How LBBW Drives Transparency and Innovation with LeanIX

One of Thomas Wagner’s earliest tasks as an Enterprise Architect at Landesbank Baden Württemberg (LBBW) was to connect information sources about the commercial bank’s heterogeneous IT landscape. These technologies had to be linked together to enable new functionality for the company’s digital future. With these assets mapped, the architecture team could optimize solutions — old and new — in cost-effective ways.

However, like many other organizations worldwide, LBBW’s stockpile of IT data was scattered across different teams and knowledge databases. Few applications were contextualized to business value, and performing basic maintenance tasks — let alone re-architecting systems — required many e-mails and phone calls with stakeholders.

Wagner and his colleagues sought to replace LBBW’s form-based processes with leaner, workflows. To curb IT complexity and simplify information gathering overall, it was also clear that siloed application data (e.g., technical dependencies, service lifecycles, etc.) had to be migrated to a more centralized and configurable repository. The visibility and accessibility of such a database promised LBBW’s architecture teams a faster way to model digital landscapes to the precise requirements of its partners and business departments. Transparency for regulatory requirements can be met more easily.

After 20+ years of architectural experience, Wagner had become familiar with enterprise architecture (EA) tools and the wider EA tool market. LBBW develop one of its own with a bespoke data model. However, as LBBW’s need for business-oriented technological insights grew, a standardized offering from a third-party vendor was required to drive further usage among IT and non-IT stakeholders alike.

Wagner consulted with others in Germany’s close-knit community of IT architects and chose LeanIX, a SaaS-based product for managing enterprise architecture and multi-cloud environments. He justified his decision based on the tool’s user-friendly interface and configurable graphical reports. Intuitive features like this meant EAs could collaborate better with IT and business teams while accelerating data collection efforts overall — thereby ensuring LeanIX’s repository became an authoritative, single source of architectural insights. Or, as Wagner refers to it, a “command bridge”.

LeanIX’s data model makes it possible to document and visualize business-IT landscapes in precise ways. Thanks to its out-of-the-box reporting mechanisms (e.g., the Application Landscape Report, Interface Circle Map), users can access information at will and analyze how IT underpins core enterprise functions. These analytics range from high-level to granular views and are contextualized via business capabilities.

With the help of LeanIX, Wagner and his team would achieve on-demand visibility into LBBW’s application landscape and its supporting infrastructure. Unlike other EA tools and consultant-led architectural projects, this transparency wouldn’t expire nor get secreted to business units. It would be available at all times, for all employees, and grow in tandem with the company’s digital landscape.

Shortly after adoption, LBBW succeeded in filtering data across its entire IT and business landscape into LeanIX. The bank accelerated implementation thanks to the tool’s integration API, and with the help of LeanIX Power Surveys, Wagner and his teammates identified blindspots, contacted relevant stakeholders, and retrieved data en masse and individually — directly from within the tool.

Apart from expediting outreach, rolling out LeanIX is helping LBBW approach digital innovation with more confidence and nuance. IT and business teams now use the platform to jointly assess and execute upon technological opportunities, all while satisfying the demands of their highly-regulated environment. Such collaboration is the golden standard in today’s age of continuous transformation, and LBBW is putting on a master class in driving versatility through architecture.

LBBW currently uses LeanIX to store data on 1500+ application. The bank logs 1000+ active monthly users from departments throughout the company.