Dynamic Virtual Enterprises – The Challenges of the Utility Industry for Enterprise Architecture Management

Driven by the rapidly changing markets conditions, organizations from the utility and energy industry sector have to cope with increasing demand for change. This demand for change does not only arise from external forces as legal regulations and emerging innovations but also originates from strategic objectives within the company. Thereto, organizations from the industry sector strive for a flexible enterprise architecture (EA) that provides a holistic overview on the overall make up of the organization and fosters adaptation to changing situations. In this paper, we present characteristics of the energy industry sector and the resulting challenges with respect to enterprise transformation, discuss how prevalent approaches could contribute to a solution, and propose future research areas and topics.