CASE STUDY
Marius Snel, Chief Executive Officer and owner of Knotion
These are provided using an architecture
framework that Knotion has developed for
this purpose – so delivery is consistent across
the function. The client pays for the service
and architecture deliverables and not the
capabilities. Unlike traditional approaches to
EA where the value comes after the creation
of a capability, the ‘as a service’ approach
focuses on the outcomes, not the means.
“Setting up an EA environment can take
anything from three months to more than a
year, our value proposition is already saving
a client a significant amount of time.”
added Snel.
Another challenge with the traditional
approach is that EA can easily become an
organisational entity. It is transformed into
‘just another part of the business’ instead
of being integrated into all operations and
offering a return continuously.
Snel says an EAaaS approach turns
this thinking on its head and leads to
delivering value in more cost-effective and
efficient ways.
“The focus is on getting the most out of EA
instead of spending resources to create it
from scratch,” he said.
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INTELLIGENTCIO
Customisation
For Bachoo, the Knotion EAaaS solution was
ideal as it was designed to deliver outcomes
instead of being stuck in the methods, meta-
models and tools of architecture design.
“Most organisations try to predict the future
and then build a rigid IT ecosystem around
it,” he said.
“I believe in a more modular approach to
architecture and using that to see what is
coming. Knotion uses layers and building
blocks that can easily snap in and out of our
systems as technology evolves. This sees us
being more agile to changing innovations and
able to quickly adapt to new technologies.”
Knotion can provide this service thanks to
the investment it has made in the Enterprise
Architecture development process, as well
as the reference models it has built using
industry best practices. It believes that by
commoditising 80% of that, which makes
up not only an architecture capability,
but by creating modular components for
that architecture, it can deliver this service
effectively. The result was that Knotion could
provide the modular architecture that Bachoo
desired. The added benefit was that Knotion
could spend time focussing on the 20% that
gives PPS its core competitive advantage.
“The positive impact Knotion has already
had on our application architecture is the
biggest success story,” said Bachoo.
“Prior to commencing with the project, we had
130 silo-based applications. Subsequently,
this has been streamlined into a single
blueprint to provide us with an integrated
view of everything inside the business.”
Reducing complexity
The Knotion implementation at PPS has
enabled the organisation to ensure its
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