Due to the rapid development of enterprise digital transformation and the dynamic and changeable nature of enterprise strategy, the traditional enterprise business architecture methodologies are cumbersome for many enterprise IT strategy projects. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a high-level business architecture methodology, which is more suitable for application and promotion in enterprise IT strategy projects. This paper describes the application process of this methodology and illustrates its application results through the practical example.
Enterprise digital transformation has become an inevitable choice of many enterprises. A digital
strategy is a means of embracing new and different technologies in ways that challenge operational and
value assumptions and which integrate them with existing technologies to deliver new products,
services, business models, revenue streams and/or customer/stakeholder experiences [
In June, 2021, Tencent Research Institute released the digital transformation report of China
stateowned enterprises. Through the research questions of more than 60 enterprises, it was found that the
main challenge of digital transformation in various industries was not the lack of leadership support and
financial support, but the difficulty in integrating digital technology and business scenarios, resulting
in many enterprises not knowing where to start to promote the digital transformation [
Business architecture is the set of structures and stories that underpin “the business of the business”.
The structures might include higher-level concerns such as business models, organizational structures,
brand architectures, and financial structures [
Due to the complexity of traditional business architecture methodologies, the design and delivery of
business architecture are often completed by professional IT consulting companies in enterprise IT
strategy planning projects. In fact, because of the dynamic and changing nature of enterprise strategy
[
In the practice of enterprise IT strategy over the past few decades, there are two typical business architecture methodologies. One is from IT consulting companies such as IBM and Accenture, and the other is that some industry organizations provide such methodologies. Below, this paper will illustrate these two methodologies with examples.
Summarizing many enterprise IT strategy projects and establishing typical component business
models of enterprises in various industries is the quintessence of IT consulting company methodology.
The Component Business Model (CBM) developed by IBM is a typical representative of this type of
methodology [
In some industries, industry organizations will take the lead in formulating and publishing reference business architectures for the industry. For example, the ACORD reference framework published by the insurance industry international organization ACORD (Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development) contains seven industry models closely related to the insurance industry; the SCOR (Supply the Chain Operations Reference) reference architecture defines the three-level business architecture of the supply chain industry; the eTOM（enhanced Telecom Operations Map） released by the TeleManagement Forum has become an industry standard for telecom operators' operations management.
This paper takes eTOM as an example to illustrate the industry reference business architecture [
The above two typical enterprise business architecture methodologies have been applied in many enterprise IT strategies. However, because the enterprise strategy itself is often dynamic and changeable, it is often necessary to adjust and reconstruct the enterprise business architecture in a timely manner, and the above traditional methodologies are too heavy. Enterprise IT strategy mainly needs to ensure consistency with the enterprise strategy, rather than going into the details of the enterprise process. In this regard, the enterprise high-level business architecture is more suitable for providing effective input to the IT architecture in terms of direction and structure.
Therefore, the point of this paper is to establish an easy to implement high-level business architecture methodology, which should meet the following requirements.
1. Focus on high-level business architecture
Enterprise IT strategy planning is the top-level design for the overall IT of the enterprise, and takes the business architecture as an important foundation. In this field, the enterprise business architecture should be a high-level business architecture that can match the enterprise strategy and help IT strategy planners build the work foundation of IT strategy planning from an overall view of the enterprise.
Whether it is the practice of consulting companies or the research of industry organizations, it is obvious that the componentization approach is the basic tool of business architecture. Starting from the business capability, through the relationship analysis between them, just like building the architecture of a computer system, by defining and using business components to build the business architecture view of an enterprise. This business architecture can become an important tool for IT strategy planners to communicate and analyze with enterprise management, operation, execution and internal and external technical teams, making it an important foundation for IT strategy planning.
The high-level business architecture methodology proposed in this paper is shown in the following figure.
1. Enterprise strategy
From the perspective of business architecture, the most important thing to understand enterprise strategy is to grasp the business model, development vision and strategic path of the enterprise. This determines the target business architecture required by the enterprise.
