TargetArc: Putting "Business Strategy & Information Management" at the Heart of EA

“Technology is no doubt a key component in EA. But unless you have a strong foundation in information and institutional knowledge, what good is your technology?” begins Murali Kala, Principal Strategist at TargetArc on a compelling note. His words couldn't ring more true as at the fundamental level today, its quality data and information that runs businesses or for that matter even technology. But look around and majority EA service providers in the market tend to focus on IT applications while the information underpinning it takes a backseat. To tackle this gap, Murali Kala an industry veteran with over fifteen years of experience in the EA space laid the cornerstone of TargetArc, an independent consultancy practice that specializes in enterprise, business, and information architecture design. “Information Management is at the heart of all our services as it is vital for all architecture disciplines,” remarks Murali.

All of TargetArc’s services are vertical agnostic and to bring invaluable advice to clients, the company uses known frameworks such as TOGAF and Zachman for EA, DAMA from an information architecture point of view, and the concepts from Business Architecture Guild for Business Services. What makes TargetArc stand apart is that they have combined the aforementioned reference models and come up with unique, best-of-breed and fully customized internal frameworks. When a client comes onboard, based on the need at hand, TargetArc uses their well-defined frameworks and associated methodologies, to implement a comprehensive approach for the successful execution of a strategy.

For example, if the need of the hour is business architecture, TargetArc assesses the client's existing business strategy, capabilities, and the goal at hand. Once the capabilities are documented, TargetArc creates a value chain around each of them alongside a maturity assessment. This is basically a 360-degree assessment on what’s working and what’s not and if the industry standards are being followed. Ultimately, TargetArc defines a client's future state, creates transition points between their current and the future state, and designs a roadmap that continuously provides value and builds new or improves existing capabilities.