Where and at what level should a Team that develops, supports, and manages integrations, interoperability, and data management for the entire enterprise reside in an IT Organization?

We have seen more success when the teams that own system integration and data management are close to the business functions they support. In many cases these teams are now sitting with and report to the business function instead of IT. There is also a need for an enterprise-wide strategy and a matrix /dual-reporting relationship to the team that owns the enterprise strategy.  The team that owns the enterprise strategy would be high enough level to influence the enterprise – i.e. C-level executive or direct report to C-level with strong support from C-level.

Ultimately the approach needs to engage expertise broader than IT and teams need to members with sufficient business knowledge, understanding of user requirements, and expertise/judgment to evaluate testing. As an example, for tech led system changes, accounting teams sit at the table and provide requirements including what needs to be true, what reporting/evidence is needed to validate it is true, how to rollout broader, if applicable, and sign off.

Such a team should be in a competence center or a center of excellence. That centralized structure should be reporting within the IT chain of command. However, it’s best to have the employees work decentralized and close to the business departments that are supported