What kind of enterprise are your corporate leaders building and designing for the future? Are they building and designing a functionally centric, a product centric, a process centric or a customer centric enterprise? These are questions that I frequently ask my students in the Business Architecture (BA) classes that I teach for the BPMInstitute.
The Corporate Strategy defines the mission, vision and long-range objectives for conducting the business and achieving enterprise success. The Business Architecture (BA) is a blueprint of the enterprise built using architectural disciplines to improve performance. Development of the Business Architecture is a strategic initiative, not a departmental undertaking, not the pet project of a middle manager nor the latest priority of the week. The purpose of the BA is simple and clear; it is a tool used to improve enterprise wide performance as required by the strategy.
How does one define the term “Business Architecture” (BA)? Before an enterprise undertakes a Business Architecture initiative, it must have a clear understanding of what it is and how it is defined. Perhaps by first parsing the term “Business Architecture,” and then characterizing it as a whole and complete term, one can bring clarity to its definition. And of course, the Business Architecture requires an association and some context with the enterprise as well. This article will offer one perspective on the definition of Business Architecture; hopefully, stimulating
Today many companies are considering whether or not to undertake a Business Architecture (BA) initiative. Many strategic research and service firms have recognized the importance of linking the BA to the strategy and integrating the BA with its supporting IT architectures, in an Enterprise Architecture (EA) framework. These firms have frequently reported on the BA’s increasing value to successful companies and provided sound reasons for undertaking the initiative. But, this does not make it a sure thing for the enterprise. So, why is a Business Architecture initiative an important one?
The early beginnings of Business Architecture (BA) development used a business/function process model of the enterprise. This type of model illustrates the typical functional groupings of a business. These groups are further placed into two categories: Primary, which directly relate to the business of the Enterprise, (e.g. Customer Care), and Supporting, which enable the primary functionality, (e.g. Finance). Each functional group contains several unique business processes (e.g. in Finance, there are corporate accounting and asset management).
Many corporations have successfully completed one or more Business Process Management (BPM) initiatives.
While attendance, interest and participation in the BPMInstitute.org Business Architecture (BA) conferences are increasing, the attendees are asking a very fair and tough question: Is the Business Architecture really necessary? While seeking to understand and analyze the purpose of a Business Architecture, they are also asking about its necessity. Instead of just debating this issue, let’s try a couple of experiments and look at the results!
Many strategic initiatives today are focused on enterprise architecture (EA) development, business process management (BPM) and service-oriented architecture (SOA) development.
BPMInstitute.org and BrainStorm Group hosted Business Architecture (BA) events at their conferences in San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and New York in 2006. Interest in BA across all industries is growing with attendance at all BA presentations increasing. The conference attendees are coming prepared with excellent questions, expecting answers and seeking information about BA initiatives.
During lunch at the September 2006 BPMInstitute and BrainStorm Group conference in Washington, DC, Tom Dwyer and Eugene Lee posed an interesting question to the conference attendees. Who will fill the position of Business Architect for the enterprise? Almost immediately, hands were raised and one respondent suggested that an experienced and seasoned Enterprise Architect (EA) practitioner should fill the role. Another suggested a well rounded business operations person with an MBA. Tom allowed some discussion but moved off the topic in the interest of time.
Everyone starts here.
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