Applying the diverse BA-Driven Views to Shape the Digital Organization

The multiple BA driven views are useful for company management in bringing a systematic business perspective and managing a seamless digital transformation of the company. 

With “VUCA” digital new normal, businesses have been faced with increasingly more complex and pressing problem-situations, they should adapt to dynamically changing environments. Thus, the Business Architecture role in designing and planning future enterprise will be both interesting and challenging; from inside-out to outside-in, and from industrial-segregation to digital modularization.

Enterprise Architects will decide what concepts need to be captured and how to frame the diverse views via multidimensional lenses in order to understand the essence of the business and improve organizational maturity?

A Business Strategy View: Strategy is about “keeping the end in mind.” At a higher level, a business strategy view helps you understand where you are, where you want to be, and how to identify the key business problems or issues in order to solve them with fewer side effects. It’s about getting the most relevant information you could and continuously update, uncovering options, gaining the long term strategic-choreography perspectives, not just a snapshot of the current business circumstances. With a strategic view, an organization has a vision of what it will achieve, that is broken down to a goal to reach in different time frames, understand business complexity and its dynamic ecosystem via different lenses, and have a better chance to create a blue ocean for providing a competitive advantage.

A Business Process View: A process view is about the “ executable knowing “How.” At a tactical level, a process view is completely repeatable, single-truth processes should probably be automated to the greatest extent possible. However, at the logic level with a role-based process view, the answer is not about “Single Version of Truth” because nobody can agree on what the truth looks like, it's a matter of perspective from which angle of the process you are looking from. The broader the reach of the process, the more diffuse the truth becomes, and the more important it is to commit the time and energy required to reach a holistic view of the process in order to improve its effectiveness and efficiency.

A Business Capability View: Capabilities are processes and competencies viewed strategically. The capability provides a level of abstraction that allows more open consideration. Corporate capability is the collective ability to implement strategy, innovation, and make changes. The organization’s capabilities can be categorized into both competitive necessity and competitive uniqueness. A capability view is for the strategic re-think of ‘What.” A capability view of enterprise helps businesses identify “actuality, capability, and potentiality.” By applying a capability view, the business management readily considers service, people, process, information, asset, etc, dimensions of the adequacy of the capability to fulfill their business strategy.

An Organizational Structure View: Due to rapid changes and hyper-connectivity, increasingly, enterprises find themselves enmeshed in the digital "eco-systems," whether they like it or not, and the business complexity has increased exponentially. The organizational structure and its impact on efficiency and innovation could play either a positive or negative impact. Organizations need to have a structural view- what it consists of, and what is the future of the organizational structure, as well as an in-depth understanding of gains and pains of organizational structural development. They have to keep tuning the organizational structure and striking the delicate balance between solid and flow, control, and autonomy for adapting to the digital new normal.

A Business Value Stream View: Businesses value view is multi-faceted and it’s interesting to see how business value is in the eye of the beholder. As the value of the firm beyond economic value or shareholder value, to include other forms of value such as employee value, customer value, supplier value, channel partner value, alliance partner value, managerial value, and societal value, etc. with a clear business value stream view, all parties can agree on the common value proposition. A "Business Value Model" is used for assessing the value of an investment objectively in order to achieve high ROI.

A Business Operating Model View: The Business Model is concerned with “what,” and the Operating Model with “how.” Effective Operation management means understanding every island of business operation and critical bits and bytes of information. A Business Operating Model View helps to increase business transparency through a comprehensive understanding of the business, identify true cost savings, fine-tune the premium operational model and ensure that operational business ecosystems not only function as expected but also achieve operation proficiency via continuous consolidation, modernization, rationalization, integration, and optimization.

An Organizational GRC View: GRC is and remains the purview of top organization management. GRC view can be used to raise visibility and awareness for many things that are captured at the different levels of the organization, and bring them in front of top leadership. In a well-aligned and architected organization, governance must be viewed and assessed at the enterprise level. Corporate GRC discipline can fulfill its purpose as a high-level corporate enabler by providing a structured view and communication bridge between shareholders/investors and top business leaders such as corporate directors.

The multiple BA driven views are useful for company management in bringing a systematic business perspective and managing a seamless digital transformation of the company. Which to use depends on the purpose you have in mind, you will also need to tailor the communication of these views to different stakeholders, and apply holistic management to both improving business performance and maximizing its potential.

Posted in: Digital Fit,EA,GRC,Systems Wisdom,Vision