Coles 2024 Best Run Award: EAT@Coles Enterprise Architecture
Coles Group, a major Australian retail brand, leveraged LeanIX Enterprise Architecture Management to centralize and streamline its technology landscape. This solution replaced disparate spreadsheets, enhancing visibility, compliance, and strategic alignment. It facilitated faster project initiation, improved risk management, and supported compliance with the Security of Critical Infrastructure legislation. Download the DocumentBest Run SAP
Industry WebsiteProduct and Services Featured SAP Solutions
Retail www.coles.com.auGroceries and liquor retail
operations
LeanIX
Coles Group is home to some of Australia’s iconic and most trusted brands and is one of the biggest employers with 120,000 team members in every state and
territory. Our workforce is diverse including groceries and liquor retail operations, online, manufacturing, cleaning and trolley services, drivers, supply chain, and
commercial and corporate services.
Coles Group is seeing a “proliferation” of uses for an enterprise architecture tool it has stood up – initially starting as a tool to centralise dozens of manually
updated spreadsheets it’s grown in function and capability now being used to for identifying simplification opportunities across its technology landscape, driving a
narrative at the C/board level around Lifecycle Management and helping to meet its obligations under the Security of Critical Infrastructure (SoCI) legislation.
EAT@Coles
Coles Group Enterprise Architecture
Business Transformation
Industry WebsiteProduct and Services Featured SAP Solutions
Retail www.coles.com.auGroceries and liquor retail
operations
LeanIX
Coles Group is home to some of Australia’s iconic and most trusted brands and is one of the biggest employers with 120,000 team members in every state and
territory. Our workforce is diverse including groceries and liquor retail operations, online, manufacturing, cleaning and trolley services, drivers, supply chain, and
commercial and corporate services.
Coles Group is seeing a “proliferation” of uses for an enterprise architecture tool it has stood up – initially starting as a tool to centralise dozens of manually
updated spreadsheets it’s grown in function and capability now being used to for identifying simplification opportunities across its technology landscape, driving a
narrative at the C/board level around Lifecycle Management and helping to meet its obligations under the Security of Critical Infrastructure (SoCI) legislation.
EAT@Coles
Coles Group Enterprise Architecture
Business Transformation
Challenges
Historically, Coles had taken a very delivery focused approach to technology using a range of implementation partners and
methodologies over time had led to a sprawl of project artifacts of varying detail across SharePoint instances, file servers and
Confluence sites. Although that met immediate project needs and supported the delivery focus, technology planning and strategy
at an enterprise level was difficult to achieve due to the distributed nature of repositories. Creating an accurate and complete view
of the technology estate was almost impossible.
Without a standard repository endless hours were spent by the Architecture team, creating and recutting different reports,
presenting the data slightly differently with each iteration and governance request, building a ever growing set of artifacts that
became outdated on publication. Collating information sets to develop a clear “current state” view of the technology landscape
became excessively difficult making tasks such as elaborating risk on technical debt onerous and planning future state roadmaps
incomplete.
Strategy
- How does the current technology landscape align to the organizational objectives
- How to prioritize initiatives and understand the flow on affect from initiatives across the group
Technology
- Reducing complexity and understanding where there are applications with overlapping capability
- Surfacing technology risk, enabling faster more accurate reporting and risk remediation
Governance
- Ensuring compliance without reducing productivity and effectiveness
Historically, Coles had taken a very delivery focused approach to technology using a range of implementation partners and
methodologies over time had led to a sprawl of project artifacts of varying detail across SharePoint instances, file servers and
Confluence sites. Although that met immediate project needs and supported the delivery focus, technology planning and strategy
at an enterprise level was difficult to achieve due to the distributed nature of repositories. Creating an accurate and complete view
of the technology estate was almost impossible.
Without a standard repository endless hours were spent by the Architecture team, creating and recutting different reports,
presenting the data slightly differently with each iteration and governance request, building a ever growing set of artifacts that
became outdated on publication. Collating information sets to develop a clear “current state” view of the technology landscape
became excessively difficult making tasks such as elaborating risk on technical debt onerous and planning future state roadmaps
incomplete.
Strategy
- How does the current technology landscape align to the organizational objectives
- How to prioritize initiatives and understand the flow on affect from initiatives across the group
Technology
- Reducing complexity and understanding where there are applications with overlapping capability
- Surfacing technology risk, enabling faster more accurate reporting and risk remediation
Governance
- Ensuring compliance without reducing productivity and effectiveness
Solution
Coles approached the market for a capability to uplift the Enterprise Architecture practice and proactively drive
change across technology
Kapish supplied LeanIX Enterprise Architecture Management, coupled with a Kapish driven implementation
Coles was able to jump start the creation of a central Application and Business Capability repository effectively
“assassinating” all disparate and manually updated system spreadsheets, application registers and Life Cycle
Management lists. LeanIX enabled a full self-service of information, not only to the various cohorts of architects
but to key stakeholders across technology.
Being a fully SaaS solution with a user friendly UI and out of the box meta model Coles was able to streamline
the implementation and realise value within months driving update and adoption across the organisation.
Coles approached the market for a capability to uplift the Enterprise Architecture practice and proactively drive
change across technology
Kapish supplied LeanIX Enterprise Architecture Management, coupled with a Kapish driven implementation
Coles was able to jump start the creation of a central Application and Business Capability repository effectively
“assassinating” all disparate and manually updated system spreadsheets, application registers and Life Cycle
Management lists. LeanIX enabled a full self-service of information, not only to the various cohorts of architects
but to key stakeholders across technology.
