Business Architecture Reference Model (BARM) for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

Seyran Ghahramany Dehbokry

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology

University of Technology Sydney, Australia

September 2017

Declaration of Originality

I certify that the work in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree nor has it been submitted as part of requirements for a degree except as part of the collaborative doctoral degree and/or fully acknowledged within the text.

I also certify that the thesis has been written by me. Any help that I have received in my research work and the preparation of the thesis itself has been acknowledged. In addition, I certify that all information sources and literature used are indicated in the thesis.

Signature of Student:

Date:

Acknowledgements

First I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to my supervisor Professor Eng K. Chew. His continuous support, patience, immense knowledge, and generous guidance allowed me to grow and express myself through my research.

I also would like to thank all my colleagues and friend for their valuable feedback and support, especially Martin Stubbs-Race for many helpful comments and suggestions on early drafts which have undoubtedly shaped my thinking.

This journey would not have been possible without the support of my family. I am very grateful to my husband Kashef who has patiently and constantly supported me all the way. His advice and insights were (and are) always constructive and inspired me to continue when I needed it the most. Last, but most dearest, to my precious Ronya who joined the crew at the end of the journey and has been the most beautiful distraction. Thanks so much for those nights that you slept earlier and allowed me to write my thesis.

Table of Contents

ABSTRACT

1 INTRODUCTION

2 RESEARCH METHOD

3 LITERATURE REVIEW

4 REVIEWING THE KNOWLEDGE DOMAIN

5 BUSINESS ARCHITECTURE REFERENCE MODEL (BARM): FRAMEWORK DESIGN

6 DESK-VALIDATION OF BARM

7 EMPIRICAL EVALUATION OF BARM

8 CONCLUSION

9 REFERENCES

APPENDIX A:

APPENDIX B- BARM PROJECT (CASE STUDY) PROPOSAL

List of Tables

Table 1: Design Evaluation and validation Methods ............................................................... 30

Table 2: Summary of Strategic Roles of IT within SMEs ....................................................... 37

Table 3: Summary of architecture views applied within SMEs .............................................. 40

Table 4: Insights for Defining Applicable BA for SMEs ........................................................ 50

Table 5: Overview of Current BA Practices (Adapted from IBM, 2010) ............................... 63

Table 6: Enterprise Business Architecture Definitions ............................................................ 68

Table 7: Dynamic Capability Definitions ................................................................................ 76

Table 8: Business Capabilities Topology Adapted From (Day 1994) ..................................... 97

Table 9: BARM Internal and External Components Relationship ........................................ 105

Table 10: BARM Components and Value Proposition Interdependencies ........................... 107

Table 11: Analysing As-Is Business Adopted from Canvas and Ecosystem Model ............. 110

Table 12: Architectural Principles ......................................................................................... 116

Table 13: Principles in Achieving Internal and External Fitnesses ....................................... 119

Table 14: Interview Structure and Outcome .......................................................................... 124

Table 15: BARM- Validation Analysis Results..................................................................... 131

Table 16: MSA As-Is Business -Case Study 1 ...................................................................... 139

Table 17: Cloud Considerations in BARM Internal Components ......................................... 141

Table 18: Cloud Considerations in BARM External Components ........................................ 142

Table 19: MSA Strategy View-Cloud Considerations ........................................................... 146

Table 20: Cloud Considerations-MSA's Business Capabilities and Services ........................ 154

Table 21: MSA Cloud Requirements-Organizational View .................................................. 155

Table 22: MSA Cloud Consideration-Knowledge View ....................................................... 157

Table 23: MSA Clouds Solution Requirements_ Summary .................................................. 160

Table 24: MSA Business Architecture Catalogue- Exemplar ............................................... 162

Table 25: IHealth4Me As-Is Business Model ........................................................................ 166

Table 26: Comparison of IHEalth4Me and its Competitors .................................................. 171

Table 27: Service Customisation Plan- Value Co creation Opportunities ............................. 175

Table 28: IHealth4Me Business Architecture Catalogue for Competitive Environment Strategy .................................................................................................................................. 180

Table 29: IHealth4Me Architecture Components Matrix ...................................................... 181

Table 30: Service Execution Plan-Opportunities for Value Co-creation ............................... 183

Table 31: IHealth4Me Case Study-Actions and Outputs ....................................................... 185

Table 32: REC As-Is Business ............................................................................................... 191

Table 33: BARM Components in the Collaborative Business Model Context ..................... 192

Table 34: Architecture Component Interaction ..................................................................... 202

Table 35: REC Business Model Execution Roadmap ........................................................... 204

Table 36: Summary of the Case Studies ................................................................................ 213

Table 37: Overview of Project Phase and Steps .................................................................... 257

Table 38: Project timeline ...................................................................................................... 260

List of Figures

Figure 1: Research Aim, Objectives and Questions ................................................................ 15

Figure 2: Thesis Structure ........................................................................................................ 18

Figure 3: Design Science Framework by Hevner 2004 ........................................................... 20

Figure 4: BARM Research Design- Adapted from Henver Framework ................................. 22

Figure 5: BARM Design Process ............................................................................................. 25

Figure 6: Evaluation Method-Adapted from (Eisenhardt and Graebner 2007) ....................... 29

Figure 7: Occurrence of the Term of Business Architecture in Literature .............................. 52

Figure 8: Business Layer of ArchiMate (The Open Group 2009a) ......................................... 53

Figure 9: BA and IT Architecture Ecosystem according to BAWG (BAWG 2009b) ............. 54

Figure 10: Business Motivation Model by OMG .................................................................... 55

Figure 11: Business Concept by McDavid .............................................................................. 57

Figure 12: Component Business Model (CBM) by IBM......................................................... 58

Figure 13: TOGAF Content Meta Model-Business Architecture ............................................ 59

Figure 14: Relationship between Capability, Enterprise Architecture, and the projects (According to TOGAF)............................................................................................................ 60

Figure 15: Knowledge Domain ................................................................................................ 64

Figure 16: Modular Design Rules: Adopted by Service Oriented Architecture ...................... 70

Figure 17: Conceptual Foundation of BARM ......................................................................... 81

Figure 18: Business Components and Ecosystem- Adapted from Moore 1996 ...................... 83

Figure 19: Business Ecosystem, Value Proposition, Strategy and Business Architecture ...... 85

Figure 20: BARM Architecture Components-Overview ......................................................... 88

Figure 21: BARM Internal and External Components and Sub-Components ......................... 89

Figure 22: BARM-External Components ................................................................................ 92

Figure 23: BARM-Strategy View ............................................................................................ 94

Figure 24: BARM-Business Capability View ......................................................................... 96

Figure 25: Business Capability and Service View ................................................................... 98

Figure 26: BARM-Business Service View .............................................................................. 98

Figure 27: BARM-Information/Knowledge View................................................................. 100

Figure 28: BARM-Organisational View ................................................................................ 101

Figure 29: BARM-Metamodel ............................................................................................... 103

Figure 30: BARM Implementation Process ........................................................................... 109

Figure 31: Adopted Business Scenario Creation from SRI and TOGAF .............................. 112

Figure 32: Interview Analysis- Impression on BARM simplicity and understandability ..... 125

Figure 33: Interview Analysis-BARM's Ability in Enabling SME to React in Dynamic Environment ........................................................................................................................... 127

Figure 34: Interview Analysis-BARM's Ability to Structure, Manage ICTs and Associated Capabilities ............................................................................................................................ 128

Figure 35: Interview Analysis- ............... 129

Figure 36: Interview Analysis- BARM Completeness .......................................................... 130

Figure 37: BARM- Validation Overall Analysis Results ...................................................... 132

-Cloud Based BARM ................................................ 144

Figure 39: MSA's External Architecture Components .......................................................... 147

Figure 40: Business Capability and Service Views-Cloud Environment .............................. 151

Figure 41: MSA Business Capability and Service Views ..................................................... 152

Figure 42: MSA's Organisational View ................................................................................. 155

Figure 43: MSA knowledge/ Information View .................................................................... 156

Figure 44: MSA's Business Architecture-Overview .............................................................. 158

Figure 45: MSA Research Process ........................................................................................ 161

Figure 46: IHealth4Me Strategy View ................................................................................... 168

Figure 47: IHealth4Me Institutional Environment ................................................................ 170

Figure 48: IHealth4Me Competitive Environment ................................................................ 171

Figure 49: IHealth4Me- Partners and Users Engagement Model .......................................... 172

Figure 50: IHealth4Me Business Capability View and Service View ................................... 174

Figure 51: IHEalth4Me Organisation View ........................................................................... 175

Figure 52: IHealth4Me Knowledge/Information View ......................................................... 176

Figure 53: IHealth4Me Business Architecture-Integrated View ........................................... 178

Figure 54: IHealth4Me Competitive Environment Strategy Execution Roadmap ................ 182

Figure 55: Presenting BARM to IOT Community Network ................................................. 187

Figure 56: REC External Components .................................................................................. 194

Figure 57: REC Business Capability and Service Views ...................................................... 196

Figure 58: REC Organisational View .................................................................................... 197

Figure 59: REC Knowledge View ......................................................................................... 198

Figure 60: REC Business Architecture-Integrated View ....................................................... 199

Figure 61: REC Execution Roadmap-Example ..................................................................... 203

Figure 62: BARM Evolutionary Path .................................................................................... 216

Figure 63: BARM Adaptability to the Case Studies .............................................................. 219

Figure 64: BARM Industry Implications ............................................................................... 226

Figure 65: BARM Theoretical Implication- Innovation ........................................................ 230

Figure 66: Aspect of Business Represented by EBA Framework ......................................... 253

Abstract As Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) compete in a dynamic ecosystem of firms, their businesses continuously face the challenge of creating sustained value by managing socio-technical resources/capabilities and aligning them with changing market needs. Accelerating technological changes, rapidly changing market demands and growing globalized collabo

and execution. r the support

of a Business Architecture (BA) a strategic management tool to facilitate the development and configuration of socio-technical resources/capabilities and capitalise on the ecosystem and market opportunities.

Using the Design Science methodology this research aims to develop and evaluate a simple but holistically comprehensive Business Architecture (BA) that shall ideally help SMEs implement entrepreneurial practices that have the capacity to articulate and execute their business strategies to align with the changing environments. In particular using extensive exploratory literature review I identify underlying drivers of SME requirements for a BA practice. Then I explicate the research problem and BA practice requirements using a semi-structured interview of SME managers/executives and E/BA experts. Derived from identified

develop the conceptual model for the Business Architecture Reference Model (BARM) by integrating diverse but

interrelated disciplines including; IS, strategic management, organization, architecture and service sciences. Theoretically grounded from these diverse disciplines, the BARM provides SMEs with a new holistic approach to orchestrate their socio-technical resources/capabilities and manage their co-evolution within the dynamic ecosystem. The validity of resultant constructs has been evaluated in two parts. First, the BARM efficacy and usability has been desk-validated through interviews with industry experts and applicability of BARM is tested through its implementation and in depth study in three different small organisations. I examined how well the BARM was utilized by the case studies. The final evaluation was conducted through a qualitative method of analysing the solutions and artefacts and the use of open interviews.

In addition to its contribution to the specification of a BA practice to facilitate SME value co-creation, this research also contributes to theoretically advancing architecture science. It extends the current theoretical model of BA by incorporating diverse strategic management, organisation, IS, and service sciences theories to make the proposed BARM applicable to SMEs. This research makes a significant contribution to the practical application of BA to

strategic development and execution by providing clarity and direction in ICT investment, creating a capability-based and strategy-driven business culture, and facilitating customer-aligned value proposition execution.

