The Upcoming Role of the Enterprise Architect—From Overseeing Visualization and Documentation to Becoming the Enabler for Change and Innovation

Organizations are facing the challenge of transforming their business models into digital firms, as companies are becoming part of the platform economy. The orchestration of the IT application landscape and strategic business–IT alignment is essential to gain transparency in surviving the digitalization. The important issues of IT and business alignment, cost reduction, organizational change, transformation, and fulfillment of legal requirements are becoming more important. The necessity of the “enterprise architect” rises importance. Enterprise architects do not, in general, consider themselves as active drivers for change. The research project answers the question of how are enterprise architects fostering business and IT alignment. The study focuses on an exploration in the evolution and changing role of the enterprise architect in the context of digital transformation. The research methodology consists of a systematic literature and applies a qualitative, explorative, and summative content analysis in the DACH region. Results indicate that fostering business and IT alignment require more than ever the role of an active intra-organizational networker and communicator in our complex digital organizational ecosystem. The profession of enterprise architects therefore has great opportunities but needs to transform the role from overseeing visualization to becoming the enabler for digitalization.