Business Architect as a Profession: Job Roles, Career Path and More

Who is a Business Architect?

Business architect interprets and develops the strategy for the operational needs of an organization and designs an effective IT architecture for business process management. The architect fleshes out business capability maps and value streams to link strategy and execution and helps reorganize and restructure the IT enablement process. 

Business architect roles demand developing or contributing to key deliverables like strategy summary, operating and business model analysis, business entities, organization mapping, systems mapping, system footprint analysis, etc.

Besides, an integral part of business architect responsibilities involves synergizing with other disciplines to achieve enterprise objectives. Business architects strive to bind business architecture with other aspects of an organization like strategy development, business analysis, process management, operations, and system analysis. They work in conjunction with other professionals to augment different components of the overall business architecture.  

Who can become a business architect? Well, business architect is a big job, and candidates from diverse backgrounds can make the transition to the role. Business analysts and Project Managers can easily make the jump to business architecture. Even business consultants, product managers, and technical architects can succeed as business architects. 

Successful business architects are worth their weight in gold in terms of earnings. They earn between $101,000 and $169,000 per year, and for a senior architect, the range can be $119,000 – $195,000.    

Business Architect: Job Role and Responsibilities

A business architect performs a strategic role to make a business more agile and productive. The business architect's job role is critical in structuring the business with respect to governance, business processes, and business information. The duties essentially involve:

• Defining roles and organizational structure
• Identifying areas for improvement
• Aligning organization structure with business functions

A business architect aligns strategic goals with decisions regarding the organization, its products and services, partners, suppliers, capabilities, and central business and IT initiatives. The key is to focus on business motivations, operations, analysis frameworks, and related networks that bridge these aspects of the organization. As a BA, you must build an integrated view of your company using a repeatable approach, consistent framework, and updated tools and techniques. 

The business architect collaborates with IT business architects to align technical solutions with business needs. A lead Business Architect supervises junior team members like the associate business architect. They also work with senior leaders and executives on leveraging business architecture artifacts to devise a business plan. Finally, the architect has to provide valuable input into the governance cycle to help achieve enterprise goals and deliver bottom-line business value.

Business architect roles and responsibilities include:

• To plan and design a business architecture strategy based on carefully scrutinizing various business scenarios and motivations
• To capture the vital views of the organization through a structured business architecture approach is a key business architect role
• To illustrate the main business functions of the company and to identify functions that are customer-facing or supplier-related or pertaining to business execution and business management.  
• To identify strategic business goals that can be traced through the organization and be mapped for ongoing governance
• To describe strategic, core and support processes that stretch beyond functional and organizational boundaries
• To define external entities like customers, suppliers, and external systems related to the enterprise
• To describe the workforce, resources and controls engaged in the processes
• Business architect responsibilities also include defining data shared across the business and their interrelation
• To establish how roles, capabilities, and business units are related. Thereafter, the decomposition of those business units into corresponding subunits. 

Business Architect Skills and Career Path

To become a business architect, you'd need extensive education and experience, and there isn't a specific requirements checklist. However, some desired business architect skills and TOGAF® EA certifications will prepare you to bag most Business Architect positions. 

The most common business architect skills include interpersonal, problem-solving, and time management skills. You also need to possess specific skills like:

• A broad view of the business and varied degrees of appreciation for strategies, processes, technologies, and governance 
• The skill to apply architectural principles to business solutions
• The ability to link and incorporate disjoint documents and drawings and project their relevance to the enterprise and top-priority business matters.
• Relevant expertise in using model-based representations that can be used to collect, aggregate, or disaggregate complex business information as and when required
• The ability to conceptualize and design high-level models that can help in future analysis to remodel the business architecture
• Relevant experience in planning and deploying IT initiatives
• Experience in creating business processes with the aid of various tools and techniques
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to communicate well at all levels of the organization
• Exceptional liaison abilities to convey business information needs to the IT team and data constraints to the business; similar conveyance capabilities regarding business and IT strategy, business processes and workflow automation, business and IT initiatives, benefit realization, and service delivery.    
• The ability for work at all levels of the organization
• Strong decision-making abilities
• Ability to influence others towards agreeable decision-making

Master the terminology, structure, and concepts of TOGAF® – the global framework for enterprise IT architecture. Sign-up for our TOGAF® Enterprise Architecture Training Course!

Wondering What Is the Career Path for a Business Architect?

There's no single entry point to a business architect career, and people from various fields can transition into the business architecture domain. A lot depends upon the organization and the candidate. Though there is still some ambiguity regarding the scope, focus, and key components of the relatively new business architect discipline, the role is undoubtedly evolving. The requirements and scope of the Business Architect job role vary across companies of various sizes and industries. Business analysts, project managers, business consultants, product managers, and technical architects can transition to business architect roles. 

If you want to succeed in a business architect position, focus on on-the-job training, hands-on experience, and skill-building in addition to education and certifications. Find ways to build and demonstrate your leadership skills. 

There is no shortage of jobs for skillful business architects in whichever location you are. A business architect career is a rewarding journey to go aboard, irrespective of whichever industry you work in. 

If you are looking to learn more about how to start a career as a business architect, go for an accredited TOGAF® Enterprise Architecture Training Course – the global framework for business architecture. The training is focused specifically on the business architecture role. 

For more details on reasons to get TOGAF® EA certification or for related courses, visit Simplilearn, one of the leading online certification training providers in the world. Learn from global experts and get certified by the world's top universities.

Disclaimer: "TOGAF® is a registered trademark of The Open Group."