Enterprise Architecture for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: A Starting Point for Bringing EA to SMEs, Based on Adoption Models

Maxime Bernaert (), Geert Poels (), Monique Snoeck () and Manu Backer ()
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Maxime Bernaert: Ghent University
Geert Poels: Ghent University
Monique Snoeck: K.U. Leuven
Manu Backer: University of Antwerp

A chapter in Information Systems for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, 2014, pp 67-96 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract On the one hand, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are important drivers of economy. SMEs face a number of problems due to a lack of structure and overview of the company. On the other hand, enterprise architecture (EA) can be used as a holistic approach to keep things aligned in a company. Some emphasize the use of EA to align IT with the business, others see it broader and use it to also keep the processes aligned with the strategy. This article refers to solutions that EA can bring to the problems regarding a lack of structure and overview in companies. While EA has gained importance in larger companies and EA can also provide similar benefits to SMEs, hardly any article discusses EA for SMEs. An exploratory research in Flemish SMEs confirms that in practice none of the SMEs knows or uses EA. It is clear that there still exists a gap between EA and SMEs. The main goal of this article is first investigating why EA is not yet adopted by SMEs, despite the benefits EA can offer. Adoption models offer insight in the adoption process. Second, this article offers a starting point for EA technique developers to really adapt EA techniques to an SME context. Research steps are given to start developing EA techniques, as well as a starting point for a metamodel based on only four concepts, because the characteristics of SMEs emphasize the need of simple EA techniques. These concepts refer to four dimensions that are present in a broad spectrum of EA techniques.

Keywords: Enterprise architecture; Small and medium-sized enterprises; Business architecture; Adoption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-38244-4_4

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