Graham Self is a business architect at Axiologik with 21 years in financial services. He is often asked what the true value of business architecture actually is. Here is his answer.
// 01Regulation raised the bar
UK financial organisations have been working to the Operational Resilience regulations, with a deadline of March 2025 for full compliance on important business services. Europe has followed with the Digital Operational Resilience Act, and other markets have brought in their own legislation.
The intent behind these regulations was never that institutions clear a minimum bar by a deadline — a distinction we press in the false confidence of resilience. It was that an operational resilience practice and mindset becomes embedded for the future. That demands full transparency across the business — processes, people, technology and data.
Which raises an awkward question: who in the organisation actually holds that level and breadth of knowledge?
// 02Change in a traditional industry
On top of compliance, financial services is going through significant change, with continued investment in digital transformation. Technology decisions are being taken against a strategy to reach more customers digitally, more personally, and through banking-as-a-service partnerships.
All of that change is happening inside a heavily regulated environment that, sensibly, mandates operational resiliency for the most important services to customers. Every change has to be relevant and validated against robust business continuity controls.
Firms in this industry have an obligation to customers and to the market: a trusted, resilient, reliable service at all times. Meeting it means knowing not only what services to deliver, but how to provide them — well, on an ongoing basis, and in all circumstances.
Managing the competing forces between strategy, technology investment, customer experience, operational efficiency and resiliency takes a discipline that has never been more important.
"Business architects have the unique advantage of collaborating between business units, technology and operations teams."
// 03Connecting the what and the how
Those groups of stakeholders have historically held their own visions of what needs to change. They have their own language and taxonomy, and they do not always see each other's perspective — a world of service versus capability.
Business architecture provides the tools, techniques, accountability and ways of working that make efficient, fast-flow, compliant change possible. In an environment of ongoing transformation it is what keeps operational resilience intact, by giving the organisation a complete understanding of its processes, the risks and controls attached to them, and how they are fulfilled through technology and people.
// 04A customer outcome mentality
The business architect is the person who can directly correlate customer needs and the service outcomes they require, aligned to strategy, with technical and operational solutions — validated through value streams. They put the customer at the heart of every part of the business — the same instinct behind our product design and delivery work — and that is a genuinely scarce thing in today's change programmes.
I like to think of a shop window when describing the relationship between a financial organisation and its customers. The window conveys the brand, the identity and the purpose. It lets the customer peer inside, see the services on offer and the products provided, and make an instant decision about whether it meets their needs.
Just like a traditional shop window, financial organisations can also see out. Doing so lets them validate everything they do operationally and technically through the lens of the services provided to customers.
"If firms don't pay attention to that window, they will find themselves in the dark, making assumptions about where to invest."
The window sheds a critical light onto operational and technical solutions, and helps evaluate them by the value they provide to customers. That is dangerous territory to be without when budgets and timelines are tight.
Business architecture helps financial organisations look through the shop window both ways. It puts firms in the shoes of their customers, and clarifies what their needs are, what services should be offered and where they should be accessed. Business architects inform and interpret strategies so those needs, and the services provided to address them, are clearly and consistently articulated. And it enables the early identification of capability gaps that would otherwise fail the business strategy before anyone noticed.
// 05Customer-centred design
During this shift towards a more customer-centric future, my advice to any financial organisation — big or small — is to make sure there is complete transparency through your own shop window. Without it, you run the risk of making strategic decisions in the dark about new products and services powered by technology.
In a highly regulated and incumbent sector, the only way to successfully address customer needs is to actively engage business architecture from the outset.
This article was first featured in Finance Derivative.
