Differentiating Between Market Structures PaperWrite a 1,500 to 1,60.docx
Strategic Blueprint for Managing Enterprise Transformation & Agility
1. Strategic Blueprint for
Managing Enterprise
Transformation & Agility
Written By: Solomon Baba
Reviewed By: Dr. Dayo Ogunbekun
2013
2. Table of Contents
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 4
2. Overcoming the Challenges of Enterprise Transformation and Agility ........................................... 7
3. Develop Roadmaps of Transformational Enterprise Initiatives ..................................................... 8
4. Assess the Impact and Risk of Transformational Enterprise Initiatives..........................................12
5. Align Transformative IS and Technology Initiatives with Business Initiatives ................................18
6. Effectively Govern Transformational Enterprise Initiatives ...........................................................23
7. Continuously Adapt to Market and Environmental Dynamics.......................................................25
8. Accurately Estimate the Resource Requirements for Transformational Initiatives ........................29
9. Ensure Effective Communication and Collaboration Between Business & IT.................................31
10. Glossary...................................................................................................................................32
11. Bibliography ............................................................................................................................35
2013, Solomon Baba. All Rights Reserved 2
3. Trademarks
Trademarked names may appear throughout this document. Rather than list the names and entities
that own the trademarks or insert a trademark symbol with each mention of the trademarked name,
the names are used only for editorial purposes and to the benefit of the trademark owner with no
intention of infringing upon that trademark.
Disclaimer
Although the author took proper care in writing this whitepaper, no warranty is given by the author
as to the accuracy and completeness of the information contained therein, and neither the author,
nor the publishing medium shall be responsible or liable for any loss or damage whatsoever arising
by virtue of such information or any advice contained within this whitepaper. All trademarks,
registered names, and so forth acknowledged in this book are the property of their respective
owners.
2013, Solomon Baba. All Rights Reserved 3
4. 1. Introduction
Change is the only constant.
− Heraclitus
Change is inevitable in our personal lives, and in businesses. The irony of change in life is
that, as a child, we could not wait to grow up to become adults, as adults, we do not want to
grow old due to so many reasons that are too numerous to mention. It is very logical to
conclude that, at different stages of our lives we tend to have different appetite or desire for
change or growth. However, whether we like it or not change will inevitably occur in our
lives. How we prepare for, and cope with these unavoidable changes are the most important
factors to our personal transformation or change.
In continuation of the above rational illustration; as a child, changing our behaviours or
attitudes is much easier compared to changing our behaviours and attitudes as an adult; a
stage at which we are almost set in our ways, and are used to, or comfortable with the way
we do things. Similarly, enterprises in their formative stages tend to have a high sense of
urgency for change, and are easy to change, or have a positive or strong appetite for change,
but, as they reach certain stage of maturity or size, changing an enterprise becomes an uphill
task. The inability of enterprises to change easily as they become bigger occurs partly
because their appetite for change would have dwindled, or they would have been set in their
ways, or more people in the enterprises will now be required to make change happen.
Just as it is in our personal lives, whether enterprises or businesses like it or not change will
inevitably happen. How enterprises anticipate or sense, respond, and manage these
unavoidable and phenomenal transformational changes are the most important factors to
enterprise transformation or change in this new millennia. Providing an effective blueprint
to help enterprises respond, cope, or manage these transformational changes is the sole
intent of this whitepaper.
John P. Kotter, a former professor at the Harvard Business School, vividly justified the
juxtaposition depicted above in this whitepaper in his seminal book Leading Change, John
stated that ‘In an organisation with 100 employees, at least a two dozen must go far beyond
the normal call of duty to produce a significant change.’ He further stated that ‘In a firm
2013, Solomon Baba. All Rights Reserved 4
5. with 100,000 employees, the same might be required for 15,000 employees or more.’1 We
can see that as the size of the organisation increases so does the number of people that will
be required to transform the organisation, which is one of the factors that makes it very
difficult for large enterprises to fundamental alter or change their operations, processes,
products and services and so forth.
