Daimler Financial Services, formerly the DaimlerChrysler Financial Services, also introduced enterprise architecture management in 2004. Prior to that time, there had not been any standardized architecture standards for the more than 40 local IT units with over 800 IT employees scattered around the globe who are responsible for several hundred different applications. Thanks to EAM, it is now possible to determine precisely the IT costs for single business processes. The approach makes it possible to compare and optimize IT efficiency in processes and applications. 

EAM – a constant task

The prerequisite for every restructuring is a systematic determination of the existing IT landscape and its applications which support exactly these business processes. The challenge is to define the individual layers of a corporate structure and combine their elements with one another in such a manner that all of the relevant addressees have a common basis for understanding. This is the only way that changes can be planned and their consequences analyzed in complex, interdependent systems. For example, where and how does a reduction from 1500 to 1200 business offices have an impact? What are the consequences of a migration of two different systems onto one standard claims processing software? 

Since the speed of change in the financial services sector is increasing steadily and it is becoming more and more difficult to secure and defend competitive advantages, the demand for planning instruments such as EAM and the capability map is rising. The key to long-term success is to be found in an adaptable IT architecture which can fulfill the changing requirements made by the market on business processes. So enterprise architecture management is not a one-time task; instead, it is the ongoing evolution of a current status so that the company’s infrastructure can be designed flexibly and optimized long-term.