Case USA2: How a Retail Bank Mistook Workflow Automation for Enterprise Architecture Readiness

In our US-wide diagnostics, we repeatedly see workflow digitization passed off as EA transformation.

Retail banks have poured millions into automating account opening, loan processing, and compliance tasks, claiming faster turnaround and consistent execution as proof of architectural readiness. Yet behind the automation, exception handling and cross-channel logic still rely on manual intervention — the enterprise anatomy was never defined.

P1–P6 Insight Preview: Automation delivered local process gains (P2) and implemented components effectively (P4–P5), but lacked enterprise-wide behavioral coherence (P3) and strategic linkage (P1), leaving operational stability (P6) exposed.

Role Disconnects:

CEO: “Automation is driving efficiency” — but efficiencies are isolated and fragile.

CIO: “We’ve digitized our core processes” — but they remain disconnected across business units.

Sales Head: “We can serve customers faster” — yet exception cases still bottleneck the flow.

Chief Enterprise Architect: “We have workflows, not architecture” — no structural model underpins the processes.

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