Proposing Architecture and Process Governance for Risk Mitigation in Organizational Change : a Case Study of the Flight Test and Development Centre (FTC), A Division of the UAE Armed Forces

A number of Defence organizations worldwide are moving towards outsourcing. The United Arab Emirates Air Force & Air Defence (UAE AF&AD) is also transforming some of its activities from military entities into civilian organizations. This paper studies the risks associated with the transformation of the UAE AF&AD Flight Test Centre (FTC) into a civilian organization to become a competitive, independent and autonomous outsourcing agency able to undertake additional, complex and specialized aeronautical projects.In this paper, the author describes the FTC “AS IS” organization, mission and function while focusing on the future “TO BE”. He underlines the existing challenges and develops the future needs of the FTC. In his mind, it is clear that the future of the FTC has to be sustainable, competitive, process oriented, cohesive and dynamic in response to changes. The need of an enterprise framework is, in the authors view, a critical matter. The greatest challenge is to identify or develop the right framework with a risk dimension and governance for a specific FTC application: a framework that will assist the FTC to identify, determine and assess at an earlier stage various risks