In spite of the challenges associated with enterprise transformation and agility as clearly
illustrated above, enterprises cannot afford to stand still in today’s dynamic and globalised
environment. If they do, either one of these two things will happen, either they will be left
behind in the state of things and become obsolete in their approach, products, and services,
and eventually wither away or file for bankruptcy, or they will become the target of hostile
takeover or acquisition. Moreover, if such an enterprise is a public sector organisation, the
citizenry or its stakeholders will consider such an organisation to be out of touch with their
needs, concerns, or interests.
It is obvious that enterprises must continue to change, as well as, develop the ability to
change (i.e., to become agile) in order to survive in today’s dynamic environment. However,
we have two major types of changes, the first is routine change, and the second is
fundamental change (also called transformation). The change referred to in this paper is
fundamental change. According to William B. Rouse, the executive director of the
Tennenbaum Institute at the Georgia Institute of Technology:
‘Enterprise transformation concerns change, not just routine change but fundamental
change that substantially alters an organization’s relationships with one or more key
constituencies, e.g., customers, employees, suppliers, and investors.’2
The need to fundamental alter or change the way enterprises carry out their activities in
order to deliver their products/services and to relate with their customers, employees,
suppliers and government is driven by internal/external factors such as the economy growth,
government laws and regulations, taxes, globalisation, recession, supply and demand,
competition, new technology and so forth.
1
Kotter J. P. (1996).Leading Change. US: Harvard Business School Press, p. 35.
2
Rouse, W. B. (2005). A Theory of Enterprise Transformation, Systems Engineering, 8(4), 279-295, p. 279.
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6. Although transformation and agility are both critical to the survival of enterprises in today’s
dynamic and globalised environment, they are very difficult to achieve.
Numerous researchers have identified the many factors that are responsible for the
difficulties associated with enterprise transformation, or for the failure of transformational
initiatives, or why enterprises are unable to transform themselves, or become agile enough
to respond to the changes happening in their environment in a quick and effective manner.
However, not much has been done in attributing the root cause of these problems to the
challenges of managing the complexities associated with handling all of the numerous and
interconnected components or parts of the enterprise that must change and work together in
a cohesive fashion in order for an enterprise to successfully transform itself.
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7. 2. Overcoming the Challenges of Enterprise Transformation and Agility
In order to overcome the challenges of managing the complexities associated with enterprise
transformation and agility, enterprises need to develop or possess a strategic blueprint of
their enterprise that will be used for:
1. Developing roadmaps of transformational initiatives, or for identifying the right
transformational business, IS and technology initiatives to embark upon in order
to achieve their strategic goals (i.e., to carry out strategic business, IS, and
technology planning)
2. Assessing the impact and risk of fundamentally altering the way they currently
perform their operations or for performing numerous what-if-scenarios for the
purpose of testing all the assumptions surrounding their transformation efforts
3. Aligning their transformational technology and information systems (IS)
initiatives with their business initiatives
4. Governing their business, IS, and technology initiatives or programmes
throughout their entire lifecycle
5. Continuously adapting to the dynamic nature of their environment or to develop
the ability to quickly sense and respond to changes that are happening in their
environment
6. Accurately estimating the resources that will be required to deliver their
transformational business, IS, and technology initiatives effectively
7. Creating a common language or terminology and modelling notations that will be
used within the enterprise, and with external partners and suppliers in order to
reduce the costs and risks of enterprise transformation that may results from the
lack of standard communication language and approaches
The strategic blueprint is able to achieve all of the value propositions mentioned above
through the provisioning of a complete and coherent documentation of all the key building
blocks or components that makes up the enterprise. The blueprint also provides all the
relationships, dependencies, or interconnections that exist between these enterprise building
blocks or components that are the key enablers of enterprise mission.