Being a fully SaaS solution with a user friendly UI and out of the box meta model Coles was able to streamline
the implementation and realise value within months driving update and adoption across the organisation.
Impact
24
Applications tagged as primarily
facilitating business assets as defined
by the SoCI legislation and reported
to the Australian Government.
240/630
Average unique monthly logins
/average monthly reports viewed
across technology
4-7 Days
The average number of days saved
across the initiation phase of a project
due to a clear view of application
impacts and the speed of creating
current state architecture.
Through the implementation of LeanIX, Coles has gained great visibility of the technology estate and enabled a common vernacular when discussing
strategic roadmaps with the business, being able to directly map through Business Capabilities how technology supports the various business
domains. Project initiation has accelerated by removing repetitive tasks i.e. “current state” creation and by having clear insights into potential impacts
across the landscape and other projects.
Democratisation of Enterprise Architecture through LeanIX has allowed all technical and non-technical groups across technology to view, manage
and report on their data removing bottlenecks increasing architecture responsiveness. Complete and unhindered access to a stable up-to-date data
set started allowing other teams to get on board;
– Audit and Risk onboarded, driving reporting on end-of-life systems allowing the first true view of organization technical debt
– Security Governance and Compliance expanded the data set, enabling reporting on critical systems such as PII, PCI and public facing endpoints
– Technology Strategy has utilized the Business Capability Model to align with Coles Group strategy on organizational differentiators and drive
prioritization
Having other internal groups championing and promoting the platform within the organisation, Coles has created a truly crowdsourced view of the
enterprise technology landscape.
After the unexpected inclusion of supermarkets under the Security of Critical Infrastructure (SoCI) act, LeanIX has been instrumental in the capture
and reporting of SoCI systems to the Australian Government.
24
Applications tagged as primarily
facilitating business assets as defined
by the SoCI legislation and reported
to the Australian Government.
240/630
Average unique monthly logins
/average monthly reports viewed
across technology
4-7 Days
The average number of days saved
across the initiation phase of a project
due to a clear view of application
impacts and the speed of creating
current state architecture.
Through the implementation of LeanIX, Coles has gained great visibility of the technology estate and enabled a common vernacular when discussing
strategic roadmaps with the business, being able to directly map through Business Capabilities how technology supports the various business
domains. Project initiation has accelerated by removing repetitive tasks i.e. “current state” creation and by having clear insights into potential impacts
across the landscape and other projects.
Democratisation of Enterprise Architecture through LeanIX has allowed all technical and non-technical groups across technology to view, manage
and report on their data removing bottlenecks increasing architecture responsiveness. Complete and unhindered access to a stable up-to-date data
set started allowing other teams to get on board;
– Audit and Risk onboarded, driving reporting on end-of-life systems allowing the first true view of organization technical debt
– Security Governance and Compliance expanded the data set, enabling reporting on critical systems such as PII, PCI and public facing endpoints
– Technology Strategy has utilized the Business Capability Model to align with Coles Group strategy on organizational differentiators and drive
prioritization
Having other internal groups championing and promoting the platform within the organisation, Coles has created a truly crowdsourced view of the
enterprise technology landscape.
After the unexpected inclusion of supermarkets under the Security of Critical Infrastructure (SoCI) act, LeanIX has been instrumental in the capture
and reporting of SoCI systems to the Australian Government.
“”“LeanIX has been instrumental in supporting the growth of the Enterprise Architecture function and the
maturity uplift across the practice. It also really helped facilitate our response as we navigated around the
unknowns and complexities presented by the SoCI act. What has been surprising is how foundational the
platform has become to my peers and other cohorts across technology, enabling the uplift in compliance by Risk
& Audit, the effectiveness of tracking by Quality Engineering & Environments and supporting Strategy with the
recent tech debt reporting to the board.”
Daniel Nicholson – Head of Architecture, Coles Group
maturity uplift across the practice. It also really helped facilitate our response as we navigated around the
unknowns and complexities presented by the SoCI act. What has been surprising is how foundational the
platform has become to my peers and other cohorts across technology, enabling the uplift in compliance by Risk
& Audit, the effectiveness of tracking by Quality Engineering & Environments and supporting Strategy with the
recent tech debt reporting to the board.”
Daniel Nicholson – Head of Architecture, Coles Group
Partner Information
Kapish EA Pty Lty
LeanIX specialist, services and extensions
“Kapish is privileged to have been the APAC partner for LeanIX since 2018. We’ve developed service offerings and technology extensions that
enable our customers to get the best out of LeanIX and SAP Signavio. We appreciate our longstanding partnership with Coles and the
opportunity to support their Enterprise Architecture goals.
We are proud to have supported Coles on their journey from proof of concept, jumpstart onboarding and through our premium support offering.
Key information has been loaded into LeanIX and maintained by the wider organisation with a vision to the insights that are needed to deliver
on the Coles strategy.”
Craig Stanley, Head of Enterprise Architecture Alliances
Kapish EA Pty Lty
LeanIX specialist, services and extensions
“Kapish is privileged to have been the APAC partner for LeanIX since 2018. We’ve developed service offerings and technology extensions that
enable our customers to get the best out of LeanIX and SAP Signavio. We appreciate our longstanding partnership with Coles and the
opportunity to support their Enterprise Architecture goals.
We are proud to have supported Coles on their journey from proof of concept, jumpstart onboarding and through our premium support offering.
Key information has been loaded into LeanIX and maintained by the wider organisation with a vision to the insights that are needed to deliver
on the Coles strategy.”
Craig Stanley, Head of Enterprise Architecture Alliances