1

1.1 Motivations The motivation of this research was initiated based on my industry experience. As a Business Analyst, I have worked on various Enterprise/Business Architecture (E/BA) projects for large enterprises. The E/BA team used an approach adapted from current frameworks (e.g. TOGAF and ArchiMate) in developing and implementing architecture practice. The team aimed to master the complexity of Information Technologies (ITs) and to align them with enterprise goals and strategies. However, it required a considerable amount of time and resources to perform a successful EA project in large organisations. While there were some challenges and often failures in the projects, the approach seemed to favour large organisations.

However, in my consulting on E/BA practice, I had found that it is extremely difficult to utilize the same approach for SMEs. The problem became more obvious during an EA project in a small college. The college strategic plan and operation model (mainly its ICT) were initially not implemented in a structured and systematic way. However, during the EA project aiming at supporting the companyproposed and composed a draft EA. As I dug in, implementing the EA project were insufficient. While the E/BA practice appeared to be necessary, the implementation of the current frameworks for the college was a financially large and conceptually complex undertaking. I often questioned how E/BA practice could be utilised equally useful for SMEs.

With this question in mind, the idea for this research emerged when SMEs were recognised as central to national economic growth and employment (Ayyagari et al. 2007). At the same time they were under extreme pressure to develop and evolve strategically due to urgent needs resulting from the way market and technology development exerted pressure on them (Taylor and Murphy 2004; Vaessen and Keeble 1995). One could argue that architecture by its very nature provides greater value to large organisations (Doucet et al. 2009). John Zachman proposes that the two fundamental reasons EA is an imperative is its ability to deal

(Zachman 2015). However managing changes seems to be a convincing reason for SMEs to leverage architecture capabilities (Thompson and Martin 2010). Therefore my initial observations in both literature and industry, had led to my development of a Business Architecture practice for SMEs.

1.2 Background and Problem Statement (Ayyagari et al. 2007), have been a

spawning ground for innovative (Lee et al. 2010), agile and flexible (Noke and Hughes 2010) organisation design. They compete in a business ecosystem where the boundaries are fluid (Santos and Eisenhardt 2005), market is increasingly global, complex and growing (Santos and Eisenhardt 2009), resources and capabilities are specialized, diverse and diffused across the ecosystem (Camarinha-Matos et al. 2009b); consequently the locus of their value creation and appropriation has been extended beyond the individual focal firm.

, -

.

. Acting in such environments demands an architecture practice as a strategic management capability from the resource-poor SMEs, which must nimbly sense the flitting and invisible opportunities, quickly make strategic decisions (Dehbokry and Chew 2013b) to shape and evolve into the chosen ecosystem (Moore 1993), integrate, leverage, orchestrate their limited socio-technical capabilities/resources (Dehbokry and Chew 2015b)(Jacobides et al. 2006).

In the organization theory discipline, the concept of architecture is being applied to different organizational domains, mainly large organizations (Nadler and Tushman 1997), including product (Ulrich 1995), human resource (Lepak and Snell 1999), enterprise/IT (Kosanke et al. 1999; TheOpenGroup 2009), cooperation and collaboration (Fjeldstad et al. 2012; Gulati and Singh 1998), and enterprise integration (Beeckman 1989; Force 1999). Existing research in architecture practice tends to be orientated towards large corporations, making them over complex requiring a substantial investment in organizational resources in terms of time, people, and financial (Harishankar and Daley 2011) which are unaffordable by SMEs. Also, the concept of the architecture lacks sufficient theoretical grounding from business and organization disciplinary perspectives (Tamm et al. 2011). Moreover, there is a scarcity of knowledge on the requirements for and specification of an architecture framework for SMEs

business environmental dynamisms (Dehbokry and Chew 2013b). This thesis is a part of new research on addressing this gap.

1.3 Research Goals and Questions Figure 1 illustrates the sequence of the research aims and associated research questions:

Figure 1: Research Aim, Objectives and Questions

Inspired by the problem situation described above the main research question of this thesis is:

What is the novel Business Architecture framework that allows Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to co-create sustained value in a dynamic and collaborative business environment?

Therefore to tackle this main question in this thesis;

development requirements from

extensive literature review and semi-structured interviews based on following sub-questions:

1. To what extent SMEs are structured and equipped to apply BA practice?

2. What kind of benefit can they expect from applying such a solution?

3. What are the barriers for applying BA practice in SMEs?

4. What are the BA attributes that make it applicable to SMEs?

5. How does BA enable SMEs to deal with their resource limitations and constraints?

6. How does BA enable SMEs to create sustained value in a dynamic collaborative

ecosystem?

Second, from the explicated development requirements, I derive, develop, and propose a rigorous, comprehensive yet simple capability-based business architecture for SMEs which I subsequently call Business Architecture Reference Model (BARM). This is achieved by reconceptualization of business architecture from a lens of multi-disciplinary socio-technical capability-based analysis. I revisit the current architecture development method and synthesize (integratively) a new conceptual model from IS, strategic management, organization theories and principles. From architecture literature (Alberti and Bartoli 1986) and current business architecture frameworks (BAWG 2009a; TheOpenGroup 2009; Zachman 1996), in conjunction with SME business literature (Chiu et al. 2006a; Lee et al. 2010) I invmanagement discipline such as resource based theory (Grant 1991), and dynamic capability theory (Helfat et al. 2007; Helfat et al. 2009; Teece 2007) and, from organization science disciplines such as modularity theory (Pil and Cohen 2006; Schilling 2000), evolutionary theory (Lewin et al. 2004; Volberda and Lewin 2003), and contingency theory (Donaldson 2001; Fiedler 2005b), service science (Maglio and Spohrer 2008; Spohrer et al. 2008), together I synthesize the requisite BARM that satisfies the SME architecture requirements for simplicity, elegance, understandability and ease of use.

The proposed Business Architecture Reference Model (BARM) is an authoritative basis for the development of a provides a patterns or set of principles on which to base (Carson 1993) that the SMEs must adhere to. It serves as a framework that presents the overall rules of a business architecture practice for SMEs.

Aligned with the Design Science method I build, desk-validate, evaluate, and refine an artefact that shall ideally represent the blueprint of SMEs business structure and relationships between their entities and dynamic environments. In this case the artefact is a BA reference model which is constructed as an abstract model, incorporating meta-model, development process, and principles. To achieve the mentioned goal, the following steps have been taken:

1- Identification of ontology of the key concepts and their interrelationships in the domain of requisite framework to meet the identified SMEs requirements

2- Development of precise definitions for the presented concepts and their interrelationships

3- Identification of processes, principles and scenarios for the reference model implementation.

4- Validating BARM based on interview feedback by industry experts executives

5- Case study of applying the BARM on a real-world SME

1.4 Structure of This Thesis This thesis is structured and shown in Figure 2.

Chapter 1 provides an overview of this research and presents the motivation and the goal which shall be achieved.

Chapter 2 outlines the research methodology for this research.

Chapter 3 outlines the literature review for this research. It first reviews the organizational characteristics of SMEs and their requirements and challenges that influence their strategic development capabilities. Second, it unpacks the SME requirements for BA practice and

Third, it gives an overview of the research done in the BA domain as well as on the existing BA framework.

strategic development and execution requirements and challenges identified in chapter 3, Chapter 4 presents an overview of knowledge of the problem domain. It gives an overview of the architecture science, enterprise engineering, organisation design, and organisational dynamics. Then it explains possible implications of each concept in developing business architecture framework for SMEs.

Chapter 5 introduces the proposed Business Architecture Reference Model (BARM). It first describes the conceptual foundation of the proposed BARM based on both architecture science and business design and organisation and strategic management perspectives. It then explains components, meta-model, implementation process, and principles of BARM in detail.

Chapters 6 and 7 present the research carried out to desk validate and evaluate the proposed BARM.

Chapter 8 provides a summary of this research and outlines key research contributions and publications, implications for both industry and academy, and research limitations.

Figure 2: Thesis Structure

2

2.1 Design Science The design science research has been developed for solving practical and technological problems in engineering and architecture disciplines (Simon 1996). It seeks (1) to explore new solution alternatives to solve problems, (2) to explain this explorative process, and (3) to improve the problem solving process. The common goal behind

, a novel artefact to solve a problem (Holmström et al. 2009). The fundamental basis for the design science research is the creation of the artificial phenomena which must be tested and empirically evaluated (Simon 1996). As such its products are of four types, constructs, models, methods, and implementation that are novel and valuable (March and Smith 1995).

The design science approach in information system (IS) research has been widely adopted (Gregor and Jones 2007; Hevner et al. 2004; March and Smith 1995). It is a type of knowledge that forms a large part of the domain in IS such as design support system, software engineering, and computer science education. It also has significant relevance to practitioners and experts in the IS domain and must address the design tasks and real problem faced by them (March and Smith 1995). In this domain the design science is recognised as

es (Gregor and Jones 2007). According to (Hevner et al. 2004) the key points of the IS design research are:

The essential purpose for information systems research is to enable organisations to be more efficient and effective.

IS research occurs at the confluence of people, organisations and technology; therefore two distinct and complementary paradigms are necessary to acquire the information required to improve information systems: behavioural (natural) science and design research.

Design science addresses research through the building and evaluation of artefacts designed to meet the business needs identified in the course of behavioural (natural science) research. Therefore the design-build-evaluate cycle is at the core of any IS design research methodology.

Design science research is inherently a problem solving process.

Design research addresses important unsolved problems in unique or innovative ways or in the development of more effective and efficient solutions to previously solved problems.

One of the earlier design science frameworks in IS was proposed by (March and Smith 1995). They outlined a design science framework with two axes, namely research activities and research outputs. Research outputs cover constructs, models, methods and instantiations.

Research activities comprise building, evaluating, theorizing on and justifying artefacts. Their work was later picked up and evolved by (Hevner et al. 2004). Combining behavioural and design sciences, Hevner expanded on the March-Smith foundation and positioned the framework into the broader context of its environment and the body of applicable knowledge that relates to the design objectives, as well as providing some substantial guidelines for executing a design science project (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Design Science Framework by Hevner 2004

Hevner sets seven guidelines (presented below) for design research in IS that strongly promote business utility and research legitimacy.

1.

construct, a model, a method, or an instantiation.

2. The artefact resulting from IS design science research must be relevant to a

3. The design of the IS design science research artefact must be rigorously evaluated.

4. IS design science research must provide a novel contribution.

5. IS design science research must balance rigour and relevance.

6. An IS design science research contribution must be functional.

7. Design research results must be communicated to both technical and management oriented audiences.

2.2 Research Outline of the Thesis The nature of this research is a problem-solution approach. It is about finding the concepts, relationships, and processes that help to design and build a framework as a strategic management tool to solve the SMEs strategic development requirements. I aim to design a reference model and then assess, test, and evaluate it to determine its applicability for SMEs. As a consequence, the current research can be categorised within the design-science approach. This is in line with Hevner who classifies design science in information system research as an applied research that applies knowledge to solve practical problems (Hevner et al. 2004).

The design method chosen for this research is inspired by the Henver framework, based on its iterative and interactive approach to building and evaluating the research artefacts (Hevner et al. 2004) (Simon 1996). This essentially covers the build and evaluation of research activities and has a research output of construct, models and validation (see Figure 4). However to achieve rigour in this research Figure 6 and section 2.3.4.2).

2.3 Employing Design Science As stated earlier (see section 1.3), the main research goal of this thesis is to define a BA framework applicable to SMEs, enabling them in sustain value co-creation in a dynamic and collaborative environment. I motivate the design science research by identifying major SME strategic development requirements, (business needs) that a BA practice should address. They include business ecosystem (environmental and technological) and internal (Organisational) requirements. In executing the research plan however, several additional steps had been taken to support the research rigour and its relevance to the industry. These steps have been taken to bring formal rigour to the research process by adherence to the appropriate business requirements collection and analysis. The identified strategic development requirements build the basis for the requisite BA framework. Therefore they had been validated congruent with design thinking (Rowe 1991), through interviews our research construct when attempting to address business requirements.

