How to Use Digital Platform Strategies in Enterprise Architecture

Digital strategies in enterprise architecture are all around you. If you use your smartphone to pay for a retail purchase, wear a FitBit to track your workout routine, or ask Alexa to play your favorite song, you are engaging with them. Mobile payment platforms, fitness tracking systems, and voice-controlled personal assistants are the results of trained enterprise architects and IT executives merging together advanced technologies in execution of new digital strategies.

Organizations now empower CTOs and enterprise architects to build systems that allow for growth in digital spaces. If you know how to integrate digital platform strategies with enterprise architecture, you and your skills could be in-demand across industries. Here’s how to get started:

Identify Systems of Interest

A good first step in enterprise architecture is to identify systems of interest (a component to a larger system), like the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT is a collection of hardware and networks that enable functions like turning on a home security system using a mobile device. New trends and technologies like IoT may fit into, or reshape, the digital components of your organization.

Integrate New Technology

An organization’s tech leadership and management will rely on your training and education to advise on the integration of cutting-edge technologies into enterprise architecture. Look at Whole Foods. Owned by Amazon, Whole Foods now offers discounts to Amazon Prime users who pay for groceries using their Prime accounts. How did Amazon do this? Amazon recognized an opportunity to integrate its technology to capitalize on the grocery industry. It alerted Prime members that the online Whole Foods reward program would soon be obsolete, prompting users to move to Prime. Prime users need to download the Whole Foods app to receive discounts during check-out. No doubt Amazon will measure the response to this initiative through analytics. Take a cue from Amazon here: It brought together two digital platforms, Amazon Prime and the Whole Foods app, in a single transaction.

Analyze Consumer Behavior

User data and behavior patterns indicate to enterprise architects and CTOs whether a digital platform strategy is performing well or not. As technology becomes faster, smarter, and more powerful, consumers expect integrated enterprise architecture to provide a curated user experience. A knowledge-based examination of consumer behavior will show strengths and areas of improvement for products and services, and potential market footholds toward which your organization could pivot.

Repeat

Once you determine your digital platform strategy and build out the enterprise architecture around it, you are not finished. Developments in tech and business evolve rapidly, so you need to continuously search for systems of interest to integrate into your strategy and measure its consumer effectiveness. After all, jobs in enterprise architecture and IT management are expected to grow as organizations continue to digitize their operations.

To identify new technologies that make your organization more accessible to staff and consumers, you need to learn IT management skills. A program that combines business and technology will enable you to see what comes next, whether that is to create solutions that align with new business goals, envision original applications for digital platform integration, or revamp your enterprise architecture to be flexible around your evolving strategy.

If you think you might want to work with tech leaders, emerging innovations, and design, build, and deploy enterprise architecture, take a look at Tulane University’s Online Master of Professional Studies in IT Management. Our program will provide you with the tools you need to develop sound digital platform strategy in enterprise architecture. You will gain sharp business acumen and technology training experience to refine your career or land a new job in enterprise architecture. Request more information to find out how you can get on your way to pursuing a master’s in IT management today.