Relating Business Modelling and Enterprise Architecture

273 Pages·2013·13.94 MB·English

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Relating Business Modelling
and Enterprise Architecture
Lucas Onno Meertens
Chairman and secretary
Ph.D. dissertation committee:
Promotor
Prof. dr. K.I. van Oudenhoven-van der Zee University of Twente, the Netherlands
Assistant Promotor
Prof. dr. ir. L.J.M. Nieuwenhuis University of Twente, the Netherlands
Members
Dr. M.E. Iacob University of Twente, the Netherlands
Prof. dr. Y. Pigneur University of Lausanne, Switzerland
Prof. dr. J. van Hillegersberg University of Twente, the Netherlands
Prof. dr. R.J. Wieringa University of Twente, the Netherlands
Prof. dr. A.J. Groen University of Twente, the Netherlands
Prof. dr. ir. P.W.P.J. Grefen Eindhoven University of Technology,
the Netherlands
CTIT Ph.D. Thesis Series No. 13-271
Centre for Telematics and
Information Technology
P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE
Enschede, the Netherlands
This work is part of the IOP GenCom U-Care
project (http://ucare.ewi.utwente.nl), which is
sponsored by the Dutch Ministry of Economics
Affairs under contract IGC0816
Cover design: Proefschriftmaken.nl || Uitgeverij BOXPress
Printed & Lay Out by: Proefschriftmaken.nl || Uitgeverij BOXPress
ISBN: 978-90-365-1209-1
ISSN: 1381-3617 (CTIT Ph.D. Thesis Series No. 13-271)
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3990/1.9789036512091
Relating Business Modelling
and Enterprise Architecture
PROEFSCHRIFT
ter verkrijging van
de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Twente,
op gezag van de rector magnificus,
prof. dr. H. Brinksma,
volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties
in het openbaar te verdedigen
op vrijdag 11 oktober 2013 om 12.45 uur
door
Lucas Onno Meertens
geboren op 23 november 1984
te Lima, Peru
Dit proefschrift is goedgekeurd door:
Prof. dr. ir. L.J.M. Nieuwenhuis (Promotor)
Dr. M.E. Iacob (Assistent-promotor)
English Summary
This thesis proposes a methodology for creating business models, evaluating them, and
relating them to enterprise architecture. The methodology consists of several steps,
leading from an organization’s current situation to a target situation, via business
models and enterprise architecture.
The problems with Business-IT Alignment
Currently, increasing amounts of businesses rely on IT systems to do their business.
However, success rates of IT implementations projects are low. Difficulties exist in
aligning existing IT systems with business objectives. A consensus exists among
researchers and practitioners alike that business-IT alignment (BITA) is necessary to
improve business performance. Typical symptoms of lack of BITA include:
•
•
People cannot use the systems effectively.
•
Changes in systems often do not consider the financial impacts.
Systems cannot be changed easily and quickly to adapt to new situations.
Difficulties also exist with technological innovations. Most difficulties are not caused by
technical issues. Lack of consideration for financial and organisational aspects is a cause
for projects not surviving after the pilot phase. A lack of attention is paid to financial
aspects of innovations. Projects are often more expensive than planned due to changing
requirements. Projects are often more expensive than planned because demands are
not well known.
Therefore, we have a problem to build and adapt IT systems to changing business
needs. This thesis attempts to combine two partial solutions to this problem, Enterprise
Architecture (EA) and Business Modelling (BM).
A partial solution: Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise Architecture comprises a collection of simplified representations of
the organisation, from different viewpoints and according to the needs of different
stakeholders. A coherent description of enterprise architecture provides insight,
enables communication among stakeholders, and guides complicated change processes.
ArchiMate provides a language to create such descriptions in a precise and formal way.
While Enterprise Architecture helps to manage change, it includes insufficient business
strategy, and use of ArchiMate is limited to expert users.
Another partial solution: Business Modelling
In the basis, business models are used to describe businesses and explore possibilities
for future development. Business modelling is intuitive to use by managers, consultants,
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and entrepreneurs alike. The business model concept is a young and emerging field
of research. The state in which this field finds itself is one of “prescientific chaos”:
several competing schools of thought exist, and progress is limited because of a lack of
cumulative progress. Links to other research domains are vital to establish the business
model as a distinct area of investigation. This lack of cohesion in the field clearly
diminishes the added value of business models for organizations and makes business
modelling an art, rather than a science.
