Tech Treasure Maps: Finding Solutions in the Enterprise Jungle | Podcast

On this episode of Weaver: Beyond the Numbers, our host Morgan Page explores enterprise resource architecture and how it can consolidate your applications, enhance functionality and support informed decision-making in IT investments.

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Detailed Description of Weaver: Beyond the Numbers, Finding Solutions in the Enterprise Jungle

00:00:00
Morgan: Howdy, y’all. Welcome back.

So today, we’re talking your tech treasure map for your enterprise. So, the thing that you need to make sure your enterprise implements as soon as possible is called an enterprise reference architecture.

Bunch of fancy words. So, what the heck does that mean? And why is that a treasure map?

00:00:19
Morgan: So, an enterprise reference architecture solves the problem every organization encounters at some point in their life of: I have a problem and I go start to search, like, what tools can help me solve this problem?

And then inevitably, a software sales guy gets in the mix, and we decide, “Hey, we need to buy this new tool.” And then IT goes, “Well, we already have something that does that.”

And you’re like, “Oh, why did I waste all of my time chasing down this tool that we already had? Why can’t anyone tell me where it exists?”

00:00:54
Morgan: So, an enterprise reference architecture solves this. And at base, it’s a piece of paper. But the work that goes into this paper is the critical part.

So, when you’re asking for an enterprise reference architecture from your IT department, key things that you want to make sure that they include in it: One, what products do we have that we are licensed for? How are we licensed for it? And what is our cost basis on that?

00:01:21
Morgan: And so the first thing that I want you to understand is most organizations, if you figure a mid sized company, is looking between one and three hundred applications across that enterprise.

The second thing that you want to make sure that you include in this enterprise reference architecture is overall functional capabilities. We want business intelligence. We want accounting. We want integrations. We want API management.

Those are functional areas and align our application stack to those functional areas. And what you want to do is not say how are we using it period, but how are we using it and what other capabilities exist. Because many applications, you may be using it for one functional area, but it may have capability for three or four.

00:02:14
Morgan: This is the huge value of the enterprise reference architecture because you may have an application that is duplicating what two or three or five other applications are doing.

And so you’re able to contract your spending across your IT technology landscape. That’s not often that you hear that comment of contract our IT spending. You’re not eliminating users. You’re not reducing licensing.

You’re just saying, “We use this product over here and this product over here, and they do the same thing. So why can’t we drop one of the products and go forward with a single one?”

00:02:53
Morgan: The other thing this helps benefit is by consolidating your technology landscape, it allows you to reduce what’s called your TCO or your total cost of ownership. Because now your IT organization is supporting less applications. That means less knowledge training, less resource requirement to support those, less infrastructure costs to be able to have that interoperability across your environment. Very key.

Now on top of all of that, if you have an IT steer co or through your leadership team, identify in your reference architectures what products you’re retiring, so the next three years you want to exit, what products are steady state that you want to continue for the next three to five, and which products are your investment opportunities.

00:03:46
Morgan: So oftentimes, we’ll see organizations purchase a platform, a ServiceNow, a Salesforce, a Dynamics. These are tools that have a base load of capability, like Legos that add on extra capability throughout.

And so those are investment opportunities that may be throughout your enterprise reference architecture. And so having an intentional process to say, these applications are going to consolidate on to this platform over the next five years and be able to show that contraction of IT spend, that consolidation of the landscape.

00:04:24
Morgan: Finally, the last part of when people are needing a tool to service something, you can have an immediate conversation of here are the five tools that we currently have that can execute what you’re looking for. Let’s look through these and see how they may accomplish your need before evaluating other tools.

00:04:44
Morgan: So, y’all, thanks for joining in today. Really appreciate it. As always, drop me a note if you’d like to hear another topic.

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