Largo Corporation is a major multinational conglomerate corporation which specializes in a wide array
of products and services. These products and services include healthcare, finance, retail, government
services, and many more. The annual revenue is about $750 million and it has about 1,000 employees.
The parent company is headquartered in Largo, Maryland and its subsidiaries are located throughout
the United States.
The mission of the corporation is to bring the best products and services to people and businesses
throughout the world so they can then realize their full potential.
The corporate vision guides every aspect of their business to achieve sustainable, quality growth:
• Productivity: Be a highly effective, lean and fast-moving organization.
• People: Be a great place to work where people are inspired to achieve their maximum potential.
• Partners: Nurture a winning network of customers and suppliers, together we create mutual,
enduring value.
• Responsible: Be a responsible citizen that makes a difference through ethical behavior.
• Revenue: Maximize long-term return while being mindful of our overall responsibilities.
The company’s culture is reflected in their corporate values:
• Leadership: Courage to shape a better future.
• Collaboration: Leverage collective intelligence.
• Accountability: Own up to your responsibility.
• Passion: Committed to excellence.
• Diversity: Provide new perspectives into our business.
• Quality: We will want quality as part of our brand.
The corporation consists of the parent company and the following subsidiaries:
• Healthcare – Suburban Independent Clinic, Inc. (medical services)
• Finance – Largo Capital (financial services)
• Retail – Rustic Americana (arts and crafts), Super-Mart (office products)
• Government Services – Government Security Consultants (information security)
• Automotive – New Breed (electric cars)
• Systems Integration – Solutions Delivery, Inc. (communications)
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• Media Design – Largo Media (website and app design)
The organization is headed by CEO Tara Johnson who completed her Master’s degree at UMUC and
eager to make worthwhile improvements to the corporation. She rose through the ranks of Largo
Corporation starting with systems integration, then retail and her last position before becoming CEO
was in finance.
The corporation is in a highly competitive environment so the CEO wants savvy employees at many
levels to make wise judgments and take an aggressive approach and deliver results towards improving
the bottom line yet maintaining corporate social responsibility.
Corporate Issues
Ms. Johnson is aware of the many enterprise wide problems Largo Corporation and its subsidiaries are
facing which include:
• The complexity of IT is constantly increasing
• Many disparate systems do not interoperate among the parent company and the subsidiaries
and among the business units
• Many duplicate systems across different business units which perform the same function
• Each part of the organization has their own unique technology standards
• It is a major challenge to integrate technology into the daily operations of the organization
Because of these problems, IT systems in the corporation often failed to meet organizational goals and
objectives.
A Potential Solution
A few months ago, Ms. Johnson attended a symposium for CEOs and other senior executives and
learned about enterprise architecture and how it can enable business-IT alignment and agility. Upon her
return, she floated the idea with the board of directors, her direct reports and vetted the idea with IT
Operations head Mr. Sculley. With strong support from the board and Mr. Sculley, Ms. Johnson created
an enterprise architect position reporting directly to her with dotted line reporting to all area heads.
You have been handpicked to serve as the new Chief Enterprise Architect for Largo Corporation. Your
assignment is to craft an enterprise architecture vision and explain how the vision enables business
goals. Among other things, you need to justify the implementation of an enterprise architecture at
Largo Corporation.
According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, “an enterprise architecture (EA) is an integral
part of the IT investment management process. An EA provides a clear and comprehensive picture of
the structure of an entity. This picture consists of snapshots of its current and proposed technical
environments, and a roadmap for transitioning from the current to the target environment. When
properly managed, an EA can help optimize the relationships among an organization’s business
operations and the IT infrastructure and applications supporting them.”