Based on the defined and validated SME strategic development requirements I derive the requirements for the requisite business architecture practice which is introduced as Business Architecture Reference Model (BARM). Further I focus on the theoretical base and the design of so called BARM for SMEs. The theoretical base helps to identify the desired architecture attributes, and then to design the BA reference model including architecture components, meta-model, implementation process and principles.

As discussed above, designing and iteration are central to this research. I design the artefact, study, and desk-validate its completeness, and the cycle is then repeated. In considering the

iteration between build and evaluate, I conduct some degree of validation (see section 2.3.4.1) before it can be presented for evaluation as proposed by Henver. These actions occurred over a period of 12 months. The proposed BARM then is developed before the final evaluation. The result and feedback from the evaluation results also are fed back to the BARM which is then reshaped to enhance its practical utility.

Figure 4 outlines the research phases and mapping to the Hevner Design Science research method.

Figure 4: BARM Research Design- Adapted from Henver Framework

2.3.1 SMEs Strategic Development Requirements (Business Needs) According to Hevner et al (2004), business needs and problems are assessed within the composition of business processes, structure, strategies which are positioned by technologies and people. To meet the research relevance I have been examining SMEs strategic development requirements within different phases of the research. SMEs needs in terms of organisational and technological as well as their business ecosystem where they operating in, have been driving the BA framework design. This information is iteratively collected and

analysed from extensive published literature as well as industry as the starting point of this research and also carried out throughout this research project.

Based on the review of development requirements is identified. Most of the information is collected from secondary sources, such as published books and academic research. A limited amount of primary information also contributes to the requirements gathering and definition. For the majority of the duration of this research I have contributed to and joined in open online discussions challenges and architectural requirements. The contributors to open online discussions are chosen from the architecture field as well as from located across the globe. Their comments and views are included throughout, sometimes in the main text or, quite often, by way of footnotes.

The result of the first review validates SME requirements and BARM empirically (congruent with design thinking) as explained in section 2.3.4. This result guides/validates the BARM theoretical grounding and investigation. Also I link the target SME requirements to the requisite BA framework to evaluate the framework relevance.

2.3.2 Knowledge Base In this research, I am dealing with multi-disciplinary topics which cover several dimensions of an organisation. In light of the knowledge base, an explicit review of SME strategic

and external strategic requirements, I reviewed diverse but interrelated disciplines including; IS, strategic management, organization, architecture and service sciences. Theoretically grounded from these diverse disciplines, I address the SMEs requirements in managing and orchestrating their limited socio-technical resources/capabilities and managing their co-evolution within the dynamic ecosystem. This research also contributes to the theoretical foundation of architecture science.

The criteria, measurements, standards that are synthesised form a large body of knowledge and methodologies (Case Study, int opinion) are presented in order to evaluate/justify and validate the research construct and framework.

2.3.3 Develop/ Build For a research to be considered as design science, it must produce and evaluate a novel artefact. However for this approach it is crucial that how the ontological components of the research are acquired and tested (Hevner et al. 2004). Business Architecture Reference Model (BARM) as a comprehensive, easy to use strategic tool that enables SMEs to co-create value in a dynamic environment. The novelty has to be balanced by a need for artefact-based research that is built on existing research. In this research I attempt to achieve this by developing a reference model for the SME business architecture by integrating diverse but interrelated disciplines including; IS, strategic management, organization, architecture, and service sciences. Furthermore it satisfies the requirements to be both novel and emergent.

The proposed BARM for SMEs comprises architectural components, metamodel, principles, and implementation process that help SMEs plan, articulate and execute their business strategies, resulting in a business-aligned configuration of resources/capabilities to attain evolutionary fitness with competitive environments. The Following mechanisms are employed to e requirements:

It is developed based on the business capabilities that enable competitive advantages for SMEs

It provides a clear definition of architecture components and their key relationships

It designs various enterprise facets including not only the SME but also its ecosystem and bidirectional relationships and transactions between the SME and its chosen ecosystem.

It is implemented through an iterative and collaborative process

To support the research design rigour and its relevance to the SMEs, and also in order to reinforce BARM development, I validate the business requirements identified in the first step. As a result of pre-validation several issues emerged which required a return to the literature for additional theoretical support. In fact the BARM design artefacts were built, desk validated (pre-validation), re-adjusted multiple times before it was ready for final evaluation. This undergoing of stringent evaluation and justification occurs in both requirements gathering and BARM development. It ensudevelopment requirements are accurately identified and second, the BARM is both useful to practitioners and SME (relevant) and contributes back to the IS knowledge base (rigorous).

Therefore the BARM design process is designed as iterative steps of:

Develop: Identify strategic development requirements and challenges and propose a solution

Desk-

Evaluation (Empirical): Analyse the effect on the SM

The design process for BARM is illustrated in Figure 5.

Figure 5: BARM Design Process

2.3.4 Evaluation Determining whether in fact the proposed BARM is satisfactory, or how well the artefact works, is the objective of the final stage of the research design process. The research construct is observed for its relevance and impact on the problem situation. The evaluation of

and ease of use (March and Smith 1995). At this stage iterations occur in order to back up the activity chain if further creative refinements and validation are required.

The evaluation of the research construct and designed BARM occurs at two levels of desk validation and empirical validation.

2.3.4.1 Desk-Validation

Desk-validation of the research constructs occurs by applying the propositions to the problem situation through the steps represented in Figure 4. It focuses on confirming that the proposed constructs and theoretical propositions are sensible, meaningful and provide a complete coverage of the scope of the problem.

The desk-validation implies an exercise in legitimating the research finding in two parts: First, the finding from literature review is validated by expert practitioners

are sufficiently important and accurately reflect the SME urrent status. In order to show the necessity of BA practice for SMEs, I rely on an extensive literature search as explained in section 2.3.1. Simultaneously I use industry expert knowledge and SMEs feedback to ascertain the research questions and problem identified in the literature review. I have been conducting questions with numbers of experts within different countries to gain insights into what are the challenges SMEs might face in implementing business architecture practice. The result has been continually published in relevant international conferences and journal papers for feedback and further research direction.

Second, is the desk-validation of research proposition (BARM), which occurs between building and empirical evaluation, as a test of whether the designed artefact works. The initial set of characteristics and components of the proposed BARM have emerged based on a synthesis of insights originating in organisational, management, IS, and architecture sciences. The identified framework characteristics and components of the BARM have been presented to experts (industry as well as researchers) and SMEs executives for the purpose of initial testing and also to get their experienced-based opinion.

Interview is used to desk-validate the BARM by people that would use such a tool, like and academics. The interviewees have been

selected from practitioners within enterprise/business architecture and business design domains both form international and national companies. In order to access broader group of experts I joined several international groups active in the domain. The interview questions have been published on the group s page in social media. Further discussions also have been made with individuals who were particularly interested in and have been following this research. Depending upon their local time the group members have been always available and open to questions. To eliminate bias in the research result, the interview -with different structure- also has been conducted within s executives (see section 7). Due to the exe availability, there have been some delays in completing the interview within SMEs.

from 1 to 99 people.

Required adjustments may result in an iterative refinement of the design artefacts at this step. Iteration between the activities of developing and desk-evaluation will continue until a satisfactory model is achieved. This is in line with tentative theory development which

discussed by Gregor and Jones and is the initial outcome of the creative process (Gregor and Jones 2007). The result of the second part of desk-validation also has been published in relevant international conferences and journal papers.

2.3.4.2 Empirical Evaluation

I use a case study method to empirically evaluate the proposed BARM. A case study refers to the in depth study of a single phenomenon over time in a single organisation. I employ the Kathleen M. Eisenhardt approach to design the case studies (Eisenhardt 1989; Eisenhardt and Graebner 2007). It means that the selected SMEs will be able to use specialized BARM and its prescribed principles and guidance to define and manage their firm-specific, strategy-driven business architecture in a 'simple and effective' way. Therefore, in doing so I am confronted with the dilemma inherent in my research that should answer the research question and also fulfil the practical needs. Therefore I am actively involved in the context of my investigations within case studies.

The case rationalization which is adapted from (Eisenhardt and Graebner 2007) follows the flow depicted in Figure 6. The feedback and results from the interviews as well as case studies will be reflected in the proposed BARM. Accordingly BARM will be fine-tuned

1. Building and Desk Validating the BARM:

This step (as shown in dot-point) is developed in section 2.3.3 , where I grounded empirical research by identifying SMEs strategic development requirements as well as the gaps in existing architecture practices. Therefore this step is show in dots point.

2. Case Selection-Theoretical Sampling

Guided by the research aim I target small and medium size enterprises based on Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) definition which are defined as firms with up to 200 full time

1. I purposefully selected the SMEs who aim to lead some strategic changes within their business that can be achieved by the proposed reference model, so this likely replicates the applicability of adapted framework to a broad range of SMEs.

3. Case Study Execution

The proposed BARM is in fact evaluated based on a specific strategic development requirement in a case study. I focus on codifying, sharpening, specializing, and applying the BARM in practice. I began by generating a set of basic level business scenarios. Each scenario is a concrete representation of the use/purpose/need to which the BARM will be specialised and applied. The scenarios are grounded on design decisions which address the

strategic development requirements. These requirements are envisioned as possibilities to be satisfied by application of BARM. In this regard I seek to refine the BARM as a practical strategic tool that performs in various business scenarios. This also allows us to

and utility in practice. Moreover, building such a representation of BARM has empowered its design pragmatics toward the goal of enabling articulation and implementation of strategic intent. The goal behind using a scenario based case study is to understand the consequences of business architectural decisions with respect to the specific business requirements. This could determine whether the business goals are achievable by the BARM. This is consistent with the notion of architectural practice (TheOpenGroup 2009).

In order to define a business scenario, I elicit a clear articulation of the business case that is driving the implementation of the BARM (e.g. cloud based business transformation, executing a collaborative based business model). During this step I present the that is motivating the implementation practice and hence identify the primary drivers for the architecture practice. Then I refine the business areas which are likely to be impacted by the

architectural design decisions. At this stage I also aim to raise architecture awareness and build its knowledge among the case studies.

The proposed BARM is implemented in close collaboration with managers/executives/owners and in some cases with their IT providers, during a number of workshops, face to face interviews, and online communication. It is a process based on an iterative and incremental approach. Using this approach I complete the implementation in

desired architecture is established. During these cycles I aim to establish the architecture knowledge and capability within the company.

4. Data Analysis

Through a series of semi-architecture is assessed. The results of interviews are presented as an impression of the

appropriateness to address their strategic development requirements. The questions are conducted to measure the qualitative assessment of the reference model strategic fitness for each case.

I seek feedback from various and independent architecture stakeholders in each case.

5. Presenting and Writing the Empirical Evidence

The proposed BARM as well as the adapted reference model in one of the case studies were reported and published in relevant international conferences as a part of the ongoing process of research communication during the development of this thesis. From time to time the adapted reference model and its applicability to different business scenarios have also been presented to practitioners in informal and formal events and meetings.

6. Artefact Refinement based on Evaluation Result

The case studies result and the feedback from participants constantly result in refinement of the proposed BARM. The evaluation result is used to adapt and adjust the BARM practice. The adjustments focus on the BARM meta-model or the implementation process.

