AE Stories

These last couple of months have been extraordinary for me. I’ve gone through a lot of interesting experiences with customers and my book on value creation is generating a lot of enthusiasm among colleagues and friends. It makes me so happy that people are taking inspiration from my personal journey and that companies are reconsidering their practices to create better value for their customers.

In this blog I want to shortly summarize my personal invitation to all of you, to become a sparkle of transformation for value creation at your own company.

If you would like to hear more, do join me at the AE Keynote: Value Creation in the Digital Age on May 16 in Ghent.

One of the major shifts that I see happening in the digital transformation journey is the shift in thinking from applications to platforms.

In the early days of Enterprise Architecture, the focus was merely on frameworks and methodologies. Later on, the discussion changed more to processes. To really have a high impact, it is my conviction that Enterprise Architecture should focus on business value.

I love to help companies shape their future architecture. Become customer-centric. Exploit digital technology. Integrate multiple channels. Help them provide consistent and ‘lovable’ customer experiences. To do this, we also need to reinvent our organisations and design them as living systems.

In my 3^rd blog on customer centricity, I look at the impact of your customer centric strategy on technology. Since your customer is becoming more and more digital, a customer centric strategy cannot be realized without considering technology. And as customer centric business models are build on dynamic ecosytems connecting different partners, you will not be able to operate without technology.

In fact, business and technology should be considered at the same time and in an integrated way. There is no such thing as business and technology anymore, there is only business. But technology is at the heart of your business model.