, divided into Alpha and Beta divisions, is examined, focusing on its matrix architecture and departmental structures. The report then delves into MultiCorp's diversification-operating model, analyzing its three business units (Alpha, Beta, and Gamma) and their standardized business processes, data integration, and IT infrastructure. Finally, the report evaluates FinCorp's implementation of an Enterprise Architect tool, discussing its limitations and potential for improvement through customization and strategic alignment. The analysis covers organizational structures, business processes, data management, and IT infrastructure, offering insights into effective enterprise architecture practices.

Running head: ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE
ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author Note:

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Table of Contents
1. Report 1.1...............................................................................................................................2
Answer 1................................................................................................................................2
Answer 2................................................................................................................................2
2. Report 1.2...............................................................................................................................3
Answer 1................................................................................................................................3
Answer 2................................................................................................................................3
Answer 3................................................................................................................................4
Answer 4................................................................................................................................4
3. Report 1.3...............................................................................................................................5
Answer 1................................................................................................................................5
Answer 2................................................................................................................................5
Answer 3................................................................................................................................6
Answer 4................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................7

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1. Report 1.1
Answer 1
The steel manufacturing company of SteelCo incorporates two major divisions, each
of which has a different business model, although headed by a central level of corporate
leadership. Hence, the matrix organizational architecture will be the best suitable for this kind
of organization where not only vertical communication, but also horizontal communication
amongst the different departments will enhance the functionality of the business (Du Preez,
Van der Merwe and Matthee 2018). The Division Alpha should be segregated into seven
departments- the production, the inventory, the sales and delivery, the IT, HR, Finance and
Legal department. The IT department needs to connect to all the departments for better
management of automated operations. On the other hand, the Division Beta should have a
shared division of common services, which are the HR, Finance, Accounting and IT. Each of
the three major units comprising of manufacturing processes, distribution channels and sales
and marketing campaigns should be attached with the above-mentioned common
departments.
Answer 2
Since the SteelCo company, incorporates a matrix design of organizational
architecture it will require separate executives for each of the departments in each of the
divisions. The CEO of the company will head both the divisions and each of the departmental
heads of Division Alpha and Division Beta should report to the corporate leader of the
organization. The seven departments of Division Alpha will each incorporate an architectural
head, which are the CPO, CSO, CFO, CIO, the law executive, the HR executive and the
inventory manager (Woodard 2017). Whereas, the Beta division will have a HR manager, a
CFO and a CIO who will be controlling all the three line of products. Each product line will

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be having an individual manufacturing officer, a sales officer and a marketing officer directly
reporting to the business head.
2. Report 1.2
Answer 1
The diversification-operating model is the specified business model of the MultiCorp
multi-profile company (Carr et al. 2017). It incorporates a diversified operating model
because it comprises of three separate strategic business units that are not dependent on each
other. Unit Alpha is in the food manufacturing business, Unit Beta is in the restaurant
business and finally the Gamma Unit responsible for the resort business. Each of the business
units hardly have any shared customers visiting all the three units or any common suppliers
supply raw resources to the three independent business arenas. All the three business sectors
of MultiCorp, the food manufacturing sector, the restaurant and the resort business
incorporates autonomous management of the units and their operations are unique from each
other. The data shared amongst the three business units are very few and the decisions taken
by the IT department are also confined within the separated business units.
Answer 2
The standardized business processes throughout the company is to set up potential
competitive strategies to sustain in the market, monitor investment schemes across all
business units, allocate budgets in the departments to succumb yearly benefits (Olsen 2017).
However, since Alpha unit is a business of manufacturing foods, the standard processes of
this unit is to produce unique quality of products, store and preserve them, transport them to
the local shops and food retailers along with managing the equipment involved in the process.
The Beta Unit that conducts the restaurant business includes strand business processes such
as recruiting the cooks, waiters and other service providers, training them, procurement of

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materials, cooking and cleaning as well as attending customer complaints. The Gamma Unit
incorporates the resort business and thus, includes standard processes such as, providing
premium quality services to its customers, conduct all back office processes and implement
effective strategies in customizing client services.
Answer 3
Since the MultiCorp Company has different business units, the integration of data is
also done unit-wise. The Alpha Unit of the food manufacturing business collect data about
their daily production of foods as well as the amount that is transported to the local shops and
retailers. They manage data about their inventories that includes the vegetables, groceries,
and meat and dairy products but are not limited to it. They also manage data about the
retailers and local food shops as well as their suppliers and employees. Unit Beta on the other
hand, maintain data about their employees, inventories, the profit generated from all 80
restaurants and the loss statements if occurred (Winter 2016). The Gamma Unit mainly
contains data about customer specification, their history and preferences and transactional
details. This data helps them to enhance their business scope amongst newer clients.
Answer 4
The highest-level structure of IT landscape in the MultiCorp Company is the Business
Unit Level infrastructure that are specialised within each of the business units. The IT
infrastructure incorporates the IT strategy as well as the Business Strategy and aligns it with
the IT components to provide customer services as well as manage their own operations
efficiently. The Business Unit infrastructure consists of different types of systems such as the
order processing system, the production system, the transaction system and all of these
manage the vendor data as well as the customer data (Bos 2019). Alpha, Beta and Gamma
units use the transaction processing system to manage their data of transactions from their

