RetailCo: An Analysis of Architecture and Systems Integration Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of RetailCo's enterprise architecture and systems integration. It begins by outlining the problem RetailCo faced, which includes challenges related to resource management and competition. The solution involves implementing a robust enterprise architecture to align business strategies and IT infrastructure. The report then delves into the conceptual architecture, detailing the existing and envisioned platforms, and how they support business units like consumer loyalty and marketing. The logical architecture, components model, and operational model are also examined, illustrating how the company aims to improve communication, data security, and supply chain management. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of adapting to evolving IT landscapes and adopting necessary applications to mitigate identified issues and maintain a competitive edge.

Running head: ARCHITECTURE AND SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
Architecture and Systems Integration: RetailCo
Name of the student:
Name of the university:

ARCHITECTURE AND SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
Index
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................... 2
1.1 Problem............................................................................................................................... 2
1.2 Solution................................................................................................................................2
2. Conceptual architecture............................................................................................................ 2
3. Logical architecture....................................................................................................................6
4. Components model................................................................................................................... 8
5. Operational model.....................................................................................................................9
Conclusion................................................................................................................................... 10
References................................................................................................................................... 11
Page 1

ARCHITECTURE AND SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
1. Introduction
This report depicts the importance of implementing proper enterprise architecture in
the business organization named as RetailCo. The enterprise architecture helps to develop a
blueprint of the organization considering strategic business alignment and managerial
objectives as well. With the help of the enterprise architecture the users will be able to gain as
per their expectation and also the company will be able to gain measurable success and
competitive advantages as well.
1.1 Problem
The key resources of the company including people, system, process, technology and
products will be managed well after the implementation of proper enterprise architecture in
the business organization. Not only this but also Enterprise architecture provides the company
a clear and comprehensive view of the key resources of the company (Aier 2014). In order to
built secured relationship between the service providers and the users of the company the
blueprint framework of the company is required to be completely error free.
1.2 Solution
In order to mitigate the issues associated to RetailCo accurate super market division,
modernized business unit, super market competitors and correct management of the stock
relationship are required to be adopted by the management authority. As the company is facing
key rivalry with huge threats thus, for giving rapid respond to the competitors it is necessary for
the company to achieve proper enterprise architecture. The logical architecture, components
model, the operational model and IT management strategies are needed to be implemented in
the business organization (Simon, Fischbach and Schoder 2014). The key goal of the company is
to implement an IT enabled business structure with reduced rate of cost and new strategic plan
as well. Additionally, it has been found that with the continuous business improvement
programs, it will be able to integrate all the organizational programs such as integrated process,
supply chain optimization and shared services as well.
2. Conceptual architecture
In order to improve the existing framework of RetailCo it is necessary to develop a
conceptual design that would be helpful to gain competitive advantages and measurable
success from the competitive marketplace. According to the conceptual design it will provide an
integrated business and feasible IT infrastructure to the company and competition as well. In
order to support the synchronized wide spread enterprise perspectives, numerous numbers of
frameworks are there, thus for developing comprehensive enterprise architecture programs the
conceptual model could provide proper structure to the company (Vargas et al. 2016). Not only
this but also, this architecture provides private and consistent terminology to the employees of
the company and to their consumers as well.
Page 2

ARCHITECTURE AND SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
Figure 1: The existing platform of RetailCo
(Source: created by author)
The exiting platform of the company is represented in figure 1 which implies that the blueprint
of the company is divided into 7 different business units where the loyalty of the consumers is
very important thing to be considered. The enterprise architecture development team of
RetailCo developed 7 layers architecture. The baseline of the designed architecture is consists
of three different activities such as consumer loyalty, marketing and infrastructure. Based on
the requirement of the consumers the company has developed their marketing structure
(Zarvic and Wieringa 2014). Market segmentation is the initial phase for the development of
the business structure. With the help of the market segmentation the company would be able
to focus more over their consumers who are willing to buy products from their product stock. In
the year of 2003, the CEO of RetailCo had developed this platform or business structure.
Marketing is another important aspect on which the company should focus on. With the help of
proper marketing agendas the company could promote their brands and service structure as
well. The benefits of marketing are as follows:
 It enhances the visibility of the brand
 The relationship between the audience and service providers get enhanced
 The brand awareness and recognition also improved
 It helps to create trust and loyalty considering both the current consumers and
prospects as well
 It helps to position the business experts
 For improving the lead generation it marketing generates the traffic I the site.
Page 3

