Six Example Boundaryless Business Models
Boundaryless Information Flow Reference Architecture:Six Example Boundaryless Business Models
Version 43.0
A Working Paper of the Boundaryless Information Flow Reference Architecture Project byA White Paper by:
Eliot Solomon
Principal, Eliot M. Solomon Consulting, Inc.
July, 2003
Copyright © 2003 The Open Group
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Boundaryless Information Flow Reference Architecture:
Six Example Boundaryless Business Models
ISBN No.: TBA
Document No.: TBA
Published by The Open Group, July, 2003
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary 1
Introduction 2
Background 2
Goals for the Boundaryless Information Flow Reference Architecture 2
Business Models Demand IT Response 4
Generic Business Strategies 5
Generic Enterprise Structures 5
Generic Forms or Patterns of Boundaryless Information Flow 6
Models of Business Boundarylessness 7
Strategic Decision Support 8
Retail Sales Boundarylessness 12
Relationship-Based Retail Services 15
Online Publishing 18
Supply Chain Automation 21
Interpersonal Interactions 27
Contributing Common System Architectures 31
Workflow Management Architecture 31
Messaging Architectures 32
Security Architecture 32
Directory Architecture 32
System Management Architecture 33
Information Architecture 33
User Interface and Ontology Architecture 34
Transaction Management Architecture 34
Other Contributing Architectures 35
Summary 36
About the Author 37
About The Open Group 37
www.opengroup.org / A White PaperWorking Paper Published by The Open Group / iii
Six Example Boundaryless Business Models
Boundaryless Information Flowäachieved through global interoperability
in a secure, reliable, and timely manner
Executive Summary
In 2002, The Open Group updated its vision to be “Boundaryless Information Flow achieved through global interoperability in a secure, reliable, and timely manner.” In January 2003, a White Paper was published entitled Boundaryless Information Flow Reference Architecture, which was produced to help The Open Group membership engage in efforts to achieve this vision. The Reference Architecture document presented a framework to elicit specific contributions.
That document discussed the business models and drivers that affect an organization’s need for Boundaryless Information Flow, and that should shape the technical approach taken to achieve the benefits of boundarylessness. It also described some of the parts of the generic IT architecture—the Common System Architectures, such as messaging, security, and information architectures—that contribute to and define different forms or styles of Boundaryless Information Flow.
This document continues the effort of the Reference Architecture document. It identifies a number of specific business models of Boundaryless Information Flow. Each model is described in terms of the business objectives addressed by Boundaryless Information Flow, the constraints under which it must be accomplished, and other considerations that are specifically relevant. For each of these business models, the Common System Architectures are identified that are most significant to shaping IT solutions to meet the model, and which are themselves most needful of being shaped to the business.
This White Paper is intended to elicit from IT technology and solutions providers specific technologies, standards, products, and architectural elements that address each business model. Such offerings will, in later work, be analyzed, compared, and synthesized into a number of targeted architectures to help enterprises achieve business models of Boundaryless Information Flow at reasonable cost, and with a high degree of reliability and confidence.
Introduction
Background
Organizations that choose to move toward the Boundaryless Organization[1] to improve their operational effectiveness are finding Information Technology resistant. The Open Group is seeking to help organizations address that resistance, thereby achieving Boundaryless Information Flow in support of their movement toward the Boundaryless Organization.
Boundaryless Information Flow represents the vision that The Open Group is pursuing. This document takes a step toward that pursuit by providing a framework to elicit, evaluate, and position necessary architectural contributions for Boundaryless Information Flow.
Goals for the Boundaryless Information Flow
Reference Architecture
The Open Group Boundaryless Information Flow Reference Architecture is a guide for practicing IT architects, helping them direct their clients to effective business solutions using IT. But we believe that a reference architecture can do more than that, and be more broadly and more directly useful to end-users.
Specifically, an IT architecture defines the components or building blocks that make up an overall information system that would meet the business objectives addressed by the architecture. It provides a plan from which products can be procured, and specific systems developed or adapted so that they will work together to efficiently achieve the goals of the adopting organization. It enables customers for IT to manage their IT investment in a way that meets the genuine and specific needs of their businesses. The Open Group intends the Boundaryless Information Flow reference architectures to assist end-users in making informed and appropriate choices in their IT procurements.
Well-constructed reference architectures that describe and address well-articulated, coherent sets of business requirements can also assist the suppliers of IT systems in the design, construction, tailoring, and marketing of their software and system products. The Open Group approach to the creation of technology guidance is bi-directional, soliciting contributions from the users of IT as much as from the vendors. The Boundaryless Information Flow reference architectures will combine the user's view of business objectives and senior technologists’ understanding of how such objectives can best be addressed in an interoperable, standards-oriented manner. This will assist vendors in creating products that genuinely meet specific business objectives.
Finally, we hope that well-constructed reference architectures, having improved the mutual understanding of customers and vendors, and guided developers and integrators to the creation of better solutions, can also serve as the guide by which technology products can be recognized for their appropriateness for boundaryless enterprises. It is to be hoped that, as the reference architectures contemplated in this document are accepted, they may form the basis of a “branding” or “seal of approval” that will assure customers of an architecturally sound, standards-based IT product that will meet their genuine business needs in an efficient and effective way.
Business Models Demand IT Response
It is widely observed—nearly a part of conventional wisdom—that IT systems must be fitted to the organization and goals of the enterprise employing and deploying them. Similarly, there is no lack of advice to business managers that they should be aware of the impacts and opportunities represented by new IT, and be prepared to reshape their companies to exploit technology, lest their companies be reshaped by their more technologically-astute competitors.
