The Real Question: Who Gains from This?
Enterprise Architecture (EA) should be about structuring and optimizing how an enterprise functions as a whole—not just its IT infrastructure. Yet, in 2025, EA is still widely equated with IT programming tools, software frameworks, and system implementations.
But let’s ask the real question: Who benefits from this limited view?
It’s certainly not the end-users—banks, healthcare organizations, telecom providers, or any industry that actually needs business-wide problem-solving.
Instead, the biggest winners of this IT-centric EA model are IT vendors, software platforms, and IT Consulting firms, who thrive on keeping enterprises dependent on technology solutions rather than holistic enterprise design.
And this isn’t just an oversight—it’s a deliberate misrepresentation that serves a specific agenda.
By framing EA as a tech discipline, these vendors ensure that enterprises remain locked in cycles of tech-driven, vendor-led projects that don’t necessarily translate to business success.
How Did We Get Here?
The IT-centric EA model didn’t happen by accident. It was shaped and reinforced by four key forces:
1. IT Vendors Drive the Narrative
The so-called “EA thought leaders” often come from IT service firms or software product companies, whose primary goal is not to architect enterprises but to sell IT solutions.
Many EA discussions, frameworks, and certifications focus heavily on technology implementation, conveniently ignoring business-driven architecture. This allows vendors to position their products as “enterprise architecture solutions” rather than tools that support a larger business design.
EA should start with business structure, strategy, and operational efficiency, not software stacks and deployment models.
2. Project Delivery Bias
Many professionals entering the EA space today come from project delivery backgrounds, where their primary experience is in implementing technology solutions rather than designing enterprise-wide models.
As a result, most EA conversations revolve around tools, cloud migrations, and frameworks, rather than defining how enterprises function holistically across strategy, process, systems, and operations.
A project delivery mindset focuses on short-term execution, but EA should focus on long-term enterprise success while keeping short term realities.
3. Revenue Sponsorship Loops
Take a closer look at many LinkedIn groups, conferences, and industry forums that claim to be EA-focused. You’ll notice a trend—many are sponsored by large IT vendors.
These sponsors shape discussions in favor of their tools, ensuring that EA conversations remain heavily IT-centric. The result? Instead of discussing enterprise-wide models for banking, healthcare, and telecom, the focus remains on IT frameworks and software solutions.
If the discussion always comes back to tools, certifications, and frameworks, where is the room for actual enterprise transformation?
4. No Incentive to Change
Enterprise leaders should be the ones demanding real EA. But they’re often too distracted by vendor pitches and pre-packaged “architecture solutions” to ask deeper questions.
Because IT-led EA appears to solve immediate technical problems, executives assume they are addressing real enterprise architecture, when in reality, they are just patching IT inefficiencies.
The issue? Enterprise challenges are not IT challenges. They are business challenges that require a business-first architecture approach.
The Real EA Question: Who Is Designing the Business?
Enterprise Architecture is not about programming tools. It’s about defining how an enterprise functions, aligning strategy, business processes, systems, components, implementation, and operations into a cohesive, structured model.
So, let’s ask a critical question:
Who in the EA community today is actually discussing banking, healthcare, or telecom as enterprises?
Who is talking about the enterprise anatomy of these industries beyond just their IT systems?
Who is designing the business—not just the technology?
The answer: Very few. And that’s the real scandal.
The Cost of This Misalignment
By keeping EA tied to IT, enterprises suffer in multiple ways:
Banking enterprises continue struggling with risk management inefficiencies, while IT-centric EA focuses on core banking platforms instead of financial modeling.
Telecom enterprises face customer churn and service delivery inefficiencies, yet EA discussions focus on cloud adoption rather than business service design.
Healthcare organizations struggle with patient care efficiency, yet EA conversations are dominated by electronic health record (EHR) implementations rather than operational architecture.
This misalignment is why so many digital transformation projects fail.
If EA is only about IT, then who is actually architecting the enterprise itself?
It’s Time for a Mindset Shift
Real enterprise architects care about the business first—not just IT infrastructure. Until this mindset shifts, EA will remain a tool-driven echo chamber, benefiting vendors rather than enterprises.
What Needs to Change?
1. It must be defined by enterprises, not IT vendors.
2.Business-first EA should take precedence over IT frameworks.
3.Enterprise architects should focus on operational efficiency, not just digital transformation.
4.EA discussions should be about industry-wide challenges, not just software solutions.
Only then can we create real enterprise architecture—one that serves end-users, businesses, and industries rather than keeping them locked into vendor-led cycles.
Where Do You Stand?
What do you think? Has Enterprise Architecture lost its way? Should EA be redefined beyond IT?