Set of organizational elements (strategic goals, departments, processes, technologies, staff, etc.) that makes up an enterprise. From enterprise architecture perspective these elements have specific relations between them that seek to assure the alignment of the whole company, which means to include the highest levels, this is, strategic ones, and also the lower levels, meaning the operative ones, for optimizing product and service generation that is the value proposition given to customers. Having and architectonic perspective is fundamental because from it the enterprise can be seen as an integrated whole that works in a coordinated way and has a common goal for every member of the operation.
Besides being a set of organizational elements, enterprise architecture is also understood as a holistic analysis practice made in organizations: “Enterprise Architecture is a
management and technology practice that is devoted to improving the performance of enterprises by enabling them to see themselves in terms of a holistic and integrated view of their strategic direction, business practices, information flows, and technology resources. (Bernard, 2012). For this reason, enterprise architecture is a key tool in enterprise management regarding intelligent decision making, decisions that take into account all and every aspect in the business operation and the connections between them. A lack of enterprise architecture means a disorganized activity without synergy, and this implies a main disadvantage in current enterprise world, based in the speed of technology.