Figure 6: Evaluation Method-Adapted from (Eisenhardt and Graebner 2007)

Table 1 presents the key methods that are followed for both validation and evaluation at different stages of this research.

Stages of the Research Identifying

Development requirements for

BA

Building

BARM

Evaluation of

BARM

Definition E

valu

atio

n an

d D

esk

Val

idat

ion

Met

hods

Desk Validation

Literature Review and

Analysis

Research that critiques, analyses, and extends existing literature and attempts to build new groundwork, e.g., it includes meta-analysis.

Interview Industry expert knowledge and SMEs feedback have been used to ascertain the research questions and problem. Also I have been conducting questions with numbers of experts within different countries to gain insights in what are the requirements, challenges for SMEs to apply BARM. The information is obtained by asking respondents questions directly and also via online survey. The questions may be loosely defined, and the responses may be open-ended

Evaluation

Literature Review and

Analysis

The conceptual model for BARM is revisited by integrating diverse but interrelated disciplines including; IS, strategic management, organization, architecture, and service sciences.

Interview implemented architecture is assessed. The result of interviews

appropriateness to address their strategic requirements. The questions are conducted to measure the qualitative assessment of the reference model strategic fitness for each case.

Case Study (Scenario

Based)

Study artefact in depth in business environment. (Study of a single phenomenon and apply the framework to the target SME (creating/designing a BA based on BARM for that SME)

Table 1: Design Evaluation and validation Methods

3

practice should address. I approach this by extensive literature review and interviewing (Enterprise/Business Architecture) experts. In particular,

I aim to answer two groups of questions:

In the first group I aim at highlighting the limitations of existing architectural frameworks for SMEs and explicate the underlying drivers of SME requirements for an alternative business-oriented architectural BA framework as well as the in-built SME barriers to using E/BA. The questions are:

1. To what extent SMEs are structured and equipped to apply BA practice? 2. 3. What are the barriers for applying BA practice in SMEs?

In the second group of questions I try to elicit the specific strategic requirements that need to be addressed by a BA practice

1. What are the BA attributes that make it applicable to SMEs? 2. How does BA enable SMEs to deal with their resource limitations and constraints? 3. How does BA enable SMEs to co-create value in a dynamic collaborative ecosystem?

Thus this review first begins with an overview of the nature of SMEs and their unique characteristics in terms of management, planning, and decision making processes. Investigating SMEs from a management perspective provides a clear picture of how decisions are made within SMEs. Second, the strategic organizational purposes of architecture generally and BA in particular are explained to set the context for exploring the SME requirements for BA practice. Third, I unpack the SME requirements for BA to enable sustained value co-creation by (a) examining the extant work on SME IT architectural frameworks (internal requirements) highlighting their lack of business-strategic alignment as a key limitation, (b) examining the critical characteristics and influence of the dynamic external environment on SME business performance. I then sum up, in the next section, the purpose of the BA framework as a strategic management tool for SMEs; this is followed by

in using BA. In order to support the findings from the literature review and also compare the research construct with industry insights, I have been conducting a survey and semi-structured interviews with industry experts. This has allowed me to link their experiences and perceptions to the research developments. The survey took place within the professional social network of EA experts throughout a period of one month. I am reflecting the experiences of practicing EA consultants and experts to complement the literature review with their practicing knowledge from different enterprises requirements. Finally, I conclude this review with a summary of the guidelines and insights for SMEs to develop a BA framework. The findings of the SME purpose of and barriers for BA as well as its requirements are shown to be congruent with the

s/owners.

3.1 SMEs Strategic Development Requirements 3.1.1 SMEs

Although SMEs are commonly defined by IFC2 (International Finance Corporation) as registered businesses with less than 250 employees, the definition varies from country to country. In order to restrict the analysis, this research considers the Australian Government

s with up to 3. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) distinguishes

three types of small business; small business as an actively trading business with 0 19 employees, micro businesses with 0 4 employees, and medium business as an actively trading business with 20 199 employees. They can be operating in industry, be importer or exporter firms.

The economic significance of SMEs is widely recognised. As a consequence of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, there has been increased attention on small and medium enterprises as effective players in a nation s economic growth. According to some researchers, SMEs contribution to economy growth is estimated at 50 percent of GDP in high income countries (Ayyagari et al. 2007). Likewise they play a significant role in creating and providing jobs in many economies (Ayyagari et al. 2007; Dietrich 2012). According to the SMEs Performance Review in 2009 they are more innovative than large organisations (Commission 2010). Small businesses make a significant contribution to the Australian economy, accounting for slightly less than one-half of private sector industry employment and contributing approximately one third of private sector industry value added in 2010 114. In respect of the economic needs for growth, SMEs performance and value creation are important issues for practitioners and academics.

For the purpose of this research I investigate their characteristics in management structure, IT resources, strategies and architecture.

3.1.2 SMEs Management and organisational Structure

.

IFC (International Finance Corporation) (2009).The SME Banking Knowledge Guide, The World Bank Group,

Washington D.C

http://www.customs.gov.au/anti-dumping/sme.asp

4 Australian Small Business Key Statistics and Analysis

Business Size

Organisational Structure

Their structure is mainly flat that allows direct communication between manager and staff nd informal, they can quickly adapt

themselves to new challenges. However many SMEs are recognised by rigid and hierarchical forms of leadership.

d standard processes.

3.1.3 SMEs within Business Collaborative Ecosystem Organisations are viewed as interdependent complex systems that are operating in open, dynamic and evolving environments (Thompson 2003). They join business ecosystems as

(Moore 1996). They are seen as an the environment and with other

entities. Business ecosystem of a firm includes other stakeholders, financing, trade associations, standard bodies, labour unions,

(Moore 1996). Therefor it is important to study an organisation, its chosen ecosystem and their interactions as a whole system in a qualitative and holistic way, wherein small causes potentially can generate structural change at different levels (McKelvey 1999). Thus being part of such co-evolving environments has caused changes in the structure of enterprises and their initiatives. They have built a ntities in order to maximise effectiveness and enhance profitability. However, the impact of other entities on the business is inevitable.

Collaborative ecosystems have been introduced as a new shape of business model within numbers of enterprises. T

(Adler et al. 2011b). The collaborative networks contain numbers of enterprises and peoples which are gather to enhance certain goal (Camarinha-Matos et al. 2009a; Chituc and Azevedo 2006). The main goal of enterprises in participating in such networks is to enhance advantages of network competencies and capabilities in order to enhance competitive advantage and create better value (Choi et al. 2008a). Participating in collaborative ecosystem has been offering advantages by increasing the product quality, competitiveness, resource utilization, developing technologies and improving innovation (Chituc and Azevedo 2005; Chituc et al. 2008; Nieto and Santamaría 2007; Zeng et al. 2010).

SMEs have been introduced as the main participants in the collaborative network (Camarinha-Matos et al. 2009a). A study made in 2011 by the Aberdeen Group found that most SMEs aim to collaborate with partners and customers5. There are many reasons for the increasing tendency of SMEs to participate in

. They are engaged in information exchange, resource acquisition and technology transformation which help them to overcome the lack of internal resources (Nieto and Santamaría 2007). The collaborative networks offer new opportunities to SMEs to overcome their challenges which they are facing in the changing and dynamic environments (Zeng et al. 2010). Participating in a network can improve innovation and revenue (Zeng et al. 2010), share knowledge, eliminate waste, access

Three Gifts of SME Collaboration: Innovation, Revenue, and Workforce Readiness, Aberdeen research result, 2012

to network skills and tools, access to new markets, responsiveness to new customer demand (Camarinha-Matos 2009).

In such an environment, enterprises with different capabilities operate as with respect to the network policy and ecosystem mechanism (Camarinha-Matos 2009). As an entity, the company operates as a particular and discrete unit in terms of goals, managerial style, resources and capabilities. Particularly in the collaborative environment enterprises share information, resources and responsibilities aligned with the networks principles to achieve certain network goals

utilised by network participators. The competitive advantages will be achieved if the participant enterprises intensify and consolidate their current capabilities and resources and align them with the network strategic goals. These environments have become more open and have been delivering a diversity of resources and capabilities that are distributed geographically within organisations.

The nature of collaborative networks implies that enterprises not only should leverage and manage internal and network resources but also mobilize, combine and change resources to align with networks changes and achieve marketplace success (Teece 2007).

It is also crucial that their interactions and relationships among ecosystem entities be recognised in organisation design in order for managers to sense the opportunities and threats to manage the co-evolution of their organisations.

. Consequently in the recent organisational studies increasingly attention is being given to the development of capabilities and capacities to enable enterprises to be more adaptive and susceptible to the dynamic ecosystem of businesses (Klein and Poulymenakou 2006; Prange and Verdier 2011). Meanwhile collaborative ecosystem structure, operations and performance depend on capabilities and operations of its entities and members (Chituc et al. 2008; Touzi et al. 2009). Not only the internal organisation interoperability, infrastructure, technology, information flow, strategy and business structure determine the operation and formation of ecosystem, but also appropriate architecture principle, ICT strategies and technology alignment are required to enhance network goals (Fjeldstad et al. 2012).

Ontologies for collaborative networks allow their participants to capture the essential capabilities of other entities and define their relationship and optimise their contribution in providing value for all parties (Adler et al. 2011a). Enterprises require discovering new capacity and managing current capabilities to be able to adapt to a new network structure whether it is technology, systems or business structure (Prange and Verdier 2011). They need to be consistent and compatible within networks entities in terms of business and resources, which can be the main challenges for them (Chen et al. 2008).

3.1.4 SMEs ICT Development and Architecture The significance of using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) within SMEs has been underlined by various scholars. Information and communication technology can affect SMEs performance (Beheshti 2004; Levy and Powell 1998).

. Information technology also affects decision making processes (Beheshti 2004) by improving enterprise communication and transparency in both external and internal environments (Fink and Disterer 2006; Street and Meister 2004).

Although the advantages of IT adaptation within SMEs are clearly illustrated, one should be aware of various external and internal factors that have critical impacts on design and development of ICTs solutions (Hua 2007; Raymond and Bergeron 2008; Singh et al. 2008a). SMEs with different size, age, industry, financial resources (Levy and Powell 2000), range of products, customers (Gagalis et al. 2009), business model (Lee and Xia 2006) and level of maturity need to adapt and utilize ICT with different degrees of sophistication (Middleton and Byus 2011). With a short- (Wilton 2008), they are more intent on focusing on day to day operational IT improvements. In order to take better advantage of information technologies, SMEs must consider ICTs as strategic tools aligned with their business (Raymond and Bergeron 2008); most SMEs are suffering from a lack of ICTs strategy and infrastructure (Riemenschneider and Mykytyn 2000). Further, medium size companies with more complex business processes are likely to utilise more sophisticated ICTs aligned with their business strategies (Kyobe 2004; Malhotra and Temponi 2010; Ramdani and Kawalek 2007; Raymond and Bergeron 2008; Sternad et al. 2010). Several different proposals regarding the potential roles and requirements of ICTs strategies, alignment and tools within SMEs have been found in the literature reviews which are summarised in Table 2.

