planningIT enables companies to strategically plan their IT based on information from the enterprise architecture and in alignment with the business. It is unique in tightly coupling business priorities and IT returns with current and future architecture initiatives. Competitive point solutions offer modeling or repository functions with a static view of priorities, architecture and infrastructure. alfabet provides a holistic, integrated and collaborative approach that offers continuous transparency into how IT and business information, processes and roles are changing and need to be managed over time.

Managing the Business of IT

planningIT supports organizations in managing the business of IT by providing the means to:

target investment in areas that advance the enterprise strategically
identify weaknesses that hinder achievement of enterprise goals
determine how to improve on identified weaknesses
ensure success of planned improvement initiatives

Against the backdrop of corporate governance, planningIT delivers information to management on corporate performance to better understand how effectively and efficiently IT is supporting business goals and where processes can be improved. It lets an organization define roles, responsibilities and processes within IT and between IT and business to ensure every stakeholder’s participation in the strategic IT planning process. This promotes business/IT alignment and accountability for architectural issues and domains. Supporting the corporate and IT planning activities at all levels of management, planningIT ensures integration of the strategic and operational layers of management.

Making IT Manageable

Three pre-requisites need to be met in order to plan and manage an organization’s IT so that it can optimally support the business: access to all architecturally-relevant data, well-defined processes to avoid redundant efforts and ensure seamless interaction between users involved in the process, and involvement of and communication between all relevant stakeholders. planningIT supports an organization in meeting these requirements.

planningIT helps overcome the challenge of architecture information that is widely dispersed throughout the organization by providing a single, structured and organized platform of enterprise architecture information describing the business/IT relationship. The Logical Inventory is the information source for all stakeholders. Workflows, monitors and ownership accountability ensure data is kept up-to-date.

The product’s process platform bundles best practice activities into functional modules addressing the individual needs of the various stakeholders involved in the process of IT planning. Modules include Business Demand Management, Application Architecture Management, Program Portfolio Management, Enterprise Architecture Management, Value Management, Enterprise Strategy and Master Planning, Release Management and Compliance Management.

planningIT captures all aspects of the architecture and can inform on different views onto the architecture making the product appealing to a wide range of users and thus promoting a collaborative IT planning process in the organization. Its ability to aggregate information at various levels and visualize these in reports, graphs and charts makes it the optimal platform for business/IT communication.

IT organizations use planningIT as a catalyst for transformation to an agile IT architecture that supports competitive services and delivery methods. Its information-based approach supports the change management of business and IT architectures in a collaborative planning process with automated full architecture lifecycle support, “what-if” scenarios and rich simulation of future states in any period of time for all stakeholders in IT, Business and Finance.

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