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customers and use order processing system to take and give orders from customers and
vendors respectively.
3. Report 1.3
Answer 1
The installed “Enterprise Architect tool” of the FinCorp organization was not of much
use because it did not help much in the business processes of the company. The CIO of the
company was not satisfied with the implementation of the tool because it only acted as a
sophisticated repository that was helpful for storing the current business information (Eybers
et al. 2019). Although the company configured and customised the tool itself, to maintain
transparency in the business process and analyse business decisions, it failed to provide with
its services in the end. Moreover, nobody in the organization was able to handle the tool
except the four to five architects who were aware about the functions of the tool and could
use it efficiently.
Answer 2
The Enterprise Architect tool incorporated by FinCorp organization failed to add
value to the organization because it did not provide the organization with other potential
benefits apart from storing their current business information in the central repository
(Kotusev 2017). Firstly, the tool was designed in a way such that it has analytical capabilities
and can contribute to the informed decision-making among the stakeholders of the business.
However, the EA tool did not make any such contributions because none other than the four-
five architects could use it. Secondly, another objective of the EA tool was to improve the
business by aligning the IT with the operational activities, to which again the tool the tool did
not add any contribution.

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Answer 3
The EA tool of the FinCorp Corporation does not contribute more to the organization
other than storing the generated business information in its central storehouse. However, the
tool can be customized to serve other purposes in the organization too. Firstly, combining the
power of Unified Modelling Languages along with other modelling languages, the tool can
serve the purpose of strategic modelling of the company and its business activities (Hope,
Chew and Sharma 2017). Moreover, EA tool can also be used in FinCorp for developing and
managing the requirements. Development of software is another area where the EA tool can
contribute in the company. With its analytical capabilities, the tool can help in making
strategic business decisions and thereby, improve the business in all aspects.
Answer 4
For maximizing the value of the EA tool in the FinCorp organization, the CIO of the
company along with the four or five architects, who know how to handle the tool should
review the business processes and develop incremental versions with Time Aware Modelling
that will help in migrating the elements of the business through multiple versions. A gap
analysis is recommended between the previous model artefacts and the solution architecture
such that the new model can fill in the shortcomings, thereby adding value to the business
processes (Kudryavtsev and Kubelskiy 2018). The architects can also produce simulations
without making any changes in the ‘as-is’ architecture to experiment the model and
implement it if it turns out to be successful.

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References
Bos, L., 2019. A bridge between UX design and enterprise architecture (Master's thesis).
Carr, D., Else, S., Roth, J., Graves, T. and Johnston-Bell, D., 2017. ENTERPRISE
ARCHITECTURE PROFESSIONAL JOURNAL.
Du Preez, J., Van der Merwe, A. and Matthee, M., 2018, September. Understanding
Enterprise Architects: Different Enterprise Architect Behavioral Styles. In International
Conference on Research and Practical Issues of Enterprise Information Systems (pp. 96-
108). Springer, Cham.
Eybers, S., Gerber, A., Bork, D. and Karagiannis, D., 2019. Matching Technology with
Enterprise Architecture and Enterprise Architecture Management Tasks Using Task
Technology Fit. In Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling (pp.
245-260). Springer, Cham.
Hope, T., Chew, E. and Sharma, R., 2017, June. The Failure of Success Factors: Lessons
from Success and Failure Cases of Enterprise Architecture Implementation [Best Paper
Nominee]. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGMIS Conference on Computers and People
Research (pp. 21-27).
Kotusev, S., 2017. Enterprise architecture: what did we study?. International Journal of
Cooperative Information Systems, 26(04), p.1730002.
Kudryavtsev, D. and Kubelskiy, M., 2018. Using Enterprise Architecture Management
Methods and Technologies for Knowledge Structuring in Strategic Management.
Olsen, D.H., 2017. Enterprise Architecture management challenges in the Norwegian health
sector. Procedia computer science, 121, pp.637-645.

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Winter, R., 2016, November. Establishing ‘architectural thinking’in organizations. In IFIP
Working Conference on The Practice of Enterprise Modeling (pp. 3-8). Springer, Cham.
Woodard, J.R., 2017. BUILDING AN ENTERPRISE GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
SYSTEM FROM AN ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE FOUNDATION (Doctoral dissertation,
Kent State University).