Introduction 

Most organisations have developed through a lot of (relatively) small changes over time. Change becomes more difficult and slow, while the environment requires quick adaptation and change. We see the following happen in many organisations:

  • many concurrent changes in different programs and projects must ensure the organisation's ambition;
  • projects are stopped before completion or scope and objectives are changed;
  • strong competition for scarce resources (people and means) and budget decisions are a tedious chore;
  • conflicting interests increasingly lead to a stalemate and delay or frustrate developments;
  • alignment with business aspects and supporting services (IT, HR, Facilities, and others) is difficult and with disappointing results;
  • customers, staff and other stakeholders are - visibly or invisibly - dissatisfied.

The cause of slow or stagnating change is often sought in resistance to change. New and small-scale approaches are adopted to restore the ability to change. Various 'management hypes' like Digital Transformation, Process Management, Agile and Lean are embraced. Sometimes with succes, but more often the complexity and ambiguity will increase even more with these additions .....

What is actually lacking is a shared and coherent picture of the structure of the organization, which includes all aspects of the organization. How are we going to realize the strategy? How do we create a better customer service and who plays what role? What should be done in the business to make this happen? Methods for Business Architecture (Dutch: Bedrijfsarchitectuur) can improve this so the success rate wille improve.

The articles below give an overview of Business Architecture and our approach in this field.

Today the term Business architecture or Enterprise Architecture can be found everywhere. What is behind this term? This article explains the basics of the Business Architecture concept in general as well as our approach for a coherent and strategy-driven Business architecture.

Managing the implementation and use of the Business Architecture concept requires guiding principles to ensure quality and wise judgement. This article presents the key principles for Business Architecture.

Several approaches exist for Business Process Architecture. Some will result in abstract structures that support naming of business processes or strategy development. Others connect with the (future) operational organisation. Our method starts from products and services, including quantity and variance, and designs the operational structure for primary and supporting processes. This is based on strategic choices and connects with orgaisation structures. This leads to business processes that are not meant to 'repair' a non-functioning existing organisational structure, but that create a functioning structure in which customers will get optimal service, even when changes in demand occur!