On the job with an IT architect

Techie discusses the role and responsibilities that his position with staffing firm Spherion entails.

The position of IT architect has been growing in visibility with its signature responsibility of blending technology and business goals. George Drazick has spent 3½ years in that role at Spherion, a staffing and recruiting firm with $2 billion in annual revenue and more than 300,000 employees worldwide. Now transitioning into the role of director of technology, he recently talked with Network World senior editor John Fontana about how Spherion defines the IT-architect role, what the responsibilities are and how important it is to marry systems, applications and business requirements

Can you define the role of IT architect?

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George Drazick, IT architect at Spherion. Photo by Scott Bell

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The position of IT architect has been growing in visibility with its signature responsibility of blending technology and business goals. George Drazick has spent 3½ years in that role at Spherion, a staffing and recruiting firm with $2 billion in annual revenue and more than 300,000 employees worldwide. Now transitioning into the role of director of technology, he recently talked with Network World senior editor John Fontana about how Spherion defines the IT-architect role, what the responsibilities are and how important it is to marry systems, applications and business requirements

Can you define the role of IT architect?

We have two functions they fill: one is a systems architect, and one is an applications arch. When you bring those two together you really get your lead IT, or enterprise, architect from a technology standpoint.

The IT architect is the person who now looks at not just the applications that are there, but also the systems that comprise those applications. In this role, not only is the understanding of technology important, but also the ability to articulate the interrelationships of business and technology models. It's not only to be a subject-matter expert, but also to be a proponent of an overall corporate or business strategy.

Give me a rundown of your responsibilities.

No. 1 on my mind all day is application and system performance. Security, standards; implementation of standards across the board whether they apply to systems and operating systems for the application. That is in terms of the KnowledgeSphere [Spherion's ERP integration of four applications: financials, human capital management, front office and services procurement], reporting applications, as well as our latest deployment of portal and our implementation strategy. Also guidance for longer-term strategy for building an application technology model that is able to accommodate the business's changing needs.

What is your experience, your background?

I started as a systems architect. I was really focusing on server technologies to enable the applications that we were deploying. As time went on, though, and I worked for PeopleSoft and Dun & Bradstreet, I gained more knowledge of the applications and focused first on decision-support systems-reporting, warehousing, datamarting-applications that enabled business intelligence.

What sort of initiatives are on the board for you now?

One is an implementation of a new business-intelligence platform where enterprise data-marting and reporting are the focus. Second is the actual upgrade, which is an area where application system architects are heavily involved. These application upgrades are usually one-year-to-18-month projects and require looking at every piece of the architecture, every piece of the application, every piece of security that the system has run on.

What are some of the challenges you face in this position?

Influencing all parties that are concerned with the environment, all of those that have a stake in it, so they see a unified view. Without the personal buy-in from the folks that represent the different applications and different functions, the different systems areas, it is extremely difficult for any organization to be able to be successful in maintenance or deployment of systems or applications.