ICT within SMEs References

ICTs Roles

ICT Strategies

improve applicability of new systems obtain data and evaluating the data

accuracy Supply chain performance To leverage the organisational

resources effectively long term growth Higher returns on investment improves competitiveness Cooperation Customer satisfaction and Market

alignment

(Riemenschneider and Mykytyn 2000)

Hua 2007

Gagalis, Tahinakis et al. 2009

Kuo, Chen et al. 2005

Ray and Ray 2006

Levy, Powell et al. 1999

Raymond and Bergeron 2008 ICT as a Supporting Business Processes and Performance

technology Competitiveness Capability Supporting Decision Making Improving Innovation Supporting Business Goals

Levy and Powell 1998

Chan and Chung 2002

Singh, Garg et al. 2008

Wang and Shi 2011

Beheshti 2004

Cragg and Mills 2011)

Street and Meister 2004

Fink and Disterer 2006

Apulu and Latham 2010

Panetto and Molina 2008

ICTs challenges

ICT Strategies

Range of products, customer, business model of SMEs affect on ICT utilization size, age, industry of SMEs affect on

ICT utilization SMEs lack technical staff and IT

expertise Informal, inadequate and short time

IT planning financial resources shortage SMEs focus on internal ICT

integration SMEs rely on outside support for their

internal systems

Lee and Xia 2006

Middleton and Byus 2011

Bayraktar, Gunasekaran et al. 2010

Caldeira and Ward 2003

Huin 2004

Fuller and Swanson 1992

Gagalis, Tahinakis et al. 2009

Wang and Shi 2011

(Fink and Disterer 2006

Cruz-Cunha 2010

Kidd 2010

(Devos, Van Landeghem et al. 2009

Table 2: Summary of Strategic Roles of IT within SMEs

The uncertainty faced by small and medium enterprises is considerably more than that faced by large firms. To reduce uncertainty, they need to adapt business strategies, structure and technologies more often than large enterprises (Freel 2000). Resource and capabilities allocation and utilization especially for ICTs require lasting SMEs commitment and substantial investment. Therefore the decision on developing ICTs capabilities should be

considered in the strategic objectives and planning (Blili and Raymond 1993). More specifically developing strategies around IT as an enabling capability for SMEs, will enable SMEs to identify new technologies, improve applicability of new systems, obtaining data and evaluating the data accuracy (Riemenschneider and Mykytyn 2000). Their strategies at the operational level and also in alignment with business strategies, directly affect SMEs performance (Kuo et al. 2005).

The literature review clearly shows that special attention has been given to the strategic use of ICT for the SMEs in different industries. SMEs have been utilising architecture for their technology, infrastructure, systems and processes for different purposes (Bajwa et al. 2009; Flores et al. 2011; Kröckel and Hilgarth 2011; Rabe and Weinaug 2005). They have developed a structured and methodical approach to meet dynamic market demands and adapt to the environmental changes, and each structure is an important subject of study. Applying an architecture model can give a clear vision of current processes and systems within small and medium organisation (Flores et al. 2011). However some of them have declared system

-value adding (Flores et al. 2011).

Table 2 provides a comparison of various proposed IT architectural frameworks for SMEs. The aim is to evaluate the extent to which SMEs use architectural approaches to design, implement and manage their business processes and ICTs. As illustrated in table 2 enterprise systems and processes have been structured in their value chain using ERP, CRM and BPM (Adam et al. 2011; Bajwa et al. 2009; Feldbacher et al. 2011; Ignatiadis et al. 2010; Yu et al. 2009). These solutions have been applied specially to the small and medium companies in manufacturing and service industries with higher levels of process and system complexity (Bidan et al. 2012). However they are applying these solutions without a clear strategic framework and there have been hesitations in applying enterprise architecture (Bidan et al. 2012).

At the same time some of them have been defining business processes and system architecture in order to solidify their organisations in a globalisation trend and supporting their integration and future growth (Chong 2007; Jacobs et al. 2011). With a clear architecture within their processes and systems they are be able to achieve an integrated picture and can change and adapt within new environments (Bajwa et al. 2009; Jacobs et al. 2011). For this purpose different frameworks and architectures have been proposed such as; virtual enterprises in order to operate in a virtual environment (Chiu et al. 2006b; Ktenidis and Paraskevopoulos 1999; Rautenstrauch 2002) and cooperation and collaboration and B2B models (Bhagwat and Sharma 2007; Nedbal 2011). In the meantime Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) has emerged as a cost effective and easily adaptable technology for SMEs (Bajwa et al. 2009; Castro-Leon et al. 2007; Gupta and Tiwari 2010; Lee and Xia 2006; Seth et al. 2011; Svirskas et al. 2008; Yu et al. 2009). These studies have tried to identify the benefits of architectural approaches to leveraging ICT resources. They have found that architecture views are useful to achieve business agility and flexibility as well as to integrate business processes and information system within SMEs ( 2010).

Proposed Architecture

Purposes/ Drivers Requirements Resources

Virtual and Collaboration Enterprises

information sharing and open information architecture decision synchronization alignment Flexibility in business

architecture Interoperability Transaction efficiency Production efficiency Readiness for growth and

transformation Access to the new markets Reducing cost of technology

Adaptable, reusable and flexible ICTs and business architecture Stable network

architecture Open Processes and

information Architecture (to provide secure, reliable and trustworthy information) Business and ICTs

strategy alignment Single and simple

solution to manage entire architectures Sufficient Operational

architecture and services Clear product and service

description Available and reliable

services and products Low cost and ease of use

of technologies Awareness High security

(Al-Bakri et al. 2010; Badiyani and Raja 2009; Benguria and Santos 2008; Besimi et al. 2010; Canavesio and Martinez 2007; Chan and Chung 2002b; Chiu et al. 2006b; Grefen et al. 2009; Harland et al. 2007; Harris and Ahmed 2011; Jacobs et al. 2011; Jaekel et al. 2012b; Jiang et al. 2012; Ktenidis and Paraskevopoulos 1999; Mun et al. 2011; Rautenstrauch 2002; Saiz et al. 2010; Sultan 2011; Svirskas and Roberts 2005)

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

Developing adaptable and flexible business and ICTs architecture Cost effective architecture

with using specific technologies Business Agility Integration trough

information and systems

Integrated business processes architecture Standardise business services Clear information architecture Simple and cheap technologies

(Bajwa et al. 2009; Castro-Leon et al. 2007; Gupta and Tiwari 2010; Harris and Ahmed 2011; Ignatiadis et al. 2010; Seth et al. 2011; Svirskas et al. 2008; Tang et al. 2010; Yu et

Proposed Architecture

Purposes/ Drivers Requirements Resources

al. 2009)

BPM Documented business processes Business processes integration Managing business processes

performance Processes Integration and

consolidation Increase productivity Customer satisfaction Business processes and activity

improvement

Focus on SMEs requirements Compact and easy to use

framework Flexible and adaptable

framework Considering partners

business processes Incremental approaches Simple process

metamodel and language

(Bajwa et al. 2009; Chong 2007; Chytilova and Jurova 2011; Flores et al. 2011; Jaekel et al. 2012a; Nedbal 2011; Rabe and Weinaug 2005; Staples and Niazi 2010)

Business Intelligence

Provide concrete information in the right time Data Integration within virtual enterprises Performance management and business processes monitoring Decision making Processes improvement Mitigate data security issue in virtual environment

Information strategy Lack of protocol to manage data Simple architecture and usage

(Banze and de la Harpe ; Bhagwat and Sharma 2007; Feldbacher et al. 2011; Grabova et al. 2010; Nedbal 2011)

Table 3: Summary of architecture views applied within SMEs

From prior limited studies around development of architecture in different enterprise levels, a few limitations have been found for SMEs. Different studies have been trying to define information, system and business process architecture for small and medium enterprises in collaborative environments (Castro-Leon et al. 2007; Saiz et al. 2010; Seth et al. 2011) but the alignment between the different level of architectures and enterprise strategy have not been addressed properly. In previous studies special attention has been paid to the IS and technological architectures (Bidan et al. 2012) and not to underpin the roles of business architecture and strategy in dynamic environments (Iyer and Henderson 2010). However developing IT architecture without regard to the firm business model, is less likely to bring expected advantages (Sultan 2011). The firm needs to align its business structure with its business strategy to improve functionality of organisation capabilities (Sultan 2011). Indeed the need for an Enterprise Business Architecture (EBA) has been called in order to articulate the structure of business processes, governance, information systems strategies and align IT solutions to business strategies (Burton 2008b).

3.2 Findings Between Jun 2012 and June 2013, I conducted a dozen of 60 to 90 minutes semi-structured

external requirements.

The result of literature review incorporated with semi-structured interview is presented in two parts to answer the two groups of research questions. The first part describes why do SMEs need BA practice and what are the potential contributions of BA for SMEs. The second part reveals the requirements for defining requisite BA framework. These results are published in (Dehbokry and Chew 2013a; Dehbokry and Chew 2013b; Dehbokry and Chew 2015b).

3.2.1 BA as a Strategic Management Tool for SMEs

3.2.1.1 SMEs Strategic Development Requirements for BA Practice

SMEs have a vital role in a nation s economic growth, innovation, and employment. Their business advancement which leads to possible economic and social developments has been becoming the most important priority for most scholars and practitioners. Effective contribution of SMEs is significantly associated with competitive dynamic environments. Accelerating technological changes, rapidly changing market demands and growing globalized collaborative organisations, beside the SMEs limitations and constraints, underscore the strategic developments and execution for SMEs to create sustained value. In order to recognise the dynamism and globalization processes, they are investing heavily in ICT solutions which reduce costs associated with operating globally and meeting new market demands. At the same time the high rate of technology changes continually puts pressure on SMEs to provide a dynamic roadmap and strategic planning for their IT investments decisions. Providing the strategic roadmap is likely to create opportunities to prevent spending of increasing amounts of resources, take advantages of new IT developments and to gain more overall value from their existing IT resources. The roadmap needs to drive SMEs business strategies and requirements. To reach this point SMEs should define a clear and precise overall picture of their business in terms of business capabilities, business processes, and knowledge. Business Architecture practice seems to be the ideal solution to help SMEs to capture required resources (including IT) and align their business with IT operation to gain better performance.

I am reflecting the opinion of experienced EA consultants and experts to complement the literature review with their knowledge of experiences from enterprises. Below are some

“Small and medium organizations can be some of the fastest growing concerns. I don't know how many start-ups I've seen where they have no clue what capabilities they need. Having a set of tools with some guidance can benefit even the smallest of businesses as it helps define what needs to get done. A business architect or business planner with BA tools can go a long

way to helping structure the company, set up the organization and get everyone on the same page in terms of process, roles and services.” (Washington D.C. Management Consulting)

“…, multiple segments characterized by the maturity of industry, funding, age of company current and future growth of company, etc. that had an influence on their efforts.”(Dallas, Partner Technology Consulting, Manufacturing and Distribution at HP)

The main need for EBA as a strategic tool for SMEs has been driven by the challenge of the dynamic environmental factors described above. In terms of the environmental factors and the SME collaboration networks, dynamic market demand and technological changes are the key factors to be modelled in the EBA. Participating in collaborative networks which are facilitated by globalized ICTs is increasingly being confronted with two key issues. The first issue is concerned with managing adaptability with the networks which is demanding a strategic approach to interoperate with partners technologically and also at the business level (Klein and Poulymenakou 2006; Westphal et al. 2010). The second issue is concerned with achieving market penetration and creating value through capabilities that can synchronize networks competencies and resources. These considerations underscore the employment of capabilities that enable them to manage a variety of networked organizations and simultaneously to create sustained value by leveraging environment opportunities (Allred et al. 2011). Moreover in such dynamic environments SMEs need to think strategically in all aspect of their business and structure, bundle and leverage network and firm resources and capabilities with the purpose of creating value (Nieto and Santamaría 2010; Welbourne and Pardo-del-Val 2009).

3.2.1.2 To What extent SMEs are structured and equipped to apply BA practice?

SMEs need structured business and ICT development as much as large firms. However a review of the literature indicated strategic management frameworks are valid within SMEs. They may raise awareness of strategic development and execution within both business and IS level.

