Broadly, there are two facets to the people architecture. One facet is the desire to imagine; to make things better, to exploit new ways and technologies, to renew and replace the old. The other is grounded in the reality of the things, the people, and the ways of doing that took years to get to where they are today, with all their intricacies and nuances: the rust. But it is in the space between the imagination and the rust that things either turn to dust or get forged into what they must.

Organizations are increasingly using big data platforms and applications to store and analyze large collections of structured, unstructured, and semistructured data. Key technologies include Hadoop and its associated components (e.g., Spark, Hive, HBase, Storm) as well as NoSQL and in-memory analytic databases. A recent Cutter survey sought to understand the extent that organizations use big data environments for their sensitive data needs.

Digital transformation needs a robust platform that binds the systems of records and integration with the systems of innovation. This digital platform that sits at the cusp of integration and innovation provides the ability to bind the core processes with the new digital processes in order to allow building of new channel applications.

There are a lot of use cases for blockchain technology, and the business case for each needs to be developed. A lot of companies exist with a blockchain solution for a problem that does not exist — essentially a hammer searching for a nail. The use cases outlined in this Advisor have common benefits focused on simplifying existing relationships, reducing fraud, and improving the speed of commerce.

With the rush to new digital platforms, technology leaders often underestimate the value of continuous improvement. Many see it as a waste to invest in “fixing the old,” as it would leave fewer resources to develop “the new.” DevOps practices and cloud platforms can catapult enterprise technology forward, improving consumer responsiveness, time to market, throughput, and resilience, but they depend on continuous improvement to become internalized and self-sustaining.

Cloud and SaaS provide important potential advantages to financial organizations. But while “light-touch” SaaS applications may entice professionals in the short term, such arrangements have the potential to create serious regulatory problems, which may in turn cause considerable overheads as well as costly fines and reputational damage. Consequently, in the medium to longer term, SaaS arrangements — shadow or otherwise — may prove to be anything but light-touch for CEOs, CIOs, heads of regulated business units, and compliance and risk managers.

Leaders peering over the edge of the horizon of their own and adjacent industries might wonder, “What are companies that have achieved digital success doing differently?” We believe that at the heart of the ability to manage an ongoing and multilayered organizational transformation rests a sophisticated enterprise architecture capability with a specific charter to act as a transformation engine connecting strategic intent and execution excellence.

Organizations are starting to use blockchain to develop a new breed of transactional business applications designed to embed trust, transparency, efficiency, and accountability into the process of sharing and transferring a broad range of assets in a business network. These business blockchains are not limited to currencies. Assets ranging from equipment, shipping containers, and warranties to healthcare records and data related to supply chains can now be shared, exchanged, or transferred via blockchain networks more efficiently, and with greater collaboration and less risk to shareholders, than is practical using traditional centralized approaches.

The success of Global Business Services (GBS) in managing this transition and in meeting the evolving expectations of business divisions has contributed to a sea change in Dell EMC in which all departments are being asked to align for business-driven digital transformation. This has prompted discussion around the changing value proposition of GBS over time, which began as a set of orthogonal and functional agreements but has transitioned into a process-entangled, ­bottom-up engine of collaboration, innovation, and ­personal development.

Attempting more demanding endeavors requires innovative methods for delivering, guiding, and managing projects. Meanwhile, the rise in complexity and uncertainty demands new ways of thinking about projects.

Not every business has the same problems, but the threats to information security are likely similar.

CIOs and their teams are now tasked with enabling digital strategies, and many of the user stories target tangible benefits for customers and the organization.

Digital ecosystems are formed by a network of businesses linked together through a collective goal. Success in the financial services sector will increasingly be determined by which ecosystem you choose to participate in and how these ecosystems will compete against each other.

Regardless of whether Agile teams operate with or without a scaled frame­work, the need to match the expectations of the business users on the receiving end of the value generated by the team with the internal measures of throughput is critical. The three challenges described in this Advisor highlight the importance of measuring value in the eyes of the recipient of the output of work, not only the effort generated to attain value.

At the Cutter Digital Transformation & Innovation Bootcamp, Cutter Fellow and Harvard Business School Professor Karim Lakhani talked about digitally-driven disruption of traditional business models for value creation and capture, discussing platform models like Facebook and Twitter. To date, Twitter has clearly done a good job “creating value.” But unlike Facebook, it continues to struggle with the capture part of the equation.

The role of EA leaders in technology innovation is to scan the horizon of emerging technologies to determine how they are being applied and identify opportunities for the organization to innovate for competitive advantage. Once EA leaders have identified and analyzed those opportunities, businesses can formulate strategies for adoption.

Today, when everybody wants to disrupt their own or somebody else’s business, and new technologies that let them do it seem to appear almost daily, people with the “capacity to lead” are critical, and nowhere more than in the exploitation of IT. Obvious though this is, recognizing, empowering, and sustaining good IT leaders has been a challenge. People who can think strategically about what, why, and how to deploy technology but have trouble delivering it — and the reverse — fall short as IT leaders. Both skills are needed, and this edition of Cutter Business Technology Journal covers them in great depth.

The Internet of Things (IoT) continues to garner considerable attention as companies announce they are developing new connected products and services. Of course, this brings up the important topic of to what extent organizations are maintaining sensitive data in IoT devices, platforms, and applications.

For organizations to survive and thrive in the modern world, we should be able to work “remote first”: working online as if we were in the office together. Our companies will only be stronger for it. The things that make remote working successful are the same things we want in place anyway: effortless and fast communication, a shared place for files and conversation, and alignment on a common vision.

Having clearly defined outcomes creates the opportunity for stakeholders to reimagine their business, which informs the shape of future capabilities.

Consumers have become so enamored with mobile, social media, and popular messaging platforms (e.g., Facebook Messenger, Twitter) that they now expect companies to know them individually and to deliver personalized interactions and self-service options in real time. In short, today’s social, technologically savvy consumer forces companies to optimize how they engage with customers and transform the way they conduct marketing, sales, and service.

There is a common set of questions burning in peoples’ minds when they think about the business architect role, whether they are new to the discipline or experienced but seeking to compare approaches. In this Advisor, we address these important questions based on practical experience and best practices employed by a wide range of industries, organizations, and geographies.

Regulatory authorities are becoming increasingly focused on monitoring outsourcing arrangements in the financial services industry.

If you are spending US $50,000+ per month on public cloud, you have likely reached the penultimate rung of cloud torment — a journey from the Plains of Forecasting to the Gates of Commitment — and certainly you want to pass through the Undercroft of Budgetary Responsibility as unscathed as possible. Even those organizations that have been in and around the cloud for some time will need to go deeper to understand how to address challenges to their cloud buyer strategy. What’s around the corner for some CIOs is already a reality for those organizations in the throes of digital revitalization.

The new generation is looking for life-work balance as well as inspiring leaders who will fire them up and motivate them. In the new workplace, company values actually need to mean something. People need to see their leaders living and breathing these values every day.