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According
to the CTOs of 60 major investment management firms,
enterprise architecture has emerged as a key industry
issue because enterprise architecture is viewed as a
way to reduce cost and increase efficiency and it is
seen as the foundation to support both growth and acquisitions.
Interviews
with leading asset management firms in the US, Canada,
the UK and Europe highlight the following issues are
common across enterprise architecture plans:
Applications – Enterprise
architecture plans describe how:
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Applications
such as portfolio accounting, OMS, performance and
client reporting interact
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Data
flows among applications
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Systems,
integration and data operate - accounting-centric,
trade-centric, data-centric or decision-centric
High-level
technology – The plan identifies the technology
used to link applications, including transformation-layer
middleware, data warehouses and hubs, centralized golden
copy data, integration tools, database platform, etc.
Underlying
technology – The plan documents the enabling
technology, such as SOA, message-oriented, point-to-point
vs. publish/subscribe transport-layer middleware, etc.;
additionally it identifies the data standards, such
as XML, FIX, etc.
Success
Factors
Firms
that have implemented successful enterprise architecture
plans have several things in common:
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They
have built their systems upon solid data
enterprise architecture.
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They
have deployed flexible models for enterprise
architecture that are tailored to the needs and culture
of their
individual firms. Various successful
plans may have wide ranges of scope, significant
differences
in depth, varieties of frameworks and models
can range from highly informal to highly
formal.
It
is important to note that successful deployments focus
on the business, not on the architecture, and
very few firms followed the "mega" approaches
of the recognized consultants in this area; of
those that
did, few were successful.
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They
provide, at a minimum, a high-level representation
of the current and desired end-state including:
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Detailed
technical standards
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Processes
to review all projects for conformance with architecture
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Processes
for on-going enhancement, updating and expansion
of the enterprise architecture
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Engaged
practitioners, those who deal day-to-day with the
firm's systems, not just enterprise architects
Complexity
of the Task
Many
firms have achieved clear and measurable benefits from
their enterprise architecture initiatives. For
those firms that have achieved success, creating an enterprise
architecture is a challenging, but not a daunting task,
with benefits well worth the effort. Firms that have
designed and implemented enterprise architectures noted
clear and quantifiable benefits, including cost savings,
shorter timeframes to meet new requirements, easier integration,
greater reuse of existing functionality, cleaner data,
and better relationship with the business.
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