2. Enterprise organizational structure
An enterprise's internal business units and department settings are the basis for the definition of enterprise business components. At the same time, the process of implementing many enterprise strategies is often a process of organizational structure adjustment. Therefore, the current organizational structure of the enterprise and the foreseeable adjustment of the organizational structure are the important basis for the construction of the business architecture.
3. The current state of enterprise IT
In the business architecture, it should not only be limited to business and management, but should also incorporate the current state of enterprise IT into the scope of business architecture work. Especially for enterprises that rely on IT to carry out business with a high degree, their IT status is often a concrete manifestation of the actual situation of enterprise management and business. Taking the current state of enterprise IT into account in the business architecture will help the business architecture conform to the actual situation of the enterprise.
The enterprise business architecture cannot be separated from the industry of the enterprise. The industry of the enterprise can be understood from the following three points.
1. Industry reference information
Industry reference information from authoritative and professional industry organizations, industry regulatory agencies, and professional research institutions is the most valuable. Industry reference business architectures like eTOM are obviously very helpful to the construction of enterprise business architectures. However, such mature industry reference business architectures are rare. In many industries, there is often no reference business architecture to obtain. In this case, a structured industry understanding framework can be established by means of multi-angle information collection and comprehensive induction.
2. Industry benchmarking enterprise
Since the business architecture itself needs to carry the goal of implementing the enterprise strategy, many companies often build their enterprise strategy based on the benchmarking enterprise in the industry. Therefore, if the benchmarking enterprises can be determined, the business architecture of the benchmarking enterprise is often of great reference significance. In most cases, the benchmarking enterprise is often a listed company, and its annual report, industry research report for it and other related information often describe its business architecture in a relatively complete manner. 3. Industry IT practices
Industry IT practices, especially those of benchmarking enterprises, often contribute to the development of business architecture. Under the current wave of enterprise digital transformation, technology-driven business architecture transformation and upgrading has become an unavoidable and important trend. Therefore, in the business architecture, we must also pay attention to the evolution direction and specific form of business architecture brought about by industry IT practices.
It is a very necessary choice for the business architecture of the IT strategy planning project to build a high-level business architecture sketch as soon as possible and carry out communication and demonstration.
If the industry to which the target enterprise belongs has an industry reference business architecture, it is the best way to build a sketch by directly tailoring it. However, most enterprises often do not have this industry reference business architecture. Here, this paper proposes the following three-tier architecture method, which can be used to quickly build sketches. administration, finance and human resource, and may also include backstage support capabilities such as operation, risk and compliance in combination with industry characteristics.
Carrying out communication and demonstration work based on the sketch of the enterprise's highlevel business architecture is an inevitable process to complete the delivery of it. Typically, this can be done using a two-step method.
The first is to preach and guide. This needs to explain the logic and supporting basis for the construction of the sketch to the middle and senior managers of the enterprise, and lay a foundation for understanding and consensus for communication and argumentation.
The second is hierarchical communication and demonstration, demonstrating the overall logic of the high-level business architecture with the CEO and CXO, and communicating with the middle and senior managers of each business unit and department to demonstrate the definition of each component and the sorting out of the relationship between them.
Through communication and argumentation, after obtaining the support of the middle and senior management of the enterprise, the finalization of the enterprise's high-level business architecture can be completed. In the subsequent IT architecture design, this high-level business architecture will serve as the most important basis, and also provide a foundation for the middle and senior leaders of the enterprise, who are often not IT professionals, to understand the IT architecture.
Facing the practice of enterprise IT strategy, this paper proposes a high-level business architecture methodology. Compared with the existing methodologies, this methodology has three characteristics. First, it is higher-level, which is easier for CEOs and CXOs to understand; second, it is convenient for continuous adjustment and improvement from the overall perspective of the enterprise, rather than being trapped in the specific process of the enterprise, which helps to be consistent with the enterprise strategy; third, it is more suitable for IT strategy planners to master, and is conducive to promotion and use in enterprise IT strategy projects.
Undoubtedly, the application of this methodology requires a systematic understanding of the industry to which the target enterprise belongs. Therefore, in the future work, the research and setup of high-level business reference architectures for those industries with high demand for digital transformation will be more conducive to the practice of this methodology in enterprise IT strategy projects.