In my client’s case, that’s integration across business units. I also use analogies from every day situations. They are located in New York, so the subway is very familiar. The NY subway system was actually 3 separate systems which began to be unified in the 1940′s. The artifacts of the lack of a single architecture are still felt today when you need to change from one line to another – it’s a pain, and a cost of “interfaces” that were developed to create “interoperability” among disparate architectures. Executives quickly understand those types of example, and why they need an Enterprise Architecture.

1. Firmwide communication network and email
2. ERP ( Transaction processing)
3. Data Warehouse (Buinsess analytics)
4. Portals ( Intra and Extra)
5. SFE/CRM
6. Desktop productivity tools ( spreadsheets, word processinfg etc).

The above need to be standardized and appropriately integrated via standardized processes or data or both.

I believe you will find time taken on benchmarking (except in the IT operations domain where things are more standardized and there is more reliable data available) to be wasted and potentially, destructive. Work with your leaders to establish where they think they should be, and why. Do this for current time period and, say, 2 years out. Then compare against their actual assessment. i.e., drive this from an internal perspective – that has the most meaning.

As you know, I had the distinct pleasure of collaborating with you, Dr. Weill and others when I led the 2006 Concours Re.sults Research project ITV: Contemporary IT
Value Realization Strategies. That project introduced me to IT Savvy, “…an expression of a company’s ability to recognize and exploit business value available from information technology.” It also gave me a great appreciation for the Impact of IT Savvy on Business & Portfolio Performance.

These concepts and frameworks have served me well in the last three years. I look forward to reading their book and continuing to build on their ideas.