Enterprise Architecture in Action: An Interview with Roger Stoffers

As organisations navigate the complexities of digital transformation, Enterprise Architecture (EA) is often positioned as a theoretical framework rather than a tangible driver of change. Roger Stoffers, an experienced Enterprise Architect at de Volksbank, is set to challenge this perception at the Enterprise & Business Architecture Conference Europe 2025. In his session, “Actionable Enterprise Architecture for Business Transformation,” Roger will present a strategic framework designed to turn EA into a practical tool for business success. Ahead of his session, we spoke with him about the challenges of translating EA into action, the role of composable business models, and the future of EA in business transformation.

Enterprise Architecture in Action

Your session focuses on making Enterprise Architecture (EA) a practical driver for business transformation. What are the key challenges organisations face in translating EA from theory into real, actionable change?

Many organisations face a strategy-execution gap. Strategic objectives can be too abstract, frameworks typically give high-level guidance, but often lack ways for tangible execution, and roadmaps are lacking clear traceability from strategy to implementation. Sometimes a strategic portfolio is disconnected from the actual change portfolio, or rephrased: the change portfolio is independently managed from the long-term strategic change requirements. Another key challenge is the lack of understanding, and consequently the lack of support from senior management. In such case, EA is just an opinion instead of a strategic accelerant. This, combined with weak governance or top-down decision making is a recipe for disconnect, leading to change that may not be strategically relevant, and an enterprise strategy or enterprise goals are hard to achieve.

Building a Composable Business

You highlight the importance of business process integration and capability mapping. How can organisations ensure their business and operating models support adaptability and innovation?

It starts with understanding that modularity and composability are two complementary mechanisms. The first focuses on the creation of distinct functional blocks (capabilities, business processes, …) whereas the latter introduces quality requirements on the way modules are designed or created. The general idea is that a composable business consists of a high percentage of autonomous ‘business modules’, complemented with a low amount of composing business modules. We purposefully introduce a layer of composability that is non-agnostic and non-autonomous, in order to ensure others -the majority- can remain autonomous.

Those business modules could be business capabilities, as needed for the strategy and strategic goals, each with its own purposeful operating model, depending on the requirement for a given business capability for supporting of the enterprise goals, mission and vision.

From Strategy to Execution

Many organisations struggle to connect their strategic vision with execution. What role does EA play in bridging this gap, and what are the critical success factors?

EA’s role is supporting strategic planning, and ensuring the strategic change portfolio is shaped and executable. EA can help translating strategy into actionable roadmaps, ensuring business and IT alignment, facilitate governance and decisions, measure and monitor progress, and act as the enabling conscience of the organisation. As long as EA focuses on clear and measurable outcomes, facilitated with an enterprise-wide roadmap (integrating strategic, business, technology and process improvements) supported by relevant stakeholders and sponsors, there is a chance EA helps bridging the gap.

Lessons from the Field

With over 30 years of experience, can you share a real-world example where a structured EA approach led to a successful business transformation?

A programme comes to mind at a large telco. Their corporate customer market share was almost non-existent, and any advancements were slow and cumbersome due to lack of joint approach and priorities. Product managers were competing to pump out new features, without a real plan.

With the help of EA, the vision, mission and enterprise goals were established with senior leaders, which lead to specific positioning in the market. Next business and operating models for the corporate customer market was established, and all programme initiative were aligned with the strategic goals. New product propositions were created that enabled the positioning in the market. Clear responsibilities for products, product-pricing and go-to-market were established as indicated by EA.

Within the first 6 months after the initial MVP release, the market share almost doubled.

The Future of EA in Business Transformation

As digital transformation accelerates, how do you see EA evolving? What trends or best practices should organisations adopt to remain agile and competitive?

As with any business transformation, for digital transformation, EA should evolve from traditional ‘opinion’ or governance function into a strategic enabler for the enterprise goals, ensuring adaptability, innovation and competitiveness.

Instead of being rigid and documentation-heavy, EA should behave as an adaptive, data-driven and business-enabling function supporting durable adaptable change. This may involve lightweight-iterative approaches, proposing and enabling relevant change supported with actionable insights.

Also, EA should behave as a key driver for business strategy, supporting and improving business models, target operating models, way of working, organisation design and proposing changes to business and IT that make sense.

EA should focus on business outcomes supported by relevant KPIs and KRIs to ensure proof of effect whilst staying in control and compliant.

Join the Discussion

Roger Stoffers will be sharing these insights and more at the Enterprise & Business Architecture Conference Europe 2025, where he will present his session, “Actionable Enterprise Architecture for Business Transformation” on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, at 2:00 PM.

If you’re looking to make EA a practical driver for change in your organisation, don’t miss this opportunity to learn from one of the industry’s leading voices.

About Roger Stoffers

Roger Stoffers is an Enterprise Architect at de Volksbank, with over 30 years of international experience in telecommunications and financial services. He is also a coach, trainer, and co-author of A Field Guide to Digital Transformation. Passionate about guiding organisations through complex transformations, Roger is a regular speaker at industry conferences, sharing his expertise in digital transformation, enterprise architecture, and business strategy.