Introduction

Both public and private organizations/institutions have significant management challenges in executing their strategy effectively in the 21st century. The field of Enterprise Architecture, which is less than twenty years old, is rapidly evolving to address these challenges. In the last decade, the role of enterprise architecture has expanded from a mere technical blueprint of IT systems and infrastructure to include other aspects related to business-technology alignment. To meet the growing organization/institution's need, enterprise architecture provides a wide array of services such as helping with broad changes in business and organizational models, improving partner relationships, implementing strategies, and addressing changing stakeholder demands.

The purpose of enterprise architecture is to optimize across the enterprise the often fragmented legacy of processes (both manual and automated) into an integrated environment that is responsive to change and supportive of the delivery of the business strategy. “A key goal of enterprise architecture entails maturing organizations from making locally optimal decisions to making globally optimal decisions.”[1] In other words, breaking down the silos by planning across the organization.