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8. 3. Develop Roadmaps of Transformational Enterprise Initiatives
In the same way that individuals or organisations need an architectural plan or blueprint to
guide the construction or renovation/transformation of buildings, a strategic enterprise
blueprint is also needed to guide the transformation, engineering, and manufacturing of an
enterprise. The Government of Canada clearly understood the significance of using a
strategic blueprint to guide enterprise transformation efforts or programmes, which is why
they developed a custom strategic blueprint called Business Transformation Enablement
(BTEP) Toolkit to guide all their transformation programmes. According to the Canadian
Government’s Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat:
‘If, across government, the ways that we define and understand the “as is” state, and
then scope, design, plan, and execute business transformation to move to the “to be
state” aren’t compatible, coherent and efficient, then it’s highly unlikely that the
outcomes will be.’ 3
The strategic blueprint presented in this paper will help enterprises to develop roadmaps for
their transformation programmes or to identify the right transformational business, IS, and
technology initiatives by providing a comprehensive and coherent architecture or
documentation of their baseline and target enterprise capabilities that can be used to analyse
the gaps, redundancies, and overlaps that may exist between them.
Following the assessment or evaluation of the gaps that may exist between their baseline and
target business, IS and technology capabilities, enterprises can easily develop the roadmap
of transformational initiatives or roadmap of new capabilities that should be developed to
close the identified gaps, or to eliminate the redundant/duplicative capabilities or services
that may exist in the enterprise. Figures 3.0, 3.1 and 3.2 below graphically illustrates how
the strategic blueprint presented in this paper can be used to document the baseline and
target architecture of enterprise capabilities, perform gap analysis, and develop the
roadmaps of transformational enterprise initiatives .
3
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. (2004). Business Transformation Enablement Programme. Canada: Her
Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, p. 4.
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9. Figure 3.0 High Level (One Page) Strategic Enterprise Blueprint
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10. Figure 3.1 Business, IS and Technology Capability Gap Assessment
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11. Figure 3.2 Business, IS and Technology Transformation Roadmap
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12. 4. Assess the Impact and Risk of Transformational Enterprise Initiatives
In order to assess or measure the impact and risk of fundamentally altering the way
enterprise currently perform their operations or serve their stakeholders, a strategic blueprint
is needed to provide a comprehensive documentation of the enterprise building blocks, and
to establish the relationship that exists between all these building blocks (i.e., business, IS,
and technology architecture building blocks). The process of establishing relationships
between all the key building blocks of an enterprise is called Meta modelling, and the
outcome of that process is called a meta-model.
A meta-model provide enterprises the means or tools for assessing the impact of the changes
they are going to be making, perform numerous what-if-scenarios to test the assumptions
they made about their transformational programmes, and be able to trace the relationships or
dependencies between the building blocks of their enterprise (i.e., business, IS, and
technology components). Figures 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4 below provides a comprehensive
enterprise metal-model that can used to assess the impact of change when it is used to
document the architecture of the enterprise; most especially, when it used together with the
right enterprise architecture (EA) repository and modelling tool.
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13. Figure 4.0 High Level Business, Information Systems (IS) and Technology Architecture Metal Model
14. Figure 4.1 Detail Business Service Architecture Meta Model
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15. Figure 4.2 Detail Information Services Architecture Meta Model
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18. 5. Align Transformational IS and Technology Initiatives with Business Initiatives
In order to align transformational information systems (IS) and technology initiatives with
business initiatives, a strategic enterprise blueprint is needed to provide the means or context
for aligning all three initiatives or for integrating transformational initiatives that span both
business, IS, and technology building blocks. Figures 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, and 5.4 below
provides different views of the blueprint that shows how to integrate and align
transformational IS and technology planning with business planning, or shows how to
integrate/align the building blocks of business, IS, and technology components.
Figure 5.0 Business, IS, and Technology Objectives and Initiatives Alignment View
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19. Figure 5.1 Business, IS and Technology Services Alignment View
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20. Figure 5.2 Business, IS and Technology Components Alignment View
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21. Figure 5.3 High Level Business, IS and Technology Alignment Meta Model
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22. Figure 5.4 Business, IS and Technology Alignment Meta Model
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23. 6. Effectively Govern Transformational Enterprise Initiatives
In order to govern transformational business, IS and technology initiatives effectively, a
strategic enterprise blueprint is needed to provide a comprehensive documentation of key
enterprise building blocks that must be governed effectively in order for enterprise
transformation initiatives to succeed. The strategic blueprint will also enable enterprises to
specify standards and patterns that each of the strategic building blocks must comply with,
in line with the IT principles of the enterprise.
