Sunday, July 21, 2013

Enterprise Model & Modeling



The Business Model and Operating Model are at different ends of the ‘business strategy and business architecture’ development sequence.

Enterprise architect decides what concepts need to be captured in order to model a company. For example, the concepts of "process," "business unit," "strategy," "application,", etc. (meta-model) The model can be defined as a template associated with a specific subject or topic, industry, type of businesses, line of business external facing, business functions internal-facing like accounting and auditing or service delivery, etc.





  • Meta-Model: It would be more effective to have a plan for what models you want to build and what you expect them to look like. That is what the meta-model provides. People who need to have any knowledge that a meta-model even exists are the senior leaders of the EA team. The point is the meta-model would tell what kinds of models and objects and relationships you need to include in your model of the company. In many cases, people rely solely on a modeling tool to define the meta-model for them and don't give it a lot of consideration. That doesn't mean the meta-model doesn't exist. 
  • Business Model is a model of how the business ‘intends’ to create and deliver ‘customer value’. Central to a business model is the ‘value proposition’ which describes the ‘business value’ being offered. Organizations exist to enable one or more business models to function. A business model is a construct of value proposition, products and services, customer channels, partnerships, cost structure, revenue structure, and required capabilities.  
  • Business Model vs. Operating Model: Fundamental differences – The Business Model is concerned with What, and the Operating Model with How. The Business Model and Operating Model are at different ends of the ‘business strategy and business architecture’ development sequence; business model creation is close to the start of the process, and operating model at the end of the process. The development sequence might be Value Proposition -> Business Model -> Business Strategy -> Business Architecture -> Operating Model …  
  • EA Modeling vs. Process Modeling: 
(1) EA Modeling considers more dimensions than just Process Modeling. EA Modeling may consider the process dimension itself, but also technology, information, people, strategy and others, depending on the depth and breadth of EA you want to model. You must define beforehand a meta-architecture that defines how every one of these dimensions will interact and at what levels. For example, using EA you may know for a specific role, the technology he/she is using, the information he/she has access to, the process steps and the strategic KPIs associated. With a process model, you just have the information about the activity associated with a role.

(2) Business process modeling is about how workflows (activities are carried out) through the organization, the steps involved and who does what and how and what business logic/rules are used in the process. Whereas enterprise architecture models are about what the whole business landscape is, includes various aspects like Business strategy, overall governance, information system architecture, IT architecture, Governance, Capital investment planning and control etc... Now, most of EA strategies are derived from Organizational business strategy that will ensure comprehensive transformation with continuous improvement. EA modeling is usually done as part of a Strategic Planning project what systems are in place and how they interface and how they are used.
  • EA (Enterprise Architecture) Model vs. BA (Business Architecture) Model:
The company model is implemented using instances of processes, business units, strategies, applications, etc, present in the EA model.

An Enterprise Architecture usually consists of
1)     A Business Architecture 
2)     A Data Architecture - used to support the business
3)     An Application Architecture - used to process the data 
4)     A Technology Architecture - used to deploy the applications. 

The Business Architecture part contains but is not limited to
1)     A Motivational model (why) 
2)     An Organizational structure model (who) 
3)     A Functional / Process model (how and when done -this is where the Business Process Modeling comes in) 
4)     A Domain model (the things such as tools, resources in the business)
5)     A Human Resource model 
6)     An external view 
7)     A geographical view (where) 
8)     A financial view 
9)     A legal view 
10) A security view





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