The high-level goal of the digital architecture is to provide an exceptional experience. This in turn supports conversions, satisfaction, loyalty, repeat purchases and referrals. The winning business is the one who has the most exceptional experience at the right place, the right time with the most relevant message.

1. Digitally focused articles in support of changing and innovating global organizations through digital technologies,
processes changes and enhanced people skills.
Digitally Focused
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
Digital Architecture to User Experience
The high­level goal of the digital architecture is to provide an exceptional
experience. This in turn supports conversions, satisfaction, loyalty, repeat purchases
and referrals. The winning business is the one who has the most exceptional
experience at the right place, the right time with the most relevant message.
Defining and developing a digital architecture creates a lot of questions because
most businesses have a different view of what it means to be digital. There is the
enterprise definition, the line of business definition, the functional definition and the
technology definition. Seems complex but if you ask enough of the right questions
from all the stakeholders you can define a digital architecture vision that supports
multiple digital strategies and operating models.
So who does this? It takes a technically savvy Digital Officer or a business savvy
Digital Architect. In my previous article Digital Delivery: Closing the Business­IT
Gap, I talked about understanding all digital activity from the enterprise view. As a
starting point this is needed in order to plan and develop an efficient, agile digital
architecture.
What is a digital architecture? This depends on who you ask and their view on
digital maturity. For example, the view of a digital architecture is going to be
different for a business using legacy technology infrastructure but has in part a
digital operating model, versus a business that has a digital technology
infrastructure and a digital operating model.
How does digital maturity affect the architecture? One way to classify digital
maturity is a simple framework of Technology Infrastructure versus Operating
model and whether these are in the legacy or digital phases. The use of legacy
technology infrastructure with digital operating models suggests a patchwork effort,
quick fixes versus a digital technology infrastructure with legacy operating model,
that is poised for advancing its digital transformation. Today, 19% of North America
falls into Advanced versus 76% of the EU, and NA 4% and EU 5% for Non­existent.
Whether a business is starting from scratch or building on top of legacy solutions,
the process of piecing together a patchwork of disparate technologies is time
consuming, complicated and costly. The result is an architecture that, by its nature,
lacks full integration between the applications provided by the various vendors and
may only be as good as its weakest component.
An advanced digital architecture would have or at least be striving for the
following:
Scott Alexander
1 circle 61
Scott Alexander is a
Creative Digital, Marketing
and Technology Leader.
View my complete profile
About Me
▼ 2017 (3)
▼ March (3)
Digital
Architecture
to User
Experience
The Value of
"Earned" in
the Digital
Media
Engine...
Digital
Delivery:
Closing the
Business­IT
Gap
Blog Archive
1 More Next Blog» scottmartinalexander@gmail.com New Post Design Sign Out

2. Older PostHome
Posted by Scott Alexander at 2:33 PM
Labels: digital architecture, digital transformation, marketing enablement, scott alexander, user experience
Location: Philadelphia, PA, USA
Omni­Channel Platform. The architecture would enable the different
divisions, marketers or brands to sell, service and engage across different
sales channels, including web, tablet, mobile, social media, and offline
tactics.
Simplified Experience across UIs. The architecture would enable the
different divisions, marketers or brands to engineer an intuitive user
experience that requires no significant up­front training to implement and
use.
Latest Technologies, Seamlessly Integrated. The architecture must be
designed to integrate the latest technologies needed to sell products and
operate an omni­channel business from any device. High­availability,
continuously deployed, multi­tenant architecture are core requirements.
Enterprise­Level Security, Scalability and Reliability. The architecture must
offer security, scalability and reliability, while at the same time being easy
to use and affordable.
Open Architecture with a Thriving API Ecosystem connectivity. The
architecture must be able to integrate with a rich ecosystem of app
developers, theme designers and other partners (xTech). This requires the
architecture functionality to be highly extensible.
In order to move to support a digital architecture, a two­speed architecture might
be needed. A fast­speed, customer­centric front end running alongside a slow­
speed, transaction­focused legacy back end. Depending on system of record needs
this might be the ongoing architecture, which can be supported with integration and
services.
From a development perspective businesses need/should incorporate agile
methodology along with DevOps. Businesses should transform processes and value­
chains to shed weight and embrace the benefits offered by new digital technologies.
User­centered design is another approach to getting the right experience in place.
In addition to a consistent and exceptional user experience goal, a well design
digital architecture will provide a speed to market competitive advantage.
Development tools like agile, devops and user­centered design collectively support
the ability for a business to quickly test and roll new features, products, services
and even new ventures.
It is important to note that an open architecture API ecosystem connectivity design
supports 3rd party platform integration like marketing stacks, xTech partners and
their services. Cloud services can be integrated with a hybrid model for example.
Possibly premise based legacy system integrated to cloud based platforms and
applications.
Developing a digital architecture to provide a consistent and exceptional experience
is a journey, though starting with the right foundational basics is critical. Supporting
advanced digital maturity means having an omni­channel capability, seamless
experience across UIs, being able to incorporate the latest technologies, enterprise­
level security and an open architecture. Adaptability is key because what is
considered a good experience today might not necessarily be considered a good
experience tomorrow.
+1 Recommend this on Google
Simple theme. Powered by Blogger.