Without a strategic enterprise blueprint, it will be practically impossible to identify all of the
building blocks or components of an enterprise, establish the relationships that may exist
between them, specify their standards, capture relevant information about them, and manage
them throughout their entire lifecycle. Figure 6.0 below illustrate how strategic blueprint can
be used to specify standards for enterprise building blocks, following which the architecture
review boards of enterprises can use these standards to effectively guide and govern
programmes/projects and solutions delivery, mostly by ensuring that the architecture of the
solution is consistent with the specified IT standards throughout the entire delivery lifecycle.
24. Figure 6.0 Technology Architecture Artefacts Meta Model
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25. 7. Continuously Adapt to Market and Environmental Dynamics
In order to continuously adapt to the dynamics of their external environment, enterprises
need develop or possess a strategic blueprint that provide a holistic and integrated picture of
their entire building blocks to help them identify, design, deliver, and operationalize
transformational business, IS, and technology initiatives or programmes quickly, including
those initiatives or programmes that supports or enables enterprise agility. In other words,
strategic blueprint will enable enterprises to quickly respond to the changes that are
happening in their environment by providing a comprehensive and integrated business, IS,
and technology blueprints for identifying and delivering transformational enterprise
initiatives or programmes such as business process re-engineering or transformation,
service-oriented and event-driven composite application development, and business process
management (BPM).
Numerous researches have shown that enterprises that has a fully developed strategic
blueprint prior to embarking on the initiatives mentioned above are better able to come to
market faster with their business agility enabling solutions than their competitors, and are
more likely to succeed in delivering operationalizing those solutions. Figures 7.0, 7.1, and
7.2 below illustrates how enterprises can leverage strategic blueprints to continuously adapt
to the dynamics of their environment, and to design the architecture of their business-
aligned and transformational IS and technology initiatives cum solutions. Numerous
researches have indicated that the key to delivering transformational IS and technology
initiatives or projects the right way is to have excellent solution architecture.
Strategic blueprint will help enterprises to accelerate the definition of their solution
architectures because it enables solution architects to understand the current state of the IS
and technology architecture that the new solution will integrate with, and to leverage
opportunities for re-use in the current application and technology services portfolio. In
addition, the strategic blueprint also helps solution architects to adhere to the catalogue of
technology standards and patterns specified by the enterprise.
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26. Figure 7.0 Conceptual Application Security Solution Architecture
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27. Figure 7.1 Logical Application Security Solution Architecture
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28. Figure 7.2 Physical Application Security Solution Architecture
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29. 8. Accurately Estimate the Resource Requirements for Transformational
Initiatives
In order to estimate all the resources that are required to transform an enterprise
successfully, a strategic blueprint provide a comprehensive documentation or catalogue of
baseline and target enterprise building blocks. This strategic blueprint will help those
involve in transforming the enterprise to accurately identify all the business, IS, and
technology components or building blocks that need to change as part of the transformation
programme, for example, enterprises will be able to identify what applications are needed to
support business processes.
Strategic blueprint can also help enterprises to identify and document which business events,
rules, information/business objects, measures, process, or which business services are
automated or orchestrated, and by which application service, and as part of which business
process management or transformation programme. In essence, enterprises can use the
strategic blueprint to identify the key building blocks (organisation units, functions,
location, roles, actors, business services, data entities, map actors to roles and organisation
units etc.) of their organisation that will be required to design and deliver transformative and
agility enabling solutions such as BPM and service-oriented architecture (SOA) before
embarking on them. Figures 8.0, 8.1, and 8.2 below clearly illustrate how strategic blueprint
can be used to document the building blocks that are required to deliver enterprise
transformation initiatives.
