Boldo | The Evolving Role of the Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise Architecture is living through a pivotal moment. It has never been so indispensable, and yet so rarely questioned. For a long time, the role of the enterprise architect was perceived as technical, sometimes austere: documenting, rationalising, securing the information system. Often perceived as a gatekeeper, isolated in an ivory tower…

But the lines are shifting. As data, cloud and AI become the new engines of organisations, the enterprise itself becomes a living system: complex, distributed, interconnected. In this context, the architect is no longer only the custodian of technical coherence: they become the catalyst of transformation, the one who connects strategy to on-the-ground realities, and who gives meaning to technology in the service of the collective.

Yet this transformation is taking place in a context of unprecedented tensions. According to the Gartner study “EA Trends 2025: Growth, AI and Business Alignment”, “62% of CEOs place growth at the top of their priorities for 2025. But this growth must be profitable and supported by a controlled technological transformation.” In other words: organisations want to grow, but without getting lost in the complexity of their own systems. In the same report, more than 80% of executives believe that AI will directly contribute to revenue growth, while only 3% of CIOs share this conviction. A gap that perfectly illustrates the challenge of the moment: how to connect strategic vision with operational realities, without creating a new divide between ambition and execution?

This is precisely where the mission of the enterprise architect is being redefined. Between strategy and technology, they become the translator, the mediator, the conductor. Their role is no longer merely to document, but to make complexity intelligible, governable and actionable so that transformation can become possible, sustainable, and understood by all.

A change of era for Enterprise Architecture

Solid foundations: the birth of a discipline

Enterprise Architecture emerged in the 1980s, in a context where information systems were becoming too large and fragmented to be managed without a shared framework.
At the time, organisations were primarily seeking to regain control: standardising processes, documenting infrastructures, and ensuring the coherence of a rapidly expanding information system.

It was in this context that John Zachman, at IBM, formalised in 1987 the first enterprise architecture reference framework: a methodological approach to describe an organisation from multiple perspectives: business, data, applications, and technology. A few years later, The Open Group built on this logic and created TOGAF (The Open Group Architecture Framework), which would become the international standard of the discipline.

The objective at the time was clear: to structure and rationalise information systems in order to ensure their stability, compliance and operational efficiency. The enterprise architect was then the guardian of rigour and documentation, a methodical figure, often perceived as technical, even administrative.

From rationalisation to adaptation

Systems have become distributed, data omnipresent, and innovation cycles faster than ever. The enterprise itself has become a living system, interconnected by dependencies, flows and continuous transformations.

This growing complexity has been accompanied by a renewed interest in the discipline. In France, the number of TOGAF-certified professionals increased from 800 in 2013 to more than 4,300 in 2018, according to Projexion, Carrefour de l’Apprentissage 2024 (a French training observatory). And globally, The Open Group now counts nearly 150,000 certified architects, a clear sign of the professionalisation of the field, even if France still lags behind the United Kingdom with its 11,000 certified professionals.

However, this rise in prominence comes with a profound transformation. Organisations no longer expect perfect plans, but living architectures : capable of adjusting, federating and evolving with usage. Today’s organisations operate in a constantly shifting ecosystem: multi-cloud, generative AI, data regulations, security by design, federated product teams. They require architectures that are agile, adaptive and collaborative.

Gartner summarises this evolution into four major priorities for EA leaders:

1. Developing a new operating model to deliver value in distributed organisations.
2. Modernising the technology portfolio while reducing technical debt.
3. Acquiring new skills in financial modelling and AI.
4. Continuously communicating the value of architecture to stakeholders.

In other words, architecture can no longer be merely accurate: it must be inspiring and shared.

Towards a narrative and shared architecture

Enterprise Architecture is entering a new era: one of readability and alignment. Models, diagrams and repositories are no longer sufficient; they must now tell a coherent story. Indeed, for architecture to be useful, it must be understood: not only by those who design it, but by all those who experience it and transform it on a daily basis.

From deliverable to action

Mapping is no longer a static deliverable, handed over at the end of a project. It becomes a living tool, a lever for decision-making and prioritisation.
Its role is no longer to describe the system, but to help steer it: to test, arbitrate, and anticipate the impacts of a transformation even before it is launched. The architect thus leaves behind the role of librarian to assume that of conductor, capable of turning modelling into a driver of action.

From “doing” to “enabling others to do”

But acting is no longer enough. Today’s challenge is to make others act. The architect no longer “does”: they enable others to do. Their role consists in creating the conditions for collaboration, bringing together business teams, IT and leadership around a shared understanding of the system.

This posture marks a true cultural shift: expertise is no longer individual, it becomes collective. The architect is no longer a producer of models, but a architect of meaning.They must align IT with strategy and business to enable organisational transformation and strengthen system governance.

From technique to storytelling

Finally, architecture only has value if it is visible and understood. The key skill of the profession is no longer solely modelling, but demystification. Knowing how to tell the story of architecture is what gives it a strategic dimension: translating complexity into clear language, connecting structures to vision, and giving meaning to interdependencies.

Clarity becomes a governance imperative, understanding is the first step to governing. This is exactly the spirit of our approach at Boldo: turning mapping into visual storytelling, revealing dependencies, flows and impacts, and enabling everyone to navigate complexity. That is why we place the intuitiveness of diagramming at the heart of modelling. The shared repository, the single source of truth that underpins mapping, only takes on meaning through visual and concrete modelling.

Because transformation can only be properly steered when it is visible, understood and shared. And this is precisely where the next stage of this evolution is being played out: the opening up of the profession.

A practice that is becoming democratised

According to Gartner, nearly 60% of large enterprises now have a dedicated Enterprise Architecture team to drive their transformations. Proof that the discipline has established itself as a strategic lever within complex organisations.

But this practice can no longer (and must no longer) remain the preserve of large corporations. SMEs, mid-sized companies, startups, public bodies and non-profits are just as involved. Their systems quickly become complex, their tools multiply, and their data becomes fragmented.

They too need this ability to see, understand and connect; to build a coherent vision of their system before attempting to transform it.

• In large enterprises, architecture helps govern complexity, ensure strategic coherence and manage interdependencies.
• In startups, it helps structure growth, avoid organisational debt and anchor decisions in a logic of scalability.
• In public institutions, it serves to align public policies, tools and citizen services around a shared framework of understanding.

In other words, architecture is not a matter of size, but of maturity. Each organisation must find its own level of formalisation, its own pace, its own language.

This is precisely what we advocate at Boldo: a flexible and contextualised architecture, capable of adapting to the reality of the field. Our metamodel is agnostic, because we believe that the same standard should not be imposed on different organisations. Instead, architecture should reveal the living structure of each organisation, according to its level of maturity and priorities. The goal is not to map everything, but to give meaning, progressively. To make knowledge accessible to all stakeholders, from the executive committee to business teams, including consultants, software vendors and integrators.

This democratisation is the key to long-term transformation, because architecture only has impact when it is shared, understood and co-constructed.

Conclusion

The 2025 trends confirm it: the organisations that will succeed in harnessing AI, cloud and new architectures are those that have managed to connect vision, structure and culture. The enterprise architect stands at this crossroads. Their role now goes far beyond that of the documentation keeper to which they were long confined: they tell the story of complexity in order to make it intelligible, governable and shared.

In a world shaped by complex technological revolutions and continuous transformation, their strength lies less in technical mastery than in clarity. Because we can only steer what we understand, and a vision only has value when it becomes collective.

This is the conviction that guides Boldo: making mapping a common language, and modelling a lever for transformation that is visible, experienced and understood by all.