Company Profile
alfabet's product, planningIT, enables companies to strategically plan their IT based on information from the enterprise architecture and in alignment with the business. It 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 15,000 IT professionals in the automotive, finance, telecommunications, logistics and transport, tourism, chemicals, energy and consulting service industries. Among alfabet's customers are multinationals corporations such as AMB Generali, BP, Daimler AG, Deloitte, Deutsche Bahn and T-Systems.
Managing the Business of IT
planningIT supports organizations in managing the business of IT by providing the means to:
- target investment in areas that advance the enterprise strategically
- identify weaknesses that hinder achievement of enterprise goals
- determine how to improve on identified weaknesses
- ensure success of planned improvement initiatives
Against the backdrop of corporate governance, planningIT delivers information to management on corporate performance to better understand how effectively and efficiently IT is supporting business goals and where processes can be improved. It lets an organization define roles, responsibilities and processes within IT and between IT and business to ensure every stakeholder's participation in the strategic IT planning process. This promotes business/IT alignment and accountability for architectural issues and domains. Supporting the corporate and IT planning activities at all levels of management, planningIT ensures integration of the strategic and operational layers of management.
planningIT enables IT/Business Alignment
Three pre-requisites need to be met in order to plan and manage an organization's IT so that it can optimally support the business: access to all architecturally-relevant data, well-defined processes to avoid redundant efforts and ensure seamless interaction between users involved in the process, and involvement of and communication between all relevant stakeholders. planningIT supports an organization in meeting these requirements.
planningIT helps overcome the challenge of architecture information that is widely dispersed throughout the organization by providing a single, structured and organized platform of enterprise architecture information describing the business/IT relationship. The Logical Inventory is the information source for all stakeholders. Workflows, monitors and ownership accountability ensure data is kept up-to-date.
The product's process platform bundles best practice activities into functional modules addressing the individual needs of the various stakeholders involved in the process of IT planning. Modules include Business Demand Management, Application Architecture Management, Program Portfolio Management, Enterprise Architecture Management, Value Management, Enterprise Strategy and Master Planning, Release Management and Compliance Management.
planningIT captures all aspects of the architecture and can inform on different views onto the architecture making the product appealing to a wide range of users and thus promoting a collaborative IT planning process in the organization. Its ability to aggregate information at various levels and visualize these in reports, graphs and charts makes it the optimal platform for business/IT communication.
Getting Business Value out of IT: Managing Opportunities, Risk and the Enterprise Architecture with planningIT
While it is clear to most that enterprise architecture is an integral part of corporate planning, it is essential to understand that only a data-driven, process-oriented approach can support this effectively.
Changes in corporate strategy and technology result in new demands on the architecture despite best-effort planning. To manage this volatility, steady and continuous process and information management are required - adapting and always moving towards the target architecture. Only an inventory that is fed by transactions resulting from the planning process can ensure decisions and plans are based on up-to-date and valid information for the current state of the architecture as well as all future states. It supports the organization in taking advantage of opportunities that arise and creating synergy among parallel transformational projects.
Inadequate technical assessment and business cases lead to the failure of over 50% of all IT projects. Knowing this and the fact that 50% of the functionality delivered by IT is not even used, IT organizations need to put more effort into architectural governance - architectural governance such as delivered by planningIT in the form of:
- scenario and impact analysis to identify architectural conflicts
- solution design including cost and risk analysis
- multiple and multi-dimensional portfolio analysis
- definition of standards platforms and blueprints
- checking for compliance to IT standards and granting of waivers
- creation of master plans and roadmaps based on the inventory
Summarizing, planningIT helps organizations to mature in their ability to manage the business of IT and deliver business value by providing a data-driven, process-oriented and collaborative platform for pro-active IT planning and management.
Contact Information
US Headquarters
alfabet Inc.
One Broadway, 14th Floor
Cambridge, MA 02142
Tel: +1 (617) - 401 2320
web: www.alfabetinc.com.
European Headquarters
alfabet AG
Leibnizstrasse 53
D-10629 Berlin
Tel: +49 (0)30 - 88 03 45 - 0
web: www.alfabet.de.