“Architecture for me is a way of thinking, it is a means of humble exploring and understanding of the enterprise, business management techniques such as BSC (Balanced Scorecard), but even wider, widest. This applies fully and for SMBs. The more that EA wants to meet enterprise-wide context for all enterprise beings, is for SMBs and the same way for small Public Administration Agency needed to simplify EA and speed up.”(Czech Republic, Enterprise Architect and Business Consultant at SAP)

3.2.1.3 SMEs Barriers in Utilizing BA

Developing architectures in different levels of an enterprise can be a daunting task for any business, but more challenging for small and medium sized enterprises (Bidan et al. 2012). Specific challenges faced by SMEs are attributed to their specific characteristics, constraints and resource shortages. Lack of financial resources and ICT expertise are the most important factors that inhibit SMEs from utilizing an EBA framework (Wilton 2008).

Developing and employing ICTs solutions generally and more specifically deploying the requisite EBA framework will be influenced by the unique SMEs characteristics in terms of size, industry, and level of IT expertise. Thus many SME-specific environmental contingencies need to be factored in and incorporated into developing a practical EBA framework for SMEs. This finding from the extant literature is supported by the industry experts feedback obtained from the semi-structured online survey. For example, below are

“SMEs do not have the time and money resources as large enterprises have. So you need to come in with more than a generic framework. 80% of SMEs will kill the project before a real start is actually underway, due to lack of deliverables. Most leaders within the SMEs environment are much more down to earth than staff in large enterprises, they want more tacit results.”(Netherlands, Management and ICT Consultant)

“….SMEs can hire experienced consultants to work on specific initiatives who then can also train some of their qualified staff on BA/EA techniques as well. Once those initiatives are completed, SME's can reapply those techniques for future ones. All SME's don't need to do EA/BA on a daily basis employing dedicated staff.”(Greater Chicago Area, Chief Architect)

“… we are moving into an age of decentralization and distribution of enterprise of all kinds, and we are going to need new institutions to manage this transition and beyond.”(California Executive Consultant, IBM)

“SMEs do not have the time and money resources as large enterprises have. So you need to come in with more than a generic framework. 80% of SMEs will kill the project before a real start is actually underway, due to lack of deliverables. Most leaders within the SMEs environment are much more down to earth than staff in large enterprises, they want more tacit results.”(Netherlands, Management and ICT Consultant)

“….SMEs can hire experienced consultants to work on specific initiatives who then can also train some of their qualified staff on BA/EA techniques as well. Once those initiatives are completed, SME's can reapply those techniques for future ones. All SME's don't need to do EA/BA on a daily basis employing dedicated staff.”(Greater Chicago Area, Chief Architect, I3 Technologies)

“…, I would highly recommend starting with a business capability map. Especially if you are a smaller organization this can be achieved with not too much overhead and it provides you with a clear structure of your business. You can then use this capability map to get into discussion with the business and evaluate these capabilities based on KPI's like Market Differentiation.”(Germany, Sales Director, Alfabet).

3.2.2 What to Expect from a BA practice for SMEs?

3.2.2.1 General BA Practice Attributes Applicable to SMEs

Developing architectures in different levels of an enterprise can be a daunting task for any business, but more challenging for small and medium sized enterprises (Bidan et al. 2012). The challenges faced by SMEs are related to their specific characteristics, constraints and resource shortages. The limited number of trained and experienced people within their organization causes the small team of managers to be responsible for many tasks and perform a central role in their decision making process. In essence, resource shortages drive SMEs to seek a simple, quick-action strategic management framework for managing the entire strategic ICTs planning and implementation lifecycle that can be readily and easily applied by small group of people (mainly SME managers and owners) (Gagalis et al. 2010; Sternad et al. 2010). Both SMEs manager and consultant interviewees have acknowledged this. An Enterprise Architect stated it this way: I would suggest a framework that is easy to initialize in a relatively green-field situation. Being a more intuitive and understandable framework for small business owners and managers, encourage the use of developed roadmap in the decision making process. ” A small gover

we need a roadmap that is not relying on complicated techniques and elaborate framework.” A small university agency required “A solutions that can be trained to the group of our manager and be managed in their later stages”. Therefore the

for both SMEs and industry experts. The simplicity of BA framework was addressed by an Enterprise Architect in this statement; "Based on a business context and the elements pertinent to that context would constitute "simplified" BA that is meaningful to the SMEs executives" As each SME may be at a very different start point on their business architecture journey and facing the framework’s attributes may need to be tailored and adjusted for each of them”, a Business Architect suggested. This would contribute to the adaptability of the framework.

3.2.2.2 ICT Capability Management and Orchestration

lack of resources, they have a pressing need to strategically structure and manage their ICTs capabilities and resources in line with the changing external environments. Besides that, SMEs are facing pressure in making decisions around three types of issues. The first is selecting the fit-for-purpose ICT capabilities in line with the resource constraints requirements (Blackwell et al. 2006). The second is, as a consequence of the first, making strategic decisions as to where to make the appropriate ICT investment (Levy et al. 1999). The third is how to utilize and integrate the new system or technology into the business in order to enhance the business (growth) performance and/or reduce the total operational costs (Jacobs et al. 2011). These underscore the importance of BA as a strategic tool that facilitates the decision making process and enables SMEs to orchestrate, integrate, manage and structure their business resources and ICT capabilities.

This is aptly demonstrated by the strategic challenge faced by the owner of a small college (SME) who was concerned with integrating the current system with potential new systems; We have developed three systems independently and now we are facing challenges in linking

them together” Our main problem is now we need to develop more systems to be able to run our courses online across the country”. A second problem is “we need to use current systems and their capabilities as we have spent resources on them and cannot get rid of them, Our systems and IT capabilities should have been developed to embrace the new requirements”, he indicated. A third problem is “we are surrounded by different solutions and cannot make decision which one is the best suitable system to fulfil future needs and comply with current systems” he added.

technology to their attention, which has become a very attractive technology to use due to its ability to create provisioning capabilities and resources with lower costs and immediate access (Marston et al. 2011). This model creates a new horizon of opportunities for SMEs which provides an efficient way for them to leverage shared ICT capabilities and services. Despite the advances in cloud computing, there are significant structural, organisational issues that SMEs need to tackle before moving to this environment (Sultan 2011). Moving toward cloud computing requires the SMEs to consider and plan for proper architecture in term of business and technology to leverage the advantages provided in this environment. This is acknowledged by a general manager at Midmark the journey to the cloud becomes inevitable and the question shifts from whether to adopt cloud technologies to how to do so sensibly6. Another industry expert also acknowledged the

I believe that Business Architecture is our best tool to facilitate migration towards cloud in companies….. Its use in these disruptive scenarios is one of the reasons why business architecture has value even when it isn't integrated with those other layers.

However the group of enterprises and industry experts agreed that the integration,

- and future-state strategic development requirements, the new BA practice should guide the evolution, integration and orchestration of business competencies specifically ICT resources to address new (future-state) business requirements. Furthermore the proposed BA practice

where they can create the most sustained value.

3.2.2.3 Adapting to the Dynamic Collaborative Environments and Managing Dynamism

a strategic tool has been driven by dynamic environment challenges. Collaborating with the network of organizations and adapting to the ecosystems,

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140425201913-133994-smbs-journey-to-the-cloud

the dynamic market demands and technological changes are the key factors that need to be addressed by the requisite BA. In a dynamic collaborative ecosystem, SMEs need to think strategically in all aspects of their business and structure, bundle and leverage network and firm resources and capabilities with the purpose of creating value (Nieto and Santamaría 2010). Participating in a collaborative network, facilitated by globalized ICTs, SMEs are increasingly confronted with three issues. The first issue is defining aligned business and ICTs strategies that are contingent with the market, network and technological changes. The second issue is concerned with managing network adaptability through inter-firm interoperability from both technological and business level perspectives (Westphal et al. 2010). The third issue is concerned with achieving market penetration and creating value through meta-capabilities that can synchronize and integrate inter-firm networked competencies and resources to co-create value. These considerations underscore the development of the requisite BA framework (or capabilities) that enables SMEs to manage a variety of networked organizations and simultaneously to create sustained value by leveraging the environmental opportunities (Allred et al. 2011). The new BA framework

In the new way of business where SMEs must dynamically evolve in a continuously changing environment, the BA framework should extend its focus beyond organizational boundaries to the business network ecosystem

For the majority of SMEs I interviewed, participating within networked organisations is a critical requirement in order to fully utilize and leverage their networked resources to continuously co-create new products and services. A small sized government agency (public service) is required to collaborate with different industry bodies and state and territory

We require ongoing investments in intangible assets, such as the ability to collaborate and integrate with our stakeholders Our systems and business structures are defined by experiences and based on new projects as well as the government policies. The resources that each company within the network has assembled are often shared with other companies. We are an independent member and it is each company’s responsibility to build and maintain its capability to develop its resources and leverage the shared resources and capabilities”, he added. An owner of a small sized college which is

integrate within the network leverage assembled systems and other capabilities available for the members”. In knowledge intensive organisations in which their business is heavily reliant on open innovation and value creation in collaborative networks, the need for proper architecture is even more discernible in their value co-creation process (Fjeldstad et al. 2012).

Furthermore business and technological integration and alignment of the collaboration network, sense-making of the external market and new technological opportunities and threats, and leveraging these opportunities are all important requirements for the SME to survive and thrive as a main participant in the global collaboration network. These requirements must be addressed effectively by the BA practice. However as each SME may

be at a very different start point on their business architecture journey and facing different challenges and requirements, the Business Architecture practice may need to be adjusted and tailored… opined an industry expert.

3.3 Conclusions and Some Guidelines for Defining applicable BA for SMEs

Although there are some well-known cases of broad E/BA framework, mainly in large public sector organisations, Enterprise/Business Architecture practice remains a complicated and difficult endeavour that few organisations can claim to have done successfully (Ross et al. 2006). Common criticisms of E/BA frameworks are that they are complex, expensive and difficult to implement, an administrative burden to maintain and do not deliver value in the dynamic reality business environment (Ross et al. 2006). They are known for a low level of sophistication in realizing a dynamic model of business value proposition (Dietz and Hoogervorst 2008). A major issue in E/BA practice has been identified in the length of time it takes to create value for an organisation. The inertia of existing practices is often overwhelming and an EA programme on its own does not typically offer rapid short term returns to justify the project costs (Bradley et al. 2011a).

The literature review and empirical findings from the interviews with SME owners/managers and industry experts have revealed the key factors that encourage SMEs to develop and use E/BA as a strategic tool, categorized as internal organizational and external environmental

constraints, lack of resources when compared with their larger counterparts, they have a pressing need to strategically structure and manage their resources in line with the changing business ecosystem. The BA as a strategic tool is more likely to help them to create a roadmap for orchestrating, managing and structuring their socio-technical resources in terms of IT, knowledge, processes and capabilities and their interconnections. Besides that, SMEs are facing pressure in making decisions around three types of issues in line with their business ecosystem. The first is, selecting fit-for-purpose ICTs aligned with their business requirements saddled with inherent resource constraints. The second is to make strategic decisions as to where to make an appropriate ICT investment. The third is how to utilize and integrate the new system or technology into the business in order to enhance the business (growth) performance and reduce the total costs.

From the empirical findings I found that BA conceptually is highly desirable by SMEs as a strategic management tool for dealing with resource constraints and for managing co-evolution with the dynamic ecosystem and technological environments to create sustained value. The interviews showed that the organizational capabilities for internal and external ICT resource orchestration, integration and management in a collaborative network of firms are fundamental requirements that must be satisfied by the requisite EBA framework practice. To that end the BA framework practice should strategically position SMEs within the chosen business ecosystem and enable them to leverage, manage and orchestrate internal

and external resources and capabilities to create sustained value. My research has yielded new insights on the requisite BA for SMEs, which are shown in Table 4.

