POWERING DIGITAL INDIA

Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) organized a Seminar on “Powering Digital India with Enterprise Architecture – Strategies, Practices & Outcomes” at FICCI, New Delhi on 17th December, 2015. Mr. Jagdish Shivhare, Sr. Assistant Professor from Electronics & Communication Dept on behalf of Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon attended the event.

Mr. Vikas Bhatia, Chairman, Communications and Digital Economy Committee, FICCI inaugurated the event. He said that Enterprise Architecture is best defined as the architecture made for an enterprise. It is a conceptual blueprint that defines the structure and operation of an organization. It is a well-defined practice for conducting enterprise analysis, design, planning and implementation using holistic approach at all times, for the successful development and execution of a plan or strategy or a project undertaken. HE added that the intent of an enterprise architecture is to determine how an organization can most effectively achieve its current and future objectives. Mr Bhatia stated that it is a proactive and dynamic way of leading enterprise responses by identifying and analyzing the execution of change towards the desired business vision and outcomes.

Mr. James de Raeve, GM India and VP Certification of “The Open Group ‘’gave a brief overview of Enterprise Architecture, The Open Group Architecture Forum (TOGAF ) and The Open Group’s contribution to the field of EA. He said that TOGAF is the de facto global standard for Enterprise Architecture. The Open Group Architecture Forum, comprises of more than 200 enterprises, develops and maintains the TOGAF standard and publishes successive versions at regular intervals. He further said that the TOGAF framework enables organizations to effectively address critical business needs by ensuring that everyone speaks the same language, avoiding lock-in to proprietary solutions by standardizing on open methods for Enterprise Architecture, saving time and money, and utilize resources more effectively and achieving demonstrable ROI.

Guest of honor, Sh. Rajiv Kumar, Joint Secretary, Dept. of Electronics & Information Technology, Ministry of Communication & IT, Govt. of India delivered the special talk on the necessity of EA in making country digitized. Traditionally there are several categories of models that are captured in enterprise architectures. The four most prevalent ones are:

1. Business Architecture that focuses on the business strategy, the organization of the enterprise, the various services of the business and the core strategic as well as operational processes within the business.

2. Information Architecture blueprint provides modeling of all entities, their relationships and the comprehensive models of “data” and “information” that are needed to run the enterprise.

3. Application Architecture blueprint provides all the details of the applications, including how they interact and leverage information models, the interaction and interfaces of applications, and the enterprise application design patterns.

4. The Infrastructure (Technology) Architecture blueprint focuses on the organization of the hardware and core infrastructure software that is required to support the performance, security, and reliability of the enterprise.

Dr.Pallab Saha, Partner & Chief Enterprise Architect, WIPRO discussed on the topic “Towards Digital Andhra Pradesh with ePragati- Ushering Progress, Shaping Lives” and another discussed by Mr. Sujit Nair, Senior Manager, Business Advisory Services-Government Advisory Services, EY on the topic “ Why do Digital India initiatives need an Enterprise Architecture framework approach to succeed” .

Dr. Saha said Andhra Pradesh State Enterprise Architecture (APSEA) or 'e-Pragati ' is a comprehensive architecture to leverage the latest advances in e-governance tools. It was developed in association with Wipro. 'e-Pragati' is a comprehensive framework for implementing e-governance and provides e-services to citizens of Andhra Pradesh. With e-Pragati, Andhra Pradesh becomes the first state in India to conceive and execute a state-wide enterprise architecture. He further said that e-Pragati focuses on conneting government with citizen. Implementation of e-Pragati leads to information flow among departments that will lead to an integrated, outcome-driven and accountable government.

Mr. Nair said that Enterprise Architectures now the Key to Driving Digital Strategy. CIOs are increasingly looking to enterprise architecture to help drive their digital strategy. More than 50% of organizations have a digital strategy. Analysts believe that digital technologies will create new opportunities for innovative business models. He further said that Digital India vision just took a giant leap with such a comprehensive and broad e-Governance implementation.

Next there was a Plenary Session on Leadership Perspective to Role of Enterprise Architecture in Powering Digital India. The panelists for the session were:

1. Mr.R.N. Pallai, ITS Special Secretary, Govt. of Orissa

2. Mr. Tarun Gupta, CTO- Retail, Cognizant Technology Solutions

3. Mr. James de Raeves, GM, India Open Group

4. Dr. Pallab Saha,Chief Enterprise Architect, WIPRO

5. Mr. Muthukrishanan, Director, IT department , Govt. of Maharashtra

The dignitaries discussed that around the world, governments are constantly facing new demands, greater expectations from the citizens calling for better governance. This requires governments take a whole-of-government (WOG) perspective. This is exactly what Digital India aims to achieve. The transformation of next generation of Digital Government, India needs a different standard called Government Enterprise Architecture. (GEA) focus on framework to design and deliver services in a coordinated, efficient and equitable way that citizens and businesses demand. They further discussed governments in the future will be more connected Flat, Agile, Streamlined and Tech-savvy. Digital governments have deeper engagement, encourage participation and collaboration, and exhibit greater openness and transparency. They deliver services that are more personalized, choice-based and anchored. The panel summarized that with e-governance in India showing signs of maturity, and fuelled by Digital India goals, there is a growing need to embrace an architecture-based approach at the national, state, district and city levels.

The seminar was very beneficial and knowledgeable as the participants become more aware about the concept of entrepreneurial architecture. The seminar highlighted that EA comprises the institutional, communicative, coordinative and cultural elements of an organization oriented towards innovation.