Digital transformation has imposed a closer alignment between the roles of the CIO and innovative Enterprise Architecture teams. Forward thinking Enterprise Architects (EA) have become the vanguards for the successful execution of business transformation strategies and objectives. The once accepted separation between developing a business and technology strategy in the enterprise no longer exists due to the evolution of Enterprise Architecture as a role – which is responsible for moving EA closer to the center of the organization; directly liaising and even advising the CIO.
These various developments have resulted in enterprise architecture moving away from being viewed as an ‘Ivory Tower’ discipline; with modern businesses increasingly recognising EA’s for their ability to deliver great organisational value by cutting cost and complexity, aligning IT to emerging technology tools, defining strategic business goals; which in turn enables the company to scale up and quickly meet the speed and demands brought forth by digital transformation.
Forward-thinking businesses will be those that are able to recognise, understand and rapidly respond to change; whilst adapting their operating models to leverage disruption appropriately. It is with this in mind that it has become increasingly important to empower EA’s to be the driving force of strategic decision-making and transformation that delivers high impact value. IT departments too - are going through a holistic reconfiguration to allow new ways of working that enables agility, flexibility of IT platforms and swift responses to an increasingly digital world. Measuring the success of IT and EA teams will be dependent upon their capacity to spread their limited resources through collaboration and leverage organisational knowledge in a way that better positions them to demonstrate the value of their work, and in turn be heard by key decision makers.
It is within this context that Future Enterprise Systems Africa (FESA) has emerged as the premier enterprise architecture gathering in Africa and seeks to attract leading professionals in the digital transformation, IT architecture, technology strategy and innovation fields. FESA is an extension/re-imagining of Corinium Global Intelligence’s digital events series (DigiCon & Chief Digital Officer); which have gained industry resonance as the digital industry gathering of choice – the conference seeks to provide a meeting place for the exchange of ideas as well as the broader development of the African enterprise architecture industry.
FESA offers a unique business platform for career development, networking with industry change-agitators and technology disruptors who are driving IT and digital transformation in today’s increasingly competitive market. The inaugural edition will host a diverse delegate audience, industry experts and commentators, business technology leaders, as well as top solution providers. The event features over forty speakers who will present thought-provoking and legacy-smashing keynotes, panel discussions and host educational discussion groups which engage the audience on next-generation solutions to current organisational challenges and advise you on how to best position your organisation to tap into burgeoning disruption opportunities.
The event features a pre-conference day that brings meaning to the term innovation, and addresses how to move from merely ‘talking’ to ‘doing’ innovation. The stage will be set for the delivery of power keynotes focused on highlighting current and future trends which are fundamentally changing the role of EA’s and the broader IT Division within the organisation.
Topics that will be delved into extensively include, ‘How Innovative Technology is Changing Business’, ‘Developing an AI Strategy’, ‘The New Era of Managing Enterprise Systems & IT’, ‘Multi-Disciplinary Teams Supporting the Modern CIO’, ‘Architecting for CX’, ‘Building a Cloud-Native Enterprise Platform’, ‘Effective Enterprise Architecture Implementations’, ‘Digital Twins’, ‘The Future of the IT Office’ and factors to consider when building an EA team.
Future Enterprise Systems Africa is hosted at The Focus Rooms, in Sunninghill Johannesburg from 15 to 17 October 2019.