A combined solution: Relating Enterprise Architecture and Business Modelling
Individually, business modelling or enterprise architecture does not seem to solve the
problem completely. However, each of their weaknesses seems to be countered by the
strengths of the other. On one side, where EA is limited to experts and lack business
strategy, BM is intuitive to use and focusses on the business. On the other side, where
BM lacks a methodology, is barely formalized, and lacks scientific underpinning, EA has
an Architecture Development Method, and is standardized in ArchiMate. Therefore,
combining EA and BM appears to be an advance towards solving our problem.
While solving the problem of building and adapting IT systems to business needs,
thereby increasing success rates of IT implementation projects is the final goal, this
thesis is limited to relating enterprise architecture and business modelling. This
thesis proposes a methodology for creating business models, evaluating them, and
relating them to enterprise architecture. We do this by developing several steps of the
methodology, which supports bringing an organization from its current situation to a
target situation. The developed process steps help to formalize business modelling, and
at the same time extend enterprise architecture to be more business focussed and easier
to use. This would support our hypothesis the combining enterprise architecture and
business modelling leads to better EA and BM models, and therefore, more successful
business-IT innovations.
A meta-meta-view on business modelling
One of the main gaps in business model research was the lack of a conceptual model.
We introduce a meta-modelling perspective on business models. By placing existing
business model review literature in the context of meta-layers and structuring it
following the components of design theory, we create the meta-meta-business model
(Me2BM). This helps to see what we are talking about in the jungle of business models
and their different interpretations.
How to create business models?
No widely accepted method existed for design and specification of business models.
We propose the Business Modelling Method to create business models. This six-step
method, named BMM, is developed, demonstrated, and evaluated in this thesis. The
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BMM provides a way to create business models systematically. Innovators can apply the
steps to create business cases for their ideas. This helps them to show the viability and
get things implemented.
How to evaluate business models?
Having built one or more business models, a need arises for a method to objectively
compare alternative business models, and choose the best course of action. We propose
the business case method as a way to evaluate business models. The designed business
case method to compare business models objectively can be used to compare and
choose the best business model successfully. This is what has to happen in the last step
of the BMM.
How to relate business models to enterprise architecture?
We show how business models and enterprise architecture can be related. The
contribution is threefold: 1. We relate Business Model Canvas building blocks to
ArchiMate, 2. We demonstrate the value of that relationship in a cost/benefit-analysis,
3. We provide methodological support, clarifying the role of business models in the
Architecture Development Method.
The U*Care project serves as a case study to demonstrate the above three methods
chained together. Business models are created, evaluated, and related to enterprise
architecture. Combining enterprise architecture and business modelling leads to better
EA and BM models, and therefore, more successful business-IT innovations.
In conclusion
Our main research contribution to the fields of enterprise architecture and business
modelling lies in providing a way to deal with issues from business-IT alignment, by
developing a design science methodology for creating business models, evaluating
them, and relating them to enterprise architecture.
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Table of Contents
English Summary ...................................................................V
1 Motivation, background, and research design ................................1
1.1 Motivation and background: What is the problem?...........................1
1.1.1 Difficulties exist in aligning existing IT systems with business objectives......1
1.1.2 Difficulties also exist with technological innovations..........................2
1.1.3 Hence, we have a problem to build and adapt IT systems to business needs. ..4
1.2 We have Enterprise Architecture ............................................4
1.2.1 What is Enterprise Architecture? ............................................4
1.2.2 What can you do with EA?...................................................4
1.2.3 What you cannot do with EA!................................................4
1.3 To understand the business better, we could use business modelling .........5
1.3.1 What is business modelling?.................................................5
1.3.2 What can you do with business modelling? ..................................5
1.3.3 What you cannot do with business modelling! ...............................6
1.4 Solving the problem? Combining business modelling and enterprise
architecture.................................................................7
1.5 Research Design: What to do? ...............................................8
1.5.1 Objective: Propose a methodology...........................................8
1.5.2 Question: What do we need to know?........................................9
1.5.3 Strategy: Which approach to take to answer the question? ..................10
1.6 Structure of the thesis......................................................18
2 Background: What has (not) been done?....................................21
2.1 Business modelling: A literature review.....................................21
2.1.1 Business models literature review method: justification of the
approach, structure, sources and criteria, and a short literature overview ...21
2.1.2 Early evolution of business models .........................................24
2.1.3 Business models: what it is, what it is used for, and what it is not ...........28
2.1.4 Business model components ...............................................35
2.1.5 Business model evaluation .................................................39
2.2 Business cases: a literature review..........................................43
2.2.1 Literature criteria, search and selection process ............................44
2.2.2 Short literature overview...................................................46
2.2.3 Business case: what it is, what it is used for, and what it is not...............46
2.2.4 Business case components: two perspectives ...............................49
2.2.5 Business case evaluation ...................................................57
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