Question Domain Questions Guiding statement Insights

requirements for BA as a strategic tool

To what extent SMEs are structured and equipped to apply BA practice?

I don't know how many start-ups I've seen where they have no clue what capabilities they need.” “…Our (a SME’s) systems and business structures are defined by experiences and based on new projects as well as the government policies.”

…A business architect or business planner with BA tools can go a long way to helping structure the SMEs, set up the organization and get everyone on the same page in terms of process, roles and services….

SMEs are equipped with various capabilities that may not aware of those capabilities. An integrated approach

is required that supports the identifications of the capabilities for architecture practice. It is important to assess

SMEs on knowledge, responsibilities, resources and process requires for the architecture implementation It is important to be

problems and challenges and how architecture practice can address them.

strategic requirements for BA practice?

…the suitable framework should be trained to the group of top manager and be managed in their later stages internally.

…SMEs tend to see more on business outcome. The more focus on business the more value you can get from a project….

…for SMBs. The more that EA wants to meet enterprise-wide context for all enterprise beings, is for SMBs and the same way for small Public Administration Agency needed to simplify EA and speed up….

Enabling SMEs to manage co-evolution

with ecosystem to select fit-for-purpose

ICTs aligned with their requirements that realized their constraints. to make strategic

decisions as to where to make an appropriate ICT investment how to utilize and

integrate the new system or technology into the business in order to enhance the business (growth) performance and reduce the total costs.

What are the barriers for applying BA practice in SMEs?

… SMEs do not have the time and money resources as large enterprises have. So you need to come in with

Limited resources financially, knowledge and human resources Short term focus Hierarchical in decision

more than a generic framework.

…80% of SMEs will kill the project before a real start is actually underway, due to lack of deliverables.

…Most leaders within the SMEs environment are much more down to earth than staff in large enterprises, they want more tactile results.

….SMEs can hire experienced consultants to work on specific initiatives who then can also train some of their qualified staff on BA/EA techniques as well. Once those initiatives are completed, SME's can reapply those techniques for future ones. All SME's don't need to do EA/BA on a daily basis employing dedicated staff.

making process

What to Expect from a BA practice for SMEs?

What are the BA practice attributes that make it applicable to SMEs?

… more intuitive and understandable framework for small business owners and managers.

…As you describe, SMEs often don't have the resources/time to be as formal as some larger organisations. But at the same time specific industry & associated expectations & regulations/compliance requirements should affect/influence the model all practice” …The level of BA practice can vary quite significantly. So the mod-el needs to be comprehensive and adjustable for e.g. a business with less than ten people making 2 million a year and a local data centre turning over 10 million a year with 20 or so

Avoid the complex and technical based framework Framework needs to be

adjustable based on business context Framework should be

performed quickly and trained

owner/manager

… Next comes the problem of how BA can help us (SME) deal with "changing environments". That one is tricky.”

How does BA enable SMEs to deal with their resource limitations and constraints?

…facing challenges in linking new and current resource.

… Which one is the best suitable system to fulfil future needs and comply with current systems?

Requisite BA should facilitate ICT decision making process by defining contingent strategies with dynamic market and technology Mapping and integrating resources and capabilities

How does BA enable SMEs to create sustained value in a dynamic collaborative ecosystem?

… ability to collaborate and integrate with our stakeholder.

… leverage assembled systems and other capabilities available for the member.

… as each SME may be at a very different start point on their business architecture journey and facing different challenges and requirements, the Business Architecture practice may need to be adjusted and tailored

….having a set of tools with some guidance can benefit even the smallest of businesses as it helps define what needs to get done.

…A business architect with BA tools can go a long way to helping structure the company, set up the organization and get every-one on the same page in terms of process, roles and services.

BA framework should result in business and ICT strategies that are well suited with the dynamic collaboration environments. BA framework for SMEs should drive the business value or value proposition in the market. Build the capabilities to sense and integrate ecosystem capabilities Contingent strategic planning and architecture practice in the industry and business requirements

Table 4: Insights for Defining Applicable BA for SMEs

3.4 Business Architecture 3.4.1 Business Architecture Literature and Related Work

Although the concept of architecture is not a young phenomenon, surprisingly the appearance of Business Architecture, as considered in this research, in particular is very recent. My own review (see Figure 7) of electronic academic databases, both in management and IT, shows that the term Business Architecture first appeared in 1997 in the title of a paper in Innovation in Technology Management conference (Butler 1997). The term is found in numerous

current IT-centric architecture in studying large organizations.

Due to the multidisciplinary nature of Business Architecture, various approaches and perspectives have been presented in the literature as well as in industry. However the review in the scientific domain shows that the interest in the topic is mainly high in the IT domain compared to management and business domains. This is the case for the industry where the BA concept is inflated through ICT practitioners. It can be said that the importance of design and architecture is not recognized by business level (Dietz et al. 2013). However there is a strong need for a paradigm shift in order to address business development from socio-technical perspectives. Therefore a sound and rigorous multidisciplinary foundation in business architecture is crucial. The transdisciplinary nature of organizational design and architecture leads organizations to look beyond survival and dynamism and towards creating a new horizon in business growth and transformation in alignment with the emergent new environments (Golsby-Smith 2007) a (Prahalad and Hamel 1990).

Figure 7: Occurrence of the Term of Business Architecture in Literature

Unlike the academic literature, BA practice has gained popularity within practitioners in the last decade. This results in the growth of the number of BA frameworks with different degrees of detail and completeness. However they often fail to address all aspects of a business (Grigoriev and Kudryavtsev 2011; Vernadat 2002). I review available BA frameworks based on the IBM report (Glissman and Sanz 2009), as well as their capacity for

internal and external requirements. This is also consistent with foundational enterprise architecture work - the Generalized Enterprise Reference Architecture and Methodology (GERAM) developed by IFIP-IFAC Task Force (Force 1999). In order to compare the frameworks I review each BA as follow:

Conceptual model: Refers to either conceptual model or modeling language, offers constructs that cover, fully or partially, the business domains of an enterprise

Methodology: Describes the development process of BA models and more importantly, the techniques that are used in the specific context in which BA is applied. In a process model or a structured procedure, the methodology explains the responsibilities to be defined, the activities to be executed and the principles to be considered.

its chosen ecosystem

Capability management focus: describes to what extent capability management is incorporated in the framework. It refers to ongoing business resource/capability orchestration and management capacity of the framework.

ArchiMate: It originally was developed by the ArchiMate Foundation, in February 2009, which was formally approved as the technical standard by the board of The Open Group. ArchiMate offers a common language for describing the construction and operation of business processes, organizational structures, information flows, IT systems, and technical infrastructure. This insight helps stakeholders to design, assess, and communicate the consequences of decisions and changes within and between these business domains. Conceptual Model: The ArchiMate modeling language consists of three layers of architecture domains such as business, application and technology layers. Each layer also includes three aspects; active structure, passive structure and the behavior. The active structure represents the structural concepts. In the business layer the active structure consists of business actor which is assigned to a business role, working in internal or external collaboration with other business actors. The Behavior aspect represents the behavior performed by the actors. It includes the business service which is realized by business process, function interaction, and event. The Passive structure aspect represents the objects on which behavior is performed. In the business layer the passive structure connects the elements product, value, contract, and business objects. The business object is an abstract element that provides information about a real object of enterprise concerns, such as a customer or a product. It links business layer to application layer (TheOpenGroup 2009a). The ArchiMate is illustrated in Figure 8.

Figure 8: Business Layer of ArchiMate (The Open Group 2009a)

The architecture components and their interrelationships are clearly defined and specified. Methodology: ArchiMate provides sample case studies to guide developing an EA model.

Business Capability Focus: Information is the main focus of this framework and does not address business capabilities. Ecosystem/Collaboration Network Focusdefine interrelationships of its entities and does not address ecosystem/collaboration network as applied in this research. The ArchiMate is a uniform representation for describing enterprise architecture that provides graphical language for this representation. Its main focus is information and the interrelationships of the architecture entities. However it is not developed to model business strategic layer and its collaborative networks (Glissman and Sanz 2009). It also lacks in providing guidance for business level on how the framework is used in a business transformation process.

Business Architecture Working Group

Business Architecture Working Group (BAWG) is a part of the Object Management Group (OMG). It and aligning business

(BAWG 2009a).

Conceptual Model: The BAWG provides various concepts related to business architecture ecosystem integrated into IT architecture (see Figure 9) (Ulrich 2010).

Figure 9: BA and IT Architecture Ecosystem according to BAWG (BAWG 2009b)

As illustrated in Figure 9, BA ecosystem covers motivation, initiatives and projects, product and service, capabilities, value chain, customers and suppliers, information semantics and rules, business processes, and design models. BAWG categorised these areas in 5 views such as strategy, capabilities, value stream, knowledge and organisational views. However the framework does not integrate these components.

Methodology: BAWG provides some business scenarios to illustrate BA applicability and value to business.

Business Capability focus: In the BA defined by BAWG, the capability is defined as one business view and an element in the BA ecosystem. Business capability as a view in BAWG

that perform those functions. This view further distinguishes between customer-facing functions, supplier-related functions, business execution, and business management

relationships with other BA components.

Ecosystem/Collaboration Network focus: In this framework customers and suppliers are defined as one element in the BA ecosystem.

Business Motivation Model

Business Motivation Model (BMM) is defined by OMG (Object Management Group). It provides a scheme or structure for developing, communicating, and managing business plans in an organized manner (OMG 2015).

Conceptual Model: There are two main elements of the Business Motivation Model: first, the Ends and Means of business plans. Among the Ends are things the enterprise wishes to achieve. Among the Means are things the enterprise will employ to achieve those Ends. Second, is the Influencers that shape the elements of the business plans, and the Assessments made about the impacts of such Influencers on Ends and Means (see Figure 10). The BMM describes core elements and their interrelationships. However the business operations are not addressed by BMM (Chapin et al. 2005).

Figure 10: Business Motivation Model by OMG

Methodology: In this framework for each element detailed examples are provided. They serve as guidelines on how to develop BMM for a firm.

Business Capability Focus: business capabilities are not represented as core elements. However, it is used as a Means to achieve the End.

Ecosystem/Collaboration Network Focus: Business environment is defined as an External Influencers that are affecting the existence or development of an enterprise. The external influencers are analysed as part of the business plan development. External influencers are categorised as competitor, customer, partner, regulation, supplier, and technology.

Business Concept

Business Concept is a semantic framework that is introduced by (McDavid 1999), in order to provide a common set of business concerns that need to be supported by ICT. It is based on practical experience which Enterprise Solution Structure (ESS).

Conceptual Model: Business Concept describes generic business concepts that address high level aspects of enterprise modelling such as strategy, structure and business network. It defines a set of nine business elements which are categorised into three interrelated domains such as Drivers of the Business, Business Boundaries, and Business Delivery System. The Drivers of the Business domain consists of business situation, business purpose and business outcome. The Business Boundaries domain includes business role-player and business commitment. The Business Delivery System domain consists of business function, business behaviour, business resources, and business location.

Figure 11: Business Concept by McDavid

As shown in Figure 11 these elements are connected on different levels of detail. All business elements are defined to have a connection to the IT system Architecture.

Methodology: The Business Concept provides classified business terms that define the industry and company business terminology. The context diagram also is used to define their relationships and connections. However it does not provide comprehensive methodology on how to develop BA.

Business Capability focus: business capabilities in McDavid framework are major types of resources. Capability is defined from the skills, knowledge, attitude, and experience of humans.

