iCMG - Enterprise Architecture Firm - Architecture

Outsourcing IT - why involve Enterprise Architecture Firm?

IT globalization has many impacts on enterprise architects such as working environment, job security, EA governance practices, and development methodologies. For example, globalized distributed projects will increase the importance of project communications, architecture/technical specifications, quality control, and team building.

outsoutcingIT_whyiCMG

Today's businesses are wholly dependent upon IT and with business processes changing faster than IT, there will be a continuing need for frequent onsite interaction with enterprise customers of IT. The combination of low-cost outsourcing plus onshore Architecure Governance can make for an efficient combination, and one that moves some jobs back onsite. Within the past few years, the IT industry has fully recognized the role of architects in the workforce, in some cases replacing the designation: senior member of technical staff.

Why engage independent Enterprise Architecture Firm like iCMG?

As distributed EA and development teams evolve, at iCMG we help our customers with Architecture inputs to manage the development in geographically distributed teams.

Enterprise Architecture Firm vs. IT Contractors

Here, is the parallels from the CIVIL Architecture & Construction world
Civil Architecture	Enterprise & IT Architecture
Civil Contractor	IT Contractor
A general contractor is often hired to act as overseer for the construction and to plan for scheduling of all construction	Help construct software systems based on specified user requirements and deploy them for current needs. They provide maintenance work to support these systems over a period of time.
Civil Architects/Architecture Firms:	IT Architects / Architecture Firms:
Act as consultants for incorporating structural integrity of the design, mechanical, electrical and plumbing information into the building's plans Designs a building based on many factors including cost, municipal codes, owner / developer requirements, community style, etc.	Aligns Business and IT needs into an effective Framework so as to derive effective ROI out of Business & IT investments. They design systems and processes so as to meet enterprise needs, QoS requirements, Competition in the market-place, and to meet overall strategy and success factors

Risk of Ignoring Enterprise Architecture Firm?

Some firms are inflating job titles with architecture designations as a form of alternative compensation, creating up to 10 titles from entry level to Chief Technology Officer. The title Enterprise Architect is reserved for the most highly qualified, elite technical staff. To balance needs for profits and expertise, architects are currently in the minority in many IT firms, and are likely to remain a minority of the overall workforce. Independently certified architects are an even smaller subset.

For example, an IT services company based in India claims about 5% of its current workforce are solution, technical, or enterprise architects (see Table). Only 1% of the architects are designated as enterprise architects. Of these 50 EAs, half are consultants who work onsite in the US and travel offshore as needed, while only a quarter of the solution and technical architects are traveling consultants. The firm plans to maintain these ratios as it more than doubles in size in the next half decade.

Year	Total employees	Solution / Technical Architects	Enterprise Architects
2009 (current)	1,00,000	5000	50
2014 (planned)	1,90,000	12,000 – 15000	200

Table Example of Architect's Share of a Talent Pool

Engagement model

We help you to have a subset of the architecture roles remaining onsite while other architecture roles which can be done in offshore working closely with the implementation teams.. With our augmentation service, we are helping many roles such as Chief Architect and Business Architect onsite supporting enterprise strategic decision-making. Also, the roles such as Information Architects and Security Architects being done onsite with some portion being done offshore. As a part of extended architecture team, we can help in augmenting roles such as Application Architect, Infrastructure Architect, and Technical Architects which can be migrated offshore.