Enterprise Architects:

The Power Behind the IT Throne

Enterprise Architect TechPersona Survey

May 2016

Persona Profile

Architects Role: The Fuel that Keeps the Enterprise Going

Q: At your place of work, which of the following are among your primary job responsibilities?
Source: Network World Enterprise Architect Persona Survey, 2016

High Involvement in Initial Stages of Purchase Process

83%
75%

79%
69%
54%
42%
27%

Determine the
business need

Determine technical
requirements

Evaluate
products/services

Recommend or
select vendors
for purchase

Implementing IT
products
and services

Q: In which of the following ways are you involved in the purchase process for IT products and services?
Source: Network World Enterprise Architect Persona Survey, 2016

Sell internally
(e.g., outside
of the IT team)

Authorize or
approve the
purchase of products
and services

Reporting Structure Creates Peers

59%

IT Management (Director/Manager)

71% enterprise

CIO (Chief Information Officer) or Top IT Executive

39%

48% SMBs

Solution/Application Architects

39%

48% enterprise

30%

Technical Consultants
Networking Director/Manager

25%

CTO (Chief Technical Officer)

24%

Cloud Architect

23%

Infrastructure SMEs

23%

Software Architects

20%

Compliance/Risk Officer

20%

Software/Application Developers

13%

Enterprise Developer

12%

Software/Applications Engineers

9%

IT Liaison

8%

Other

36% tenure 8+ years

13%

Q: Who do you consider to be your closest peers within your IT organization (i.e., those with whom you work closely on a regular basis)?
Source: Network World Enterprise Architect Persona Survey, 2016

Traditional and Emerging Vendors Getting Face Time

Q: In a typical work week, how many hours do you spend: Meeting with vendors
Q: Please estimate the percent of the total amount of time you spend meeting with vendors you are not doing business with currently that is spent meeting with traditional/established
vendors versus new/emerging vendors/start-ups:
Source: Network World Enterprise Architect Persona Survey, 2016

Need for Bilingual & Business Mapping Skills

Critical/very
important

Very important

Ranked by
Challenge

The need to be bilingual and communicate in terms that

both IT and non-IT stakeholders understand

88%

58%

30%

13

Mapping capabilities to business needs

88%

51%

37%

12

Architecting solutions

86%

38%

48%

11

Keeping up with the pace of technology change

86%

47%

39%

Educating yourself about various siloed business problems

across the organization

85%

41%

44%

10

Technology integration/consolidation

84%

34%

50%

Making the business case for new technologies

82%

36%

46%

Improving the IT planning process

75%

33%

42%

Making or proposing business process changes

74%

23%

51%

Merging multiple departments and objectives into

one technology roadmap

10

70%

32%

38%

Collaborating with infrastructure SMEs to understand

infrastructure strategy and upgrades

11

69%

24%

45%

Introducing new business standards across

multiple projects

12

66%

20%

46%

Ability to operate within the organization with few

or no true peers

13

66%

25%

41%

Q: How important are the following skills or goals in order to be successful in your role?
Source: Network World Enterprise Architect Persona Survey, 2016

Critical

Continue the Conversation

For more information, please contact: Sue Yanovitch, VP, Marketing
at IDG Enterprise syanovitch@idgenterprise.com
To get results from IDG Enterprise research when it happens,
or any other news, follow us on Twitter: @IDGEnterprise
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