About us
ACROSS & AHEAD is a specialist advisory and training firm based in Cologne (Germany), with a focus on enterprise architecture (EA) and business architecture (BA) and design. Our name says it all – it is our mission to help enterprises to look at business and operating models holistically and to align around a common vision and make it reality. We ourselves are inspired by a vision that it will be common for enterprises around the globe to leverage architectural approaches and thinking in whatever kind of efforts to realize their strategic ambitions. We aim to contribute our share and co-advance the discipline to make this happen.
We are particularly accomplished at developing architecture practices, creating architecture blueprints, and providing methodical guidance in business designs and transformations. To help enterprises navigate from strategy to execution we generally pursue a cross-disciplinary approach, combining architecture methods with design thinking and other relevant techniques. In whatever we do, we make sure to tailor it to our clients’ needs. Thinking and acting outside the box belongs to our daily practice. The best design can only be successful though if people can connect with it. Therefore, we put special emphasis on storytelling as another cornerstone of our approach to practicing enterprise and business architecture.
To master the challenges we face in today’s multi-faceted environments, we work with an expert network of associates and partners, offering a wide range of expertise on enterprise architecture and business architecture as well as related disciplines and practices. This allows us to bring the best minds together appropriate to a given situation at hand.
Daniel Simon is the Founder and Managing Director of ACROSS & AHEAD. His passion is to guide enterprises on their business design and transformation journeys. He has extensive experience in establishing architecture practices, developing architecture blueprints (e.g., capability maps), and facilitating business design and transformation activities.
Daniel is also a long-time trainer in the field. He has delivered business architecture (based on, e.g., the BIZBOK® Guide) and enterprise architecture courses (e.g., on ArchiMate® and TOGAF®) to more than one thousand delegates to date (approx. 150 courses with more than 350 training days). He holds several certifications. Among others, he is a Certified Business Architect® and an ArchiMate® Practitioner.
Daniel holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cologne. He is the (co-)author of several publications on enterprise and business architecture, including, e.g., “IT Landscape Management Using Network Analysis” (CONFENIS, 2012), “The Nature and a Process for Development of Enterprise Architecture Principles” (BIS Conference, 2015), and “Enterprise Architecture Management and its Role in Corporate Strategic Management” (Information Systems and e-Business Management, 2013).
The aforementioned journal article introduced a framework that Daniel developed to embrace business architecture in a comprehensive way, across three fundamental parts: business motivation, business model, and business execution. This framework served as the basis for the anthology “Business Architecture Management – Architecting the Business for Consistency and Alignment” (Springer, 2015) that Daniel as the lead editor managed to take to publication.
Daniel also regularly speaks at conferences and events. Past talks include “A Business Architect’s Journey to Making an Impact” (Business Architecture Innovation Summit, Reston, 2024), “Making Architecture Stick” (IRM UK Enterprise Architecture & Business Process Management Conference, London, 2023), “Translating Strategy into Execution Using Business Architecture” (Enterprise Architecture Summer School, Copenhagen, 2023), “ArchiMate® Applied – Insights from Real-Life Cases” (The Open Group Conference, London, 2016), “EA Principles: Guide Rails or Laws? An Insurance Industry Case Study” (The Open Group Conference, London, 2013), and “Business Architecture – The Transformation Cockpit for the Enterprise” (The Open Group Conference, Stockholm, 2010).
Daniel is also host of the “Business Architecture Meets Sustainability” webinar series and organizer of a business architecture roundtable event series in Germany.
In addition to that, Daniel is a lecturer at the University of Bamberg. He is responsible for the enterprise architecture management module in the information systems degree program.
Our Partners
We collaborate with various partner organizations, freelance experts, and university institutions, some of which can be found below. We are also a member of a number of international associations and communities. More information on our partner network will be available here shortly.
We are partner with palladio consulting, a consultancy specializing in business analysis, enterprise architecture, and project management to help achieve business and IT alignment.
We are a Guild Accredited Training Partner® (GATP®) with the Business Architecture Guild, an international, not-for-profit, member-based association and the source for A Guide to the Business Architecture Body of Knowledge® (BIZBOK® Guide).
We are a member of The Open Group. We are involved in both the ArchiMate® Forum and the Architecture Forum, the latter of which is known as the home of the TOGAF® standard.
We hold guest lectures and supervise student theses on enterprise architecture management at the Chair of Information Systems I at the University of Stuttgart.
We work together with the Department of Information Systems and Social Networks at the University of Bamberg on exploring the use of network analysis methods for enterprise architecture purposes.
We work together with the Department of Information Systems and Social Networks at the University of Bamberg on exploring the use of network analysis methods for enterprise architecture purposes.
Our Clients
Medium-sized to large organizations from various industries (incl., e.g., retail, banking, insurance, public administration) trust in ACROSS & AHEAD. Here are just some of our clients that we have supported with architecture advisory and training services to date:
