Architecture is essentially the process of making the appropriate technological choices for the enterprise and its business units. These decisions concern the target architecture and technical standards or guidelines. It is not the role of architecture to decide when or where to spend the available financial resources — that is the job of strategic planning, which is primarily resource allocation.
The architecture team has the responsibility to reveal the opportunities, standards and migration paths that will yield the greatest benefit for the company. The decision, for example, to spend the money on an upgrade or consolidate two different styles of portals, as opposed to buying some new package, should be made by the strategic planners. The benefits of this attention to choices and technology consistency can produce favorable results.