ARCHITECTURE

Successful transformation can only be realised with coherent design

Architecture provides the structure, integration, resilience and adaptability which are the foundations of successful business and technology transformation. Organisations that prioritise architecture are better positioned to realise their business goals, respond to market changes, and sustain growth.

Enquire now

Bridging the gap between business and technology

Architecture is responsible for facilitating the execution of an organisation’s business strategy and the various themes that underpin it across people, process and technology. It plays a pivotal role in driving both business and technology transformations, largely due to its ability to connect strategy with delivery, ensuring that technology services are fully aligned with, and directly supporting, the capabilities of the business and its goals.

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE

Architecture and technology fit for the future

We have dedicated Architects across specialist fields, backed up by an extensive array of accelerators that encapsulate our expertise and have been used to deliver valuable outcomes for our clients. This, alongside our extensive knowledge and experience of technology architectures in large financial services organisations, and insights into modern IT operating models and technology trends, means we can expertly advise on both transformation strategies and architecture best practice.

We can support you in creating dynamic services fit for modern business domains, whilst aligning technology with strategic goals and enabling data-driven insights, which are critical in today’s competitive and fast-evolving landscape.

Reduce cost and risk

Increase agility & innovation

Exploit the business value in data

Ensure legal & regulatory compliance

Thanks to Icon's vast knowledge of, and expertise in, ISO 20022 payments transformation, the whole migration process ran smoothly. Managing three major stakeholders is not an easy task, yet Icon was able to find a common approach and resolve any implementation issues, quickly, efficiently and without any major impact

Team Manager

UK Tier 1 bank

Many a time we needed you on the fly for ad-hoc discussions, and on each occasion your supportive and clear approach was invaluable. Few architects will support the Business Analyst team to understand technical requirements and you are the best out of them.

Tier 1 bank

The outcome of the project exceeded our expectations. Our new architecture has improved operational efficiency, reduced costs, and increased overall business agility. We were impressed with the quality of Icon’s work, attention to detail, and the level of support throughout.

Director

Tech-led provider of premium finance

Icon focus on providing solutions to highly complex problems through high quality skillsets in the people they provide. During my time working with Icon, I can be assured of whatever challenge I ask them to help solve, they do so in a transparent, trusted and professional way working alongside our colleagues to deliver great results.

Tier 1 bank

ARCHITECTURE SERVICES

Our architecture capabilities

ARCHITECTURE DELIVERY

Architecture delivery is essential to ensure that technical and business architecture plans are effectively translated into real, functional systems and solutions that meet the strategic needs of an organisation.

Without a disciplined approach to architecture delivery, prioritising consistency, quality, agility and collaboration, including having the right people in the right roles, even the best architectural plans can fail to materialise or fall short in supporting business objectives.

An effective architecture delivery practice with a focus on value creation will see improvements in cross-functional collaboration, along with a more controlled approach to governance and compliance that demonstrates greater agility and flexibility.

Our Services Architecture Practice offers a full range of architecture capabilities to support all aspects of delivery. We have a strong team of experienced architects with extensive knowledge across multiple business domains.

We can support clients in several ways, whether providing interim architecture leadership, teams of enterprise, solution or data architects, or point resources to embed within client teams. We can also engage on outcome-based assignments, taking responsibility for agreed deliverables.

However we engage, we always employ a highly collaborative way-of-working, operating closely with client Architecture teams and wider stakeholders to ensure full buy-in to activities and deliverables, maximising business alignment and value realised.

Technology Strategy & Roadmap

Technology strategies and roadmaps are critical in defining, aligning, and guiding an organisation’s approach to implementing and leveraging technology to achieve business goals. A well-developed technology strategy serves as a blueprint for making informed decisions about technology investments and plays a vital role in supporting technical and digital transformation, while a technology roadmap provides a timeline and detailed plan to implement these strategies.

Organisations often need to revisit their technology strategy and roadmap for reasons such as changing business goals, digital transformation initiatives, leveraging emerging technologies, competitive pressures, the need to evolve customer expectations, responding to regulatory and compliance changes, risk mitigation and cybersecurity, operational inefficiencies, and the desire for enhanced decision-making.

By addressing their technology strategy, organisations can ensure technology remains a powerful enabler of business success, build new ways to differentiate themselves and generate revenue, and achieve greater resilience in light of increased risk and regulatory scrutiny, ultimately keeping themselves aligned, competitive and agile.

Organisations need to set out up-to-date progressive technology strategies that harness new capabilities in customer engagement, processing, system and data integration. This will deliver stronger customer propositions, lower-cost operations, and more robust compliance.

A strong technology strategy will ensure tangible business benefits, by driving a clear target architecture state roadmap, aligning with data strategy, and informing a target operating model.

Architecture best practice & Innovation

Just having an Architecture function, governance forums and processes isn’t enough. To deliver real value to an organisation, an Architecture team must be effectively connected to both business strategy and technical delivery processes, providing Architecture leadership to drive and support well-informed and well-executed transformation. Assessing how an Architecture team is performing is, therefore, key to ensuring it is fully effective and efficient in its critical role.

Icon’s Architecture Reference Model provides a framework to define how an organisation's Architecture Capability should operate effectively and efficiently.

We use our Architecture Reference Model and associated Capability Assessment method to specify prioritised recommendations for how an organisation can uplift its Architecture capability, to better deliver value against its business priorities.

Our view of best practice is forged from decades of experience setting up, running, working in and improving Architecture functions across a myriad of organisations.

We create a target state view for Architecture and outline plan, balancing simple remediation with longer-term strategic change, identifying dependencies on investment, resources, or other areas to implement the necessary transformation activities.

Continuous innovation is also key, including exploration of how the combination of AI and Architecture-as-Code can transform how Architecture data is managed, Architecture activities are enacted, and the Architecture of the organisation is governed. Huge opportunities exist to streamline what are often very manual processes, moving towards a much more Digital approach to Architecture management.

Enquire now

CASE STUDY

Explore our success stories

Discover how leading organisations have partnered with us to solve complex challenges, drive innovation, and achieve measurable results.

Data-driven Architecture Transformation for Commercial Banking

Featured RESOURCES

Thought leadership

Explore our selection of resources - insights, case studies, whitepapers and more, designed to help financial services organisations navigate the payments landscape.

See all Resources

Blog