SparxSystems CE: KBC uses Enterprise Architect for architecture modelling

KBC Group NV was formed in 1998 through the merger of two Belgian banks and an insurance company. With about 40,000 employees worldwide, the integrated bank-insurance company serves about 12 million customers. To achieve its vision, the company relies on a comprehensively understood enterprise architecture. This describes the interaction of IT and business activities in the company in order to be able to react quickly and flexibly to the changing conditions on the market. Alain Garsoux is an enterprise architect at KBC: "For us, the modelling of our enterprise accelerate decisions making because architects present a unequivocal and understandable items of our production environment from IT and Business perspectives. This ensures security and roadmap discussions. It is important that people get the information that is important to them and can thus set the course for the future in a well-informed way."

Enterprise Architect facilitates communication

In the development process of the enterprise architecture, the modelling platform finds its main use as a tool in the collaboration of the various stakeholders in the development and approval process. Jimmy Cams, head of Enterprise Architecture at KBC: "We have to have our architecture models agreed and approved in different board meetings. This works very well with the models in Enterprise Architect, as we can show each stakeholder the views that are important for the decision."

Hans Bartmann, Managing Director of SparxSystems Central Europe, comments: "KBC is an excellent example of how Enterprise Architect supports the diverse communication around the creation of an enterprise architecture. After all, models offer many advantages for all parties involved, from a common language and approach to seamless documentation. We are therefore very pleased that KBC can use Enterprise Architect to better ground and accelerate its decisions."

The KBC metamodel as a basis

For Alain Garsoux, the KBC metamodel is the basis for better decisions: "Only the metamodel enables us to define a common language and a uniform modelling approach. This means that once things have been worked out, they can be used again and again, and decision-making speeds up." A metamodel is a higher-level model used to formalize other model concepts. It models the concepts of usable model elements and their interrelationships. The KBC metamodel is based on the ArchiMate and TOGAF standards. It contains "stereotypes" organized in layers like context, business, application, information and infrastructure. To speed up the delivery of architectural diagrams, instances of most stereotypes are uploaded from the production environment.

Critical success factor: the people modelling

At KBC, around 20 architects are currently working with the architecture meta model, and in addition to Enterprise Architect, Pro Cloud Server (Integration) is also in use. Roll-out plan is ongoing and all modelling around KBC will be done with the same language and the same tool to ensure persistent documentation and its reuse. The target audience for modelling is a community of 60-80 architects. For Jimmy Cams, the people are the most important success factor of all: "We have to keep a constant eye on a few key points in our team: competences and skills, availability, motivation, role clarity." For this purpose, training and coaching are offered for the handling of the architecture practice. The solution has been embedded in the organization via a community of practice. Architects own the solution and a governance model is in place in order to integrate new ideas.

Clear and lightweight processes

To achieve a clearly defined and lightweight process, clear guidelines have been defined. For example, each specific use case is modelled at the solution level and relevant stereotypes are transferred to enterprise levels. Restrictions were also deliberately decided on the standard views and reports available for the different stakeholders. Initially, only four views were created to support decision-making and compliance: Diagrams for processes, application interfaces, applications and technologies. These are to be provided with clear instructions and are to be created with as little effort as possible. Alain Garsoux concludes: "It has been very successful to limit ourselves to the most important areas when developing the enterprise architecture. This way we do not get bogged down and can quickly provide the basis for well-founded decisions while ensuring value for the organization. We will have more room for desirable extensions in the future once we have succeeded in creating a firm basis for the architecture."

About KBC

KBC Group NV was formed in 1998 through the merger of two Belgian banks and an insurance company. With approximately 40,000 employees worldwide, around 12 million clients are served through the integrated bank-insurance business.

KBC sees itself as a group of more than 40,000 talented employees in different countries who work together and share a common culture.

This culture is the fertile and stimulating ground on which the strategy is built, which consists of four cornerstones that interact with each other:

– We strive to provide our customers with a unique banking and insurance experience.
– We develop our Group with a long-term perspective, achieving sustainable and profitable growth
– We put our clients‘ interests at the heart of everything we do and strive to provide them with quality service and relevant solutions at all times
– We take our responsibility towards society and the local economy very seriously and aim to reflect this in our daily actions

https://www.kbc.com