Squared Outline: Business Capabilities

Despite (or because) their ubiquity across powerpoint presentations, business capabilities appear under a wide range of guises. Putting them in perspectives could clarify the issue.

To begin with, business capabilities should not be confused with systems ones as they are supposed to be driven by changing environments and opportunities, in contrast to continuity, integrity, and returns on investments. Were it not for the need to juggle with both there would be no need of chief “whatever” officers.

Then, if they are to be assessed across changing contexts and concerns, business capabilities should not be tied to specific ones but focus on enterprise wherewithal :

  • Material: capacity and maturity of platforms with regard to changes in business processes and environments.
  • Functional: capacity and maturity of supporting systems with regard to
    changes in business processes.
  • Organizational: versatility and plasticity of roles and processes in dealing with changes in business opportunities.
  • Intelligence: information assets and ability of people to use them.

These could then be adjusted with regard to finance and time:

  • Strategic: assets, to be deployed and paid for across a number of business exercices.
  • Tactical: resources, to be deployed and paid for within single
    business exercices.
  • Particular: combined assets and resources needed to support specific value chains.

The role of enterprise architects would then to plan, assess, and manage the dynamic alignment of business and architecture capabilities.

FURTHER READING

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: