Brief: Digital Business Requires Different Organizational Ways Of Working

We're in the era of digital business, where technology-empowered customers and business relationships require new operating models. Because customers are in charge, businesses must become more agile. Common siloed or functionally organized firms struggle with this unless they implement new ways of working — augmenting hierarchy with networks between areas within the four walls of the business and extending outside — to customers, suppliers and partners. Enterprise architecture (EA) organizations have a special part to play in this — they can help define and promote a view of their business as a network of collaborating elements, and they can add to their value by integrating the knowledge from the network into the hierarchy. This report provides an overview of this concept, and a call to action for EA professionals.