a new approach to enterprise architecture at...

alfabet Case Study

A new approach to enterprise architecture at Microsoft

ensuring IT powers business success

MSIT is the largest of Microsoft’s internal IT development groups. It found that traditional enterprise architecture ideas had little influence in the business. So it adopted a radical, new problem-solving approach.

alfabet’s planningIT is allowing MSIT to engage with all development groups in the company, understand their requirements and the ramifications that these requirements would have on the IT infrastructure.

By organizing the affected architecture of our project portfolio with planningIT, MSIT has been able to optimize IT systems to support the business, and has taken a leading role in formulating business strategy.

2 I ensuring IT powers business success

CASE STUDY I MICroSofT

The ChallengeMicrosoft IT (MSIT) is the largest of Microsoft’s five primary IT groups, responsible for

maintaining and improving an IT infrastructure spanning 340,000 computers, 8,400

production servers and 98 countries. Its annual budget spread across 35 program

portfolios. Its challenge is to support Microsoft’s vision to create the next generation

of market-leading consumer products – products that can share complex information

across multiple electronic devices.

The IT function was struggling to prove its relevance and value to the business, par-

ticularly given the widening gap between shorter business cycles and longer devel-

opment time on IT infrastructure projects. So MSIT Enterprise Architecture Team

formulated a new, business-focused charter: ‘To accelerate the transformation of IT,

IT’s relationship with the business and the business’s position in the market.’ The

goal was simple: to transform the company through enterprise planning.


“We’re not about focusing on IT any longer. It’s about our enterprise and its position in the market as market leader. In doing so, we have to prove IT’s value to deliver that market position,” says Gabriel Morgan, Principal Enterprise Architect at MSIT.

ensuring IT powers business success I 3



A journey into the unknownFor MSIT, the focus shifted from IT planning towards enterprise planning. Morgan’s

team now provides a service – efficient problem-solving through IT. “With this change,

enterprise strategy is what we focus on, and when we integrate with enterprise

strategy, IT strategy is really a by-product,” says Morgan. “The point is being a market

leader in our product line. IT is simply an enabler to get there.”

With this new approach, MSIT sought to become involved in strategy formula-

tion. It examined business strategy theories and settled on the Office of Strategy

Management model, to maximize its relevance to the business. “It helps us describe

in business language how enterprise architecture can be of value – in strategy

capture, impact analysis and informing strategies before they’re completed and

finalized,” Morgan says.

No project is considered for funding unless its sponsors complete the planningIT

requirements so that the ramifications for the IT architecture are always known for

any combination of future projects. “It allows enterprise architects to provide portfolio

optimizations based on impact analysis and rationalization, and look where standards

aren’t being followed – discover gaps, overlaps, conflicts – everything we promised

[the business] from a cross-portfolio analysis,” says Morgan.

“Now we have consistency in data, and the relationships to make sure we can

do the analysis correctly. And the ability to refresh our asset inventories like

processes, applications, platforms, business objects, etc, of course, that’s very

important. Confidence levels go way down for rationalization or analysis if data’s not

fresh and current.”


alfabet’s planningIT was the tool with which this vision was delivered. “planningIT allows architecture to be integral to the planning process,” Morgan states.


IT at the heart of business planning The Office of Strategy Management model puts enterprise architecture at the heart of

strategy formulation, and planningIT has delivered this promise.

“We have an enterprise business strategy now where we get near-real time outcomes

based on strategy change. Through traceability we can perform impact analysis and

know that, with a change in strategy there, a new product launch here, or a new

industry development here, these are the impacts downstream and the potential

conflicts,” Morgan says.

“We also get a chance to bring IT to a very interesting peer-level conversation with

the presidents of the company forming strategy. When the strategy is formed, the

enterprise architecture captures that strategy, analyses impact and brings back the

information to inform decisions on what can and cannot be done, and what are the

risks. Based on that information, the strategy is then articulated. IT is a part of that

decision. IT is now a partner in delivering on that same strategy.”

MSIT is expanding its influence across the enterprise, from operational (such as

Licensing, Finance, HR, etc) to product lines of business (such as Windows, Office

and Xbox). Over the next two years it will work to organize, manage and optimize its

portfolios so that it can continue to drive the business strategy through IT.

All architecture software related to planning decisions is now based on planningIT

and integrated with Microsoft Project Server 2010 to complete their business

strategy-driven planning process. Finishes Morgan: “planningIT is now integral to the

planning process to make change.”

MICroSofT>> More than 340,000 computers and 121,000 end users

>> 441 buildings across 98 countries

>> 46,000,000 remote connections on servers each month

>> 8,400 production servers, 4 data centers and 112,000 SharePoint sites

>> 3,000,000 internal emails a day

>> 10,000,000 inbound emails, of which 90% are filtered out

>> 2010 profits of $18.76 billion

>> MSIT, the largest internal IT group with 35 program portfolios



www.alfabet.com

alfabet enables companies to see, analyze, control and align IT initiatives with business

priorities continuously. Its planningIT® software is unique in tightly coupling business

priorities and IT returns with current and future initiatives. Competitive point solutions

offer modeling or repository functions with a static view of priorities, architecture and

infrastructure. alfabet provides a holistic, integrated and collaborative approach that

offers continuous transparency into how IT and business information, processes and

roles are changing and need to be managed over time.

The company serves a global user community of 40,000 IT professionals in more than

40 countries in a variety of industries, including automotive, financial services, tele-

communications, logistics, high-tech and others. Its customers include international

corporations such as Credit Suisse, Munich reinsurance, BMW, AXA Winterthur,

Deutsche Bahn, oCBC and T-Systems. founded in 1997, alfabet is based in Berlin with

U.S. headquarters in Cambridge, Mass. Leading analyst firms recognize alfabet as the

technology and market leader for enterprise architecture and strategic IT planning

solutions.

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