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31. 9. Ensure Effective Communication and Collaboration between Business & IT
Numerous researches indicated that one of the major reasons why IT-enabled enterprise
transformation programme fails is that, the business, IS, and technology organisation units
speaks different languages, and uses different approaches to define and describe their
contexts/situations, which tends to introduce a lot of ambiguity in the way they
communicate, collaborate, and understand each other’s context. Enterprises need to adopt
and use a strategic enterprise blueprint that is developed based on industry-accepted
terminologies and modelling notation such as the strategic blueprint presented and discussed
in this paper in order to eliminate the ambiguity or communication gaps that exist between
the business, IS, and the technology organisation units. The Canadian Government’s
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat also corroborates this view by stating that:
‘A government that can lead change to reach its goals must be able to align and
analyze its business using a common language around common functions, and types
of programs and services and their client groups, across the entire enterprise.’ 4
The strategic enterprise blueprint presented in this paper was developed largely based on
TOGAF 9.1 frameworks and notations, and on other industry standard reference
architectures and patterns.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Solomon Baba is currently a freelance Enterprise/Solutions Architect, prior to becoming a
freelancer, he was an Enterprise and Solutions Architect at Wipro Technologies in the
United Kingdom; and prior to joining Wipro, he was an enterprise/solutions architect with
Oracle Corporations, EMEA. Solomon has a master’s degree in Business Technology
consulting (with specialisation in Enterprise Architecture) from the prestigious Henley
Business School at the University of Reading in UK. He is passionate about helping
enterprises to manage the lifecycle of their IT investments, and in designing service-oriented
and event-driven enterprise architecture for private and public organisations. He recently
authored a book that laid out the five rational steps that enterprises can follow to manage
their IT investments successfully and generate maximum business value; now available for
sale on all Amazon websites.
4
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. (2004). Business Transformation Enablement Programme. Canada: Her
Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, p. 4.
32. 10. Glossary
Keywords Definitions
Actor A person (employee, customers, partners and other stakeholder)
assigned to a role. Actor can also be a system or thing that triggers an
event or perform/initiate an action
Architecture Represents the graphical or otherwise description or representation of
the building blocks of an enterprise, system, or things
Building block Are the reusable components that are used to engineer and manufacture
an enterprise, or to deliver solutions to enterprise problems
Business Data about the attributes of business entities that are consumed by
Information or business processes. Business object can either be structured or
Object
unstructured
Business Rule Are structured business policies that are used to control the behaviour of
business process, IS/application, and technology service. Business rule
also represent the decision logic that determines the
execution/performance of business processes
Capability Can either be a business, IS or technology capability. Business
capability is the ability of an organisation unit or of its business function
to deliver business services and products. IS capability is the ability of
IS function to deliver application services. Technology capability is the
ability of the technology function to deliver technology/platform
services
Component Represent the building block of an enterprise. Components can either be
conceptual, logical, or physical.
Contract Can either be a business, IS, or technology contract. Contract is a
formal/informal quality of service (QoS) or agreement associated with a
service
Data Object or Data about the attributes of business entities that are consumed by
Entity application service. Data object only exist in structured format, and are
managed by a conceptual technology component called structured or
relational data management service. Business process consume data
objects by accessing application services
Driver Can either be a business, IS or technology driver. A driver is a factor
that influence, motivate, or constrain an organisation. Drivers can
2013, Solomon Baba. All Rights Reserved 32
33. originate from within or outside the organisation. Typical examples of
drivers are customer satisfaction, regulatory compliance, profitability
and so forth
Event The occurrence of an observable action, which can be generated or
resolve by an actor, and can be triggered by a business process or it can
triggers a business process. An event can simply mean a change of state
e.g. from cold to hot, yes to no and so forth.