ARCHITECTURE AND SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
 It helps to open up new communication approaches for the consumers
The other business units associated to the company are the finance team and HR team.
The finance team is responsible to develop the budget estimation that is required to structure
the new developed EA plan. The previous merchandizing structure of RetailCo was not much
beneficial from the consumer and business owner’s aspect. On the other hand, the admin is
responsible to manage all the activities accurately. Again a back office plan was there to store
the organizational data securely (Zimmermann et al 2015). With the help of the back office the
unauthorized users will not be able to access information from the server. Even if the server get
interrupted or destroyed then from the back office plan the destroyed information could be
retrieved again by the employees and consumers. Moreover, based on the application plan the
enterprise architecture is developed. However due to certain structural issues RetailCo was
facing major level challenges, and in order to combat the issues, the company is willing to
develop a EA structure as a vision in the year of 2007.
Figure 2: The vision platform of RetailCo
(Source: created by author)
After analyzing the issues associated to the primitive EA of RetailCo, the vision of the
company was changed and as per the changed concept the newly develop architecture of the
company looks like the diagram represented in figure 2.
Page 4

ARCHITECTURE AND SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
 From the newly developed vision architecture of RetailCo it is determined that,
with the help of this architecture the company will be able to provide the below
features:
 It would help to convert a business unit towards the process focused model
 The IT platform will be simplified (Bernus, Noran and Molina 2015)
 The new model could consolidate and renew the IT model
 The company will be able to adopt a two directional two-vendor policy
 It will be able to build up an accountable and transparent system for both the
business owners and service providers
 While developing the architecture the project manager will be the main
responsible person
According to the newly developed architecture certain changes are being identified such
as the previous marketing agendas and the infrastructure was completely changed. In the
newly developed system an Enterprise data warehouse including customer loyalty and
marketing will be implemented. In the warehouse the data regarding consumers and the
employees would be stored. From the server or storage the development team will be to access
data from the server whenever required. With the data warehouse system the system will
become a secured one (Buschle, Johnson and Shahzad 2013). None of the external unwanted
and unauthorized users will be able to access data from the server without the permission of
the Admin. The main difference between the primary architecture and the new architecture are
the warehouse and supply chain management approach. With the help of the supply chain
management system RetailCo will be able to build a secured relationship between the service
providers and the suppliers rather between the buyers and the suppliers.
Page 5

ARCHITECTURE AND SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
3. Logical architecture
Figure 3: Building blocks for the agents and employees and inclusive RetailCo’s
information system
(Source: created by author)
The above diagram represents the building blocks developed for the employees and
agents of RetailCo. From the structure of the information system it is Cleary determined that,
RetailCo Company has two different functional components such as RetailCo information and
RetailCo agents or employees (Bernus, Noran and Molina 2015). The RetailCo information and
the RetailCo agents and the policy and security developed for the company are interrelated to
each other. According to the policy and the security oversight developed by RetailCo three
Page 6

ARCHITECTURE AND SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
different components could be effectively served including two way interaction, information
processing and co-managed information (Fischer, Aier and Winter 2015). From the newly
developed architecture the company could avail open communication approach. With the help
of the open communication the CEO of the company and the employees working in the EA
development team could efficiently share their view points to each other. The accurate
combination of three of these components such as two directional communication, information
processing and co managed information could result a customizable presentation (Simon,
Fischbach and Schoder 2014). Finally, it will lead to develop a secured relationship between the
consumers, staffs and business owners as well. It means that, the company could develop their
existing business interaction. In order to mitigate the identified issue of RetailCo a logical
diagram of the Company is represented below:
Figure 4: Logical view diagram for RetailCo
(Source: created by author)
The three functional components of the logical diagram include business process
orchestration and collaboration, connectivity and the interoperability and the information
security and information privacy. From the IT service and the compliance management service
developed by RetailCo, it is determined that, with the help of cloud service delivery system the
company will be able to provide effective capabilities to their employees and to their
consumers as well (Iacob et al. 2014). The company services both online and offline services to
their consumers. Even, a mobile app service is also available for the consumers of RetailCo.
Page 7

ARCHITECTURE AND SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
With the help of mobile app the users will be able to access information from the server
regardless of their location and time as well.
4. Components model
Figure 5: Component diagram for RetailCo scenario
(Source: created by author)
From the operation model of RetailCo it is determined that, it is representing the entire
portal access or portal aggregated view of the constituents. In the server all the official
information are stored and for accessing any information from the server it is necessary for the
system developers to login to the page with authentication (Maccormack, Lagerstrom and
Baldwin 2015). The business serves by the company include retention management, security
Page 8

ARCHITECTURE AND SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
and privacy management, availability and fault management, performance management and
control over the service accounting. In order to get access from the server it is necessary to
request the portal fort data access. With the help of proper connectivity the user will be able to
access data from the server (Rouhani et al. 2014). Security is referred to as one of the most
important factors that the company is strictly required to be considered. The enterprise has
developed proper data access and capabilities.
5. Operational model
According to the
Figure 6: Operational modeling of Content Resource Manager Service Availability
(Source: created by author)
From the operational components it is clearly defined that there are two different
functions such as front office system and disaster recovery site location. The switching services
and the block systems are interconnected to each other. Again both of the blocks are
connected to each other through the SN6 and SN9 (Santana et al. 2016). Even, the head office
and the specified nodes also plays active role in the data base or server system.
Page 9