For all that recognition of the inter-relatedness of the structures and strategies of businesses and the form and capabilities of IT, there is very little specific guidance available to allow a purchaser of IT to find those solutions that will best fit and serve his organization and its strategies.
In the Reference Architecture document we discussed the Continuums of IT Architecture that are key to the TOGAF approach. The business domains of the Continuum extend in two dimensions:
§ In one dimension, architectures differentiate by the line of business they address.
§ In the other, architectures become increasingly specific, addressing the needs of smaller and smaller entities.
This reflects the fact that, traditionally, business-driven IT architectures have been developed either for vertical industries or for specific companies, and have been narrowly applicable.
More broadly applicable IT architectures have usually been driven from the technical space. Some of these architectures were developed to take advantage of new technologies (as networked services such as the r* utilities and all they implied developed to take advantage of local area networking and, eventually, the Internet). Other technology-driven architectures arose from the need to make the use of IT easier or more efficient.
While both of these sorts of architecture can be of benefit to business, they do not address business needs directly.
The Open Group Boundaryless Information Flow initiative is focusing specifically on the benefits to business that new, ubiquitous, and seamless technologies can provide. In this document we will look at specific forms, models, or patterns—pick the term you like best—of Boundaryless Information Flow that address specific business needs.
In the months to come, we will use these models as the basis for constructing a set of Boundaryless Information Flow reference architectures that will help business efficiently and effectively procure the IT that best suits their business strategy.
Generic Business Strategies
Generic business models or strategies describe the ways in which enterprises approach doing their business and, more specifically, how they do business in ways that get them an appropriate competitive advantage. There are many ways to identify and classify business models. Porter’s “three generic competitive strategies” is a frequently used model. Boston Consulting Group’s “quadrant model of stars, cows, and dogs” is another approach to describing corporate business strategy. IT choices made by a company should be appropriate to the company’s strategy, no matter how it is analyzed. We discussed this in some detail in the Reference Architecture document.
Generic Enterprise Structures
We also discussed the structures that organizations can adopt and their relation to IT strategy. We described business planning as a form of technical architecture, analogous to network architecture, information architecture, and systems architecture in its role in planning significant IT deployments and procurements. Although they are not commonly called “architects”, business planners, when they analyze and plan the structure of businesses, use methods similar to those used by IT architects. The architectures or business structures they create are certainly key contributors inputs to an IT architecture.
Especially in the context of creating Boundaryless Information Flow architectures, it is essential to consider how well the structure of a company will support the goal of boundarylessness. In some cases becoming “boundaryless” means encompassing more business activity within the structure, or extending the scope of existing boundaries to include more partners and clients. But in many cases, the organization itself, its culture, and practices must be changed if the goals of a Boundaryless Information Flow program are to be attained. Making an organization into a Boundaryless Organization takes more that just an IT procurement. For the technology to be successful, the organization must break down the boundaries that impede the adoption of boundaryless IT, and it must break down the boundaries that will impede the use of the technology once it has been deployed.
Certainly this does not mean that business should be driven by technology. Where the Boundaryless Organization business model addresses the human factors, Boundaryless Information Flow addresses the computer actors and therefore Boundaryless Information Flow can be seen as a tool to support the Boundaryless Organization.Boundaryless Information Flow is a means to the end of a Boundaryless Organization. But iIf the goals of the organization and the goals of the technology aren't well aligned, neither will likely reach their full potentialbe fully successful.
Generic Forms or Patterns of Boundaryless Information Flow
In this document we emphasize a different way to “classify” or characterize business requirements for IT. Rather than looking first at a vertical industry classification, competitive strategy, asset or portfolio management classifications, or organizational structure, we will look at the scope of boundarylessness that might bring benefit to the enterprise, and the specific business objectives and constraints an implementation of that boundaryless environment must address. In some cases, the models we describe here may appear to represent a vertical industry. (This is especially true for the Online Publishing model, for example.) That is not the intent; rather, each model should be considered a style of business that is applicable in many vertical industries, and for businesses with a variety of strategies.
Models of Business Boundarylessness
Boundaryless Information Flow architectures, like all IT architectures, are built of “sub-architectures”. Sub-architectures address specific aspects of the overall IT architecture, such as security or messaging. Each type of sub-architecture may, in practice, be represented by several different specific architectures or architecture styles. For example, data management may be done using centralized architectures or distributed architectures; messaging services may be implemented in peer-to-peer or client/server architecture models or styles.
A comprehensive architecture, such as a Boundaryless Information Flow reference Reference architectureArchitecture, is made of selected forms of these sub-architectures. For many classes of sub-architecture, there are examples that would be better suited for inclusion in an overall architecture, based on that architecture's objectives.
In creating Boundaryless Information Flow reference architectures, we need to identify the specific forms of each sub-architecture that are best suited to achieve the goals of boundarylessness. Other forms of these sub-architectures that are better suited for other objectives may also be identified for purposes of comparison, or to show how other objectives may be accommodated within an architecture primarily seeking boundarylessness.
In the following sections we describe several examples“models” or “patterns” of boundarylessness. Each is important from a business perspective. All of them are models that need the support of IT. And each one is meaningfully different from the others in the IT solutions that most directly support them. We believe each of these models of boundarylessness is the driver for a specific Boundaryless Information Flow reference architecture.
Strategic Decision Support
“The ultimate competitive advantage lies in an organization’s ability to learn and to rapidly transform that learning into action. It may acquire that learning in a variety of ways – through great scientists, great management practices, or great marketing skills. But it must rapidly assimilate its new learning and drive it.”[2]