Elevating Enterprise Architecture (IT) to Enterprise Anatomy: A Six-Step Journey

Sunil Dutt Jha
May 3, 2024
9 min read

Updated: Jun 17

This blog introduces a breakthrough: the elevation from Enterprise Architecture (IT) to Enterprise Anatomy—a six-step journey built specifically for media companies.

Unlike traditional EA frameworks that treat other departments as “the business,” Enterprise Anatomy integrates every function—from content production to distribution, marketing, and data governance—into a single anatomy model.

This isn’t a technical upgrade. It’s a strategic shift. By adopting ICMG’s Enterprise Anatomy, media enterprises can realign fragmented processes, make real-time decisions through digital x-rays, and transform how they execute, scale, and lead in a fiercely competitive market.

Overview

A large global media company had spent years investing in Enterprise Architecture—but like many others, their efforts were narrowly focused on IT. Architecture teams created system maps, cloud roadmaps, and integration frameworks, but these remained disconnected from the actual needs of business functions like Content production, Marketing, and Distribution.

The result?

Fragmented workflows, slow campaign rollouts, duplicate asset management tools, and ongoing alignment issues between IT, Sales, and Creative teams. Outside IT, departments like Content production, Marketing, and Distribution continued operating in silos—unaware of, and unaffected by, these so-called “enterprise” frameworks.

Campaign delays. Content rework. Poor collaboration between Sales and Production. Everyone was optimizing their part. No one was engineering the whole.

The realization hit hard: they had Enterprise Architecture—but not an enterprise-wide model.

Recognizing that their EA initiative had become an IT governance program—rather than a business execution framework—CIO turned to ICMG’s Enterprise Anatomy model.

What followed was a shift from Enterprise Architecture (IT) to a truly enterprise-wide structural model, beginning with a six-step journey that redefined how strategy, systems, and operations were understood, connected, and executed across the organization.