In an earlier blog post, we introduced the Business Model Canvas (Osterwalder, 2009) as a useful tool for describing how a business captures, creates and delivers value. In this blog, we will elaborate on Business Models, introducing the subject of Business Model Analysis. We will present several possible analytical techniques, using the case of Nextpresso, a virtual coffee-cup company. Business Model Analysis Analyzing your business model can help to determine whether a venture is, or will be, viable and valuable. After completing a Business Model Canvas for a current or future business mode ..read more

Most enterprise architects believe that Enterprise Architecture is a relevant discipline for members of the board. However, CxO’s often aren’t really of the same opinion. We believe that is because they do not usually experience the true value of architecture. What can an architect do to improve this? Below we present seven useful tips. 1. Build awareness actively Provide some context for your audience: connect architectural issues to the real world. People, applications, problems in the here and now will be more understandable and lively than abstract boxes and lines. Decision-makers hardly ..read more

Business Capability Maps are used for a variety of strategic change purposes such as to align business leaders and other stakeholders on investment decisions. Capabilities are not IT concepts but are used to describe the abilities of an enterprise, i.e. what activities it’s able to do, either now or in the future, rather than how a business performs these activities. To successfully design business capabilities and business capability maps, it’s important to consider design principles for business stakeholders to accept and adopt Capability Maps as a strategic planning tool that conveys meani ..read more

In our previous blog in our series on Capabilities and Capability-based Planning, we discussed the relationships between strategy, business models and capabilities. Now we want to delve one level deeper into the operating model of the enterprise. We want specifically to answer: How are capabilities delivered by the enterprise’s operating model? How they all relate: Capabilities, Business Functions and the Organization Let’s start by clearing up an important misunderstanding: a Capability Map is not a functional decomposition of the enterprise! We have written about this confusion in our blog ..read more

Since the foundation of the Business Architecture Guild a little over a decade ago, its Business Architecture Body of Knowledge (BIZBOK®), as expressed in the BIZBOK® Guide, has become a popular set of guidelines and techniques for practicing business architects. More recently, it has also defined its own metamodel, which you can read about in this whitepaper (published August 2020). This metamodel provides you with a core set of concepts for expressing business architecture in the sense that BIZBOK® defines it. The ArchiMate® modeling language for enterpris ..read more

In the first instalment in this series, we gave an outline of the notion of ‘business capability’ and why it is so useful in strategy execution. But what exactly is this somewhat elusive concept and how do you define capabilities? As mentioned in that previous blog post, you need to understand and design what an enterprise can and must do to fulfil its mission, before diving into the organization structure, business processes, IT systems, and other implementation aspects. This provides the ‘big picture’ needed to deal with the challenges above: First, get away from organizational politics and ..read more

Digital transformation is unlike previous business transformation efforts insofar as there is no fixed final state – no point in time where the people involved can look up and say, ‘well, that’s done.’ Rather, digital transformation means transforming the organization from having less agility to having more agility. In other words, being able to deal better with change overall. Fundamentally, digital transformation requires that organizations adopt change itself as a core competency. Makes sense, except that the devil is in the details. What does it mean for change to be a core competency? Wh ..read more

In recent years, we have produced numerous blog posts, whitepapers, and webinars on the topic of business capabilities and capability-based planning. With this new blog series, we want to take you through this subject step-by-step and help you understand and apply this somewhat elusive concept of ‘capability’. We don’t want to start bombarding you with definitions (although we will discuss the definition of this capability concept in a next instalment in this series), but let’s first have a look at some key challenges we see in our customer organizations. Key Challenges Many organizations str ..read more

At the start of a new year, everyone comes up with their predictions for the future. However, as we have learned last year, all these forecasts can easily be upended. There appears to be light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel with vaccination rollouts starting, but new variants of the virus could have nasty surprises in store. Who knows what’s going to happen? It’s like predicting the price of Bitcoin. You might strike it rich or you might lose your shirt. Nevertheless, we see some trends emerging in our enterprise architecture discipline, as my colleague Razvan recently highlighted. The one ..read more

We’ve stepped into 2021 and it seems like the worst is behind us. Yes, in some regions a new, more dangerous strain of the virus has been detected, but overall it seems reasonable to expect things to get better as we move on. After all, a number of vaccines are expected to be released and also most countries have begun prioritized vaccinations already. So where does this leave organizations, what does the business world look like after this most peculiar of years? The Pandemic Fast Tracked Digital Transformation The great challenges that business faced in 2020 meant that a huge ..read more