Function Can either be a business, IS, or technology function. As an entity, a
function is a group of similar/related enterprise resources or capabilities
required to deliver services to either internal or external customers. As a
verb, a function is the set of activities that are performed by an
organisation unit or a role. This definition sounds somewhat like the
definition of business process, However, while a business process group
enterprise components based on a sequence or “flow” of activities that is
needed to realize a product or service, a function typically groups
enterprise components based on required resources, skills, competences,
knowledge (i.e., capabilities). According to TOGAF 9.1 document, ‘a
function delivers capabilities closely aligned to an organisation unit’
Gap Can either be a business, IS, or technology gap. Business gap is the
shortfall that exists between the baseline and target business architecture
or capability. IS gap is the shortfall that exists between the baseline and
target IS architecture/capability. Technology/platform gap is the
shortfall that exists between the baseline and target technology
architecture.
Goal Can either be a business, IS, or technology goal. Business goal is high-
level statement of business intent or direction. IS goal is high-level
statement of IS goal and intent that that support or enable the
achievement of business goal. Technology goal is high-level statement
of intent or direction that supports the achievement of IS goal.
Initiative Can either be a business, IS, or technology initiative. Initiative is the
course of action or prospective programmes/projects enterprise will
embark upon in order to achieve its objectives. Initiative is often
referred to as enterprise strategic initiative by TOGAF
Investment Can either be a business, IS, or technology investment roadmap.
2013, Solomon Baba. All Rights Reserved 33
34. Roadmap Investment roadmaps are the time-phased and technically interdependent
set of strategic enterprise initiatives that will help an enterprise to
develop the capabilities it needs to achieve its business, IS and
technology objectives
Interface Can either be a business or application interface. Business interface is a
point of access for business services, or an access point for business
services. Application interface is a point through which business
processes or function accesses application services, or a point through
which application services can be accessed. Application interface
exposes the functionalities of application services or application
components.
Location Can either be a business, IS or technology location. Business location is
the place or geographical location where actors deliver business
services. IS location is the place where IS/application services are hosted
or deployed. Technology location is the place where technology
components are installed.
Measure Measure is the performance metric that must be met by business
processes in order to achieve business objectives or goals. TOGAF
recently introduced MEASURE building block as an entity that links
business objective and business service
Objective Can either be a business, IS, or technology objective. Objectives
quantifies business, IS and technology goals. Objectives can also be
defined as SMART goal, the intent of which is to measure progress
towards a goal
Organisation Can either be a business, IS, or technology organisation unit.
Unit Organisation unit represents a group of resources with the requisite
capability to deliver services in order to achieve goals, and objectives.
An enterprise is made up of one or more organisation units. According
to TOGAF driver, goal, and objective link organisation unit to business
service
Process Sequence of steps or activities that are performed by an actor to realise a
business service or to deliver a product.
Product Can be a collection of intangible business services together with their
contracts and service quality requirements, or the combination of
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35. intangible business services and tangible commodities/goods delivered
to an external or internal customer
Programme Can either be a business, IS, or technology project and programme. A
programme is an organised grouping of interdependent or connected
projects that are required to achieve the desired outcome (objectives)
sought by enterprises and deliver maximum value
Role An actor is assigned to a role to perform/initiate/trigger a business
service, process, or events.
Service Quality Can either be a business, IS, or platform/technology service qualities.
Service qualities are the non-functional requirements that must be met
by business, IS, and platform services.
Service Can either be a business, IS, and technology service. Business service
can either be defined as the smallest unit of business capability, by
implication; a group of business services will constitute a business
capability. Alternatively, business service can be defined as an
intangible commodity/product that fulfils the needs of an internal or
external customer. Application service is piece of application
functionality. Business service delivery requires a combination of
business, and might also require both IS and technology capabilities
Strategy Can either be a business, IS and technology, which then consists of
business, IS and technology objectives, and the transformational
business, IS, and technology change initiatives or course actions
required to achieve the objectives
Value Relative significance of a product or service
11. Bibliography
1. The Open Group. (2011). TOGAF Version 9.1. Netherland: Van Haren Publishing
2. Baba, S. (2012). The 5 Rational Steps for Managing IT Investments: How-to Generate
Maximum Business Value from IT. US: CreateSpace
3. Open Group Standard. (2012). ArchiMate 2.0 Specification. UK: The Open Group
2013, Solomon Baba. All Rights Reserved 35