Which statement best describes the primary deliverable of enterprise architecture in IT governance?

• A. A detailed incident response plan.
• B. A cloud deployment blueprint.
• C. A blueprint linking business strategy to IT capabilities and technology standards.
• D. A hardware procurement schedule.

Answer: (C)

The main idea here is that enterprise architecture in IT governance should provide a plan that connects what the business is trying to achieve with the technology that will enable it. This means a blueprint that links business strategy and processes to IT capabilities, data, applications, and the technology standards and governance that bind them. Such a blueprint serves as the guide for decisions about investments, how projects are prioritized, and how changes are coordinated across the organization, ensuring that technology choices consistently support strategic objectives.

That’s why the option describing a blueprint that ties business strategy to IT capabilities and technology standards best fits. It captures the essential function of enterprise architecture: translating business goals into an actionable IT roadmap with defined standards and capabilities so governance can ensure alignment and coherence across the enterprise.

The other ideas focus on narrower, more operational or specific domains. An incident response plan deals with security and continuity responses, not the overarching alignment of business strategy to IT. A cloud deployment blueprint is valuable, but it’s a specific architectural domain, not the broader, organization-wide blueprint that enterprise architecture provides. A hardware procurement schedule is an operational detail about purchasing, not about aligning business strategy with IT architecture and standards.