The Role of Enterprise Architecture Artifacts in Strategic Planning for Digital Transformation

Abstract

Organizations are continually improving their services and innovating to meet the ever-changing market demand and competition. Digital transformation is the newest technology-driven change in customer behavior. However, planning and steering can become complicated as the organization grows. Enterprise Architecture is an approach used to manage the complexity and alignment between business and IT goals. EA practice involves creating different artifacts used to describe the various aspect of the organization and to facilitate information systems planning. The thesis aims to investigate the role of EA artifacts in the strategic planning process for digital transformation.

This study applied a multiple phases approach. Firstly, I used a literature review to explore the existing literature for information and gaps, followed by an in depth qualitative case study.

The findings show there are internal and external stakeholders that influence the strategic planning process. The organization does not use frameworks to organize EA artifacts. EA artifacts are consulted regularly during the decision and implementation phases in the strategic planning process for digitalization. Also, the EA integrate into routine business processes.

This research contributes to the EA discipline by providing researchers, scholars, and practitioners with an in-depth understanding of the role of EA artifacts in EA practice.

Date of Award	20 Aug 2020
Original language	English
Supervisor	Frank Grave (Examiner) & Rogier van de Wetering (Co-assessor)