Discover the powerful learnings from Business Capability Mapping and how they can be applied by CIOs to real-world challenges. This article reveals how to align IT with stable business capabilities, foster collaboration, implement incrementally, and optimize ROI.
Business Capability Mapping is a strategic approach that connects the constant core abilities of a company with its ever-evolving execution methods. By focusing on what the business does rather than how it does it, this method ensures a robust alignment between business and IT, providing adaptability and longevity to the technical architecture. For IT professionals seeking to build a resilient and responsive technology strategy, adopting Business Capability Mapping could be a cornerstone to achieving alignment with the stable elements of the business, enhancing adaptability, and securing a positive return on investment.
In a rapidly changing business landscape, the ability to create a stable and adaptable connection between a company's business objectives and IT infrastructure is paramount. Traditional methods of aligning IT with the business often focus on the transient processes, which can frequently change, leading to a lack of cohesion and adaptability in IT strategy.
The fundamental issue lies in the disconnection between the business's core capabilities and its execution processes. While the basic capabilities remain consistent over time, the execution methods or 'how' something is done change frequently due to technological advancements and market dynamics. This disconnection leads to a lack of longevity in the business model, causing problems for IT infrastructure alignment, and may limit the company's ability to respond swiftly to market changes.
A typical example would be a telecommunication company's ability to provide services like "Provision Service," "Activate Service," and "Generate Bill." These capabilities remain the same, but how these services are delivered has changed significantly over the years due to technological innovations.
The solution lies in the process called Business Capability Mapping. This approach focuses on modeling the 'what' of a business rather than the 'how,' providing a view of the most stable elements that are less likely to change. It promotes a strong and long-lasting relationship between the business model and IT infrastructure. The high-level view of Business Capability Mapping consists of two main activities:
- Determine the Business Architecture
- Align the Technical Architecture to the Business Architecture
An example would be:
- Top-Level Capabilities: Develop Services, Market Services, Deliver Services, Manage the Business.
- Contained Capabilities under Deliver Services: Create Order, Activate Service, Mediate Service, Bill for Service.
Once a stable Business Architecture has been modeled, it's aligned with the Technical Architecture. This alignment maximizes the architecture's adaptability and longevity, providing a clear understanding of what the business expects in terms of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for those capabilities.
Business Capability Mapping provides a clear roadmap to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), identifying the stable elements of the business that architecture can be modeled around. The implementation of these capabilities in a flexible, modularized, interconnected framework leads to an IT infrastructure that is durable, flexible, adaptable and delivers optimal ROI.
Must Login To Download