Ecosystem/Collaboration Network Focus: external environment and ecosystem are not addressed by the McDavid Business Concept.

Component Business Model (CBM)

The Component Business Model is developed by IBM

Conceptual Model: CBM is defined based on five main dimensions such as business purpose as the logical reason for business existence, activities to achieve the purposes, resources as people, knowledge and assets that support their activities, governance to manage each component, and services are offered and provided by the other components. CBM also

provides a framework for organising the components by competency and accountability level (IBM 2005).

Figure 12: Component Business Model (CBM) by IBM

Methodology: IBM has provided a method for using the framework.

Business Capability Focus: CBM is not a capability based architecture and business capabilities are not covered by this framework.

Ecosystem/collaboration Network Focus: Business network and ecosystem are not covered by the Component Business Model.

Enterprise Business Architecture

Enterprise Business Architecture (EBA) is a part of the Enterprise Architecture Framework developed by Gartner. The EBA represents the process and organizational concerns of the business architect (Bittler and Kreizmann 2005). Gartner intents to provide a BA that can be used to align business and IT concerns

Conceptual Model: The EBA consists of five key dimensions. The Business Capabilities form the architecture foundation. Capabilities are realized by four key business elements: People who directly impact the scope of the EBA; Financials, which describe the financial situation of a company; Organization, which refer to the formal reporting structure, as well as the informal structure, including cultural hierarchy, virtual teams, and social networks; and finally Processes, which are composed of business activities.

Methodology: Gartner defines a seven phase iterative procedure model for the BA development including; Define and scope, organise, future state, current state, gap analysis, migration plan

Business Capability Focus: Business Capability forms the foundation in this framework. Capabilities are referred to as business functions or high-level business services.

Ecosystem/Collaboration Network Focus: Business network and its environments are less addressed by the Gartner BA framework.

TOGAF Business Architecture

TOGAF (The Open Group Architecture Framework) is developed and maintained by the members of The Open Group working in the Architecture Forum (TheOpenGroup 2009). BA

the TOGAF framework there is a prerequisite for architecture work in other domains.

Conceptual Model: TOGAF has developed a Content Metamodel as an architecture building block that is specifying architecture components, the relationships between these components, architecture metrics, and communication diagram for the architecture layers. Business Architecture artefacts capture architectural models of the business operation, looking specifically at factors that motivate the enterprise, how the enterprise is organizationally structured, and also what functional capabilities the enterprise has.

Figure 13: TOGAF Content Meta Model-Business Architecture

The elements of the Business Architectures are decomposed into three main components such as motivational, organizational, and functional. The motivation component consists of drivers, goals, objectives, and measures. The organisation element includes organisation unit, location, and actor and role. The function element includes business service contracts, process, events, controls, products, and functions. The connections and relationships between the components are all well defined. In order to support business IT alignment TOGAF defines the connection between the Business Architecture and the information and technology architecture.

Methodology: Supporting a company in transitioning from a current to a target state, TOGAF provides the Architecture Development Method (ADM). “It describes a method for developing and managing the lifecycle of an enterprise architecture, and forms the core of TOGAF. It integrates elements of TOGAF described in this document as well as other available architectural assets, to consists of eight iterative phases. The Business Architecture is the second phase, which follows the phase architecture vision. The BA phase is a prerequisite for the subsequent phases such as information systems architecture and technology architecture. It is composed of four sections, i.e., objective, approach, inputs, and steps. The steps section describes the activities necessary to develop a Business Architecture. It first proposes the selection of reference models, viewpoints, and tools. Afterwards, the baseline and target BA description are developed, which are then analysed in the gap analysis. Based on the results of the previous steps, the roadmap components are defined. The BA phase concludes with the creation of an architecture definition document.

Business Capability Focus: The business capability is an entity attribute in the Content -focused outcome that is delivered by

the completion of on -based planning approach in order to sequence and group the business change and provide continuous and incremental business value. According to TOGAF the capabilities are directly derived from the corporate strategic plan that satisfies the enterprise goals, objectives, and strategies. TOGAF specifies relationships between capabilities, Enterprise Architecture and the projects (see Figure 14).

Figure 14: Relationship between Capability, Enterprise Architecture, and the projects (According to TOGAF)

Ecosystem/Collaboration Network Focus: The business network and ecosystem are less covered in TOGAF.

Zachman

The Zachman Framework as an enterprise ontology is a fundamental structure for Enterprise Architecture which provides a formal and structured way of viewing and defining an enterprise (Zachman 1996). Since it has achieved broad acknowledgment and acceptance as

an important taxonomy of architectural construct, a summary of the framework is presented.

Conceptual Model: The Zachman Framework typically is depicted as a bounded 6 x 6

Framework classifications are represented by the cells, that is, the intersection between the Interrogatives/Abstractions and the Perspectives. This matrix would necessarily constitute the total set of descriptive representations that are relevant for describing an enterprise. The primitive interrogatives are What, How, When, Who, Where, and Why. The perspectives are objective/planner, enterprise model/owner, system model/designer, representations/programmer, and functioning enterprise/user. This means that each abstraction is created uniquely for different purposes (Zachman 2007).

Methodology: It does not focus on the process for implementing its framework. Zachman what it doesn’t do, is tell you how to do Enterprise

Architecture (Zachman 2015).

Ecosystem/Collaboration Network Focus: Business network and its environments are less addressed by the Zachman EA framework.

Business Capability Focus: Business capabilities are not addressed by the Zachman EA framework.

3.4.2 Findings

Review on existing literature and current BA approaches reveal that various kinds of Business Architecture are defined for design, change, communication and realization of an enterprise. Current BA approaches are developed and maintained by various parties including vendor independent initiatives, companies and individuals. This results in number of constructs that are all quite different models and reflect very different approaches to support BA practice. However, they only address selected business domains and concerns. Table 5 presents a summary of the reviewed BA approaches and frameworks. The first column of the table name the standard and year of contribution and the following columns reveal the major business areas that are covered by the frameworks.

In another comparison Zachman, TOGAF, and Gartner, as the top 3 architecture frameworks, are described (Sessions 2007): Zachman as a , , and . Sessions further rates Gartner as first business focus framework and TOGAF

as second business focus framework.

Framework Purpose Business Domain Methodology

Business Ecosystem/Collaboration Network focus

Capability Focus

Strategy

Organisation

Resource

Process

Service

Knowledge

ArchiMate, 2009

Enterprise Architecture

X X X X

BAWG, 2007 Integration of OMG standards

X X X X X X X

BMM, 2005 Business Strategy X X X

Business Concept, 1996

IT business Alignment

X X X X

CBM, 2005 IT strategy, IT-business alignment, SOA

X X X X

EBA, 2008 Enterprise Architecture

X X X X X

TOGAF BA,2009

Enterprise Architecture

X X X X X X

Zachman 1996

EA ontology X

Table 5: Overview of Current BA Practices (Adapted from IBM, 2010)

4 Reviewing the Knowledge Domain In this section I establish the theoretical foundation for my research and the requisite BA in a form of literature review. The main domains that build the foundation for the research are shown in Figure 15. These three domains are identified and explored to address the SMEstrategic development requirements identified in previous sections.

Figure 15: Knowledge Domain

4.1 Enterprise/Business Architecture 4.1.1 Origin, Definition, Place and Role of Business Architecture in the

Firms The expression of architecture in enterprises and businesses was inflated through IT people in

reduce the complexity of IT systems and applications and enterprise integration (Beeckman 1989; Kosanke 1995)representations that (Zachman 2007). Whatever the

structures and to interconnect the elements of the system (Ulrich 1995). The central principle of architecture is aligning the model or form of an object with its use or function as well as with creating order, consistency, uniformity and economy (Alberti and Bartoli 1986).

a brief introduction of the EA concept based on description in the literature.

4.1.2 Enterprise Architecture According to a recent definition provided by IEEE Computer Society and ISO/IEC

environment embodied in its elements, relationships, and in the principle of its design and evolut model of and what is fundamental to a system, whereas architecture description refers to artefacts used to express

scription of

-relationships, and the principles and guidelines governing their design and evolution over tim

architecture is the set of significant decisions about the organization of a software system, the selection of the structural elements and their interfaces by which the system is composed, together with their behaviour as specified in the collaborations among those elements, the composition of these structural and behavioural elements into progressively larger subsystems, and the architectural style that guides this organization these elements and

(Kruchten 2004).

is the process of translating business vision and strategy into effective enterprise change by creating, communicating, and improving the key principles and models that describe the

7.

The following additional definitions for Enterprise Architecture concept are presented:

e Architecture is a discipline that helps the enterprise define, develop and exploit the boundaryless information flow capabilities in order to achieve the enterprise strategic intent.

ure is a management practice to maximize the contribution of an agency s resources, IT investments, and system development activities to achieve its performance goals. Architecture describes clear relationships from strategic goals and objectives through investments to measurable performance improvements for the entire enterprise or a

The ArchiMate Foundation:

isational structure,

Enterprise Architecture focuses on the whole enterprise and functional relation between its components. It provides a holistic view of an organisation aiming to design and implement systems. It can be considered as a tool to help the organisation to create capabilities to be

flexible and react to the environmental changes and meet the market demands. It defines the rganisational strategies,

requirements and operations (Minoli 2008; Ross et al. 2006).

(Zachman 1987). Enterprises have been

applying EA practice in the context of a wide range of complex organisational and technological challenges from designing business operation models to developing an

ificance. EA provides a holistic view of the organisation by designing its elements and their relationships. It presents an expression of the enterprise key strategies with impact on business processes, functions and roles. Designing and modelling current enterprise structure reveals its challenges and problems and gives a picture of current business weaknesses and problems. Having a clear picture of an organisation helps to re design the current structure in order to manage internal or external changes. (Minoli 2008). Implementing EA enables IT to create more value for the organisation internally as well as within collaboration and customers (Bradley et al. 2011a). It builds organisational elements as interrelated components and presents a (Bradley et al. 2011a). EA enables organisations to reflect their business strategies in enterprise functions (Ross et al. 2006). It presents and describes the logic of organising IT and business processes aligned with business strategies (Bradley et al. 2011a). EA principles and guidelines optimise IT usage in organisations services delivery by designing flexible systems with high availability (Proper and Greefhorst 2011). Also through designing united systems, EA reduces IT costs and eliminates redundancy of systems and technologies. The following potential benefits have been outlined by practitioners and researchers (Tamm et al. 2011; Wisnosky and Vogel 2004):

Higher flexibility and ability to respond to change Faster development cycles Improved resource rationalisation Cost reduction through improved efficiency and higher productivity Improved planning capability and cost effectiveness More effective integration and interoperability Improved access to corporate information

Due to the variety of EA use, it may cover different layers in organisation as a business or technology artefact. TOGAF Enterprise Architecture contains four layers of architecture

the EA concept. According to TOGAF Enterprise Architecture contains the following domains which are addressed by most EA frameworks (Minoli 2008):

organisation, and key

and data management resources

deployed, their interactions, and their relationships to the core business processes of

required to support the development of business, data, and application services. This includes IT infrastructure, middleware, networks, communications, processing, and

EA is an ongoing process to manage internal and external changes and to re-engineer the whole organisational structure in terms of business processes, data, systems and infrastructure to adapt to the new environment. It gives a clear picture of target plan and underpins decisions regarding systems, data, infrastructure, rules and management responsibilities (Hoogervorst 2004). As a framework, EA is a collection of process, best practices principles and templates that assist and guide to describe, develop and design, evolve and change the object (Components, their relationship internally and to the environment). Enterprise Architecture consists of the following:

Common vocabulary, model, and taxonomy Processes, principle, strategies and tools Reference architecture