With a widespread economic downturn well underway, top managers are prioritizing cost reduction as never before—and they are looking for new solutions and proven practices. It’s inevitable that cost-cutting efforts will land heavily on IT, since it is a significant cost center and because it impacts costs in almost every business activity.

Editor's Note: Accenture’s Dean Griffin notes that enterprise architecture has entered the mainstream. Part One of this article, which appeared in the last issue of A&G, covered the first five challenges. Part Two discusses the remaining five challenges in EA.

Editor's Note: Accenture’s Dean Griffin notes that enterprise architecture has entered the mainstream. For practitioners, this raises a whole new set of challenges as they must now play a role in helping the enterprise achieve high performance. What follows is part one of this article, or the first five challenges in EA.

YES! The critical process of defining clear IT priorities with the right amount of oversight and accounting is most successful when done in the context of a company's unique business environment.