ARCHITECTURE AND SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
Conclusion
From the overall discussion it can be concluded that, due to increasing rivalry
throughout the marketplace, it is the responsibility of the EA development team of RetailCo to
improve the exiting architecture or blueprint of the company. As Information Technology is
evolving day by day or even everyday thus the company should adopt all the necessary changes
or development within their existing business architecture or frame. It will help to reduce the
rate of competitors of the company. Considering the business components, functions and
structure of RetailCo, it is necessary to apply all the necessary applications properly with
accurate business units. With the help of store replenishments and additional business
applications the preliminarily identified issued could be completely mitigated from the
functional and operational components of RetailCo. The logical structure of the company,
operational model, components and the building blocks with different functional activities are
also elaborated in this framework. Considering the business components it is determined that
with the help of the architecture the RetailCo will be able to provide cost reduced and
integrated business structure to the consumers.
Page 10

ARCHITECTURE AND SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
References
Aier, S., 2014. The role of organizational culture for grounding, management, guidance and
effectiveness of enterprise architecture principles. Information Systems and e-Business
Management, 12(1), pp.43-70.
Bernus, P., Noran, O. and Molina, A., 2015. Enterprise architecture: twenty years of the GERAM
framework. Annual Reviews in Control, 39, pp.83-93.
Buckl, S., Ernst, A.M., Lankes, J., Matthes, F., Schweda, C.M. and Wittenburg, A., 2015.
Generating visualizations of enterprise architectures using model transformations. Enterprise
Modelling and Information Systems Architectures, 2(2), pp.3-13.
Bui, Q.N., Markus, M. and Newell, S., 2015. Alternative Designs in Widespread Innovation
Adoption: Empirical Evidence from Enterprise Architecture Implementation in US State
Governments.
Buschle, M., Johnson, P. and Shahzad, K., 2013. The enterprise architecture analysis tool–
support for the predictive, probabilistic architecture modeling framework. In 19th Americas
Conference on Information Systems, AMCIS 2013; Chicago, IL; United States; 15 August 2013
through 17 August 2013(pp. 3350-3364). Association for Information Systems.
Fischer, R., Aier, S. and Winter, R., 2015. A federated approach to enterprise architecture model
maintenance. Enterprise Modelling and Information Systems Architectures, 2(2), pp.14-22.
Iacob, M.E., Meertens, L.O., Jonkers, H., Quartel, D.A., Nieuwenhuis, L.J. and van Sinderen, M.J.,
2014. From enterprise architecture to business models and back. Software & Systems
Modeling, 13(3), pp.1059-1083.
Lagerstrom, R., Baldwin, C., MacCormack, A. and Aier, S., 2014, January. Visualizing and
measuring enterprise application architecture: an exploratory telecom case. In System Sciences
(HICSS), 2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on (pp. 3847-3856). IEEE.
Maccormack, A.D., Lagerstrom, R. and Baldwin, C.Y., 2015. A methodology for operationalizing
enterprise architecture and evaluating enterprise IT flexibility.
Rouhani, B.D., Mahrin, M.N., Nikpay, F. and Nikfard, P., 2013, September. A comparison
enterprise architecture implementation methodologies. In Informatics and Creative Multimedia
(ICICM), 2013 International Conference on (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Rouhani, B.D., Mahrin, M.N., Nikpay, F. and Rouhani, B.D., 2014. Current issues on enterprise
architecture implementation methodology. In New Perspectives in Information Systems and
Technologies, Volume 2 (pp. 239-246). Springer, Cham.
Santana, A., Simon, D., Fischbach, K. and de Moura, H., 2016, September. Combining Network
Measures and Expert Knowledge to Analyze Enterprise Architecture at the Component Level.
Page 11

ARCHITECTURE AND SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
In Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference (EDOC), 2016 IEEE 20th
International (pp. 1-10). IEEE.
Simon, D., Fischbach, K. and Schoder, D., 2014. Enterprise architecture management and its role
in corporate strategic management. Information Systems and e-Business Management, 12(1),
pp.5-42.
Simon, D., Fischbach, K. and Schoder, D., 2015. Integrating IT portfolio management with
enterprise architecture management. Enterprise Modelling and Information Systems
Architectures, 8(2), pp.79-104.
Vargas, A., Cuenca, L., Boza, A., Sacala, I. and Moisescu, M., 2016. Towards the development of
the framework for inter sensing enterprise architecture. Journal of Intelligent
Manufacturing, 27(1), pp.55-72.
Zarvić, N. and Wieringa, R., 2014. An integrated enterprise architecture framework for business-
IT alignment. Designing Enterprise Architecture Frameworks: Integrating Business Processes
with IT Infrastructure, 63.
Zimmermann, A., Schmidt, R., Sandkuhl, K., Wißotzki, M., Jugel, D. and Möhring, M., 2015,
September. Digital enterprise architecture-transformation for the internet of things.
In Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Workshop (EDOCW), 2015 IEEE 19th
International (pp. 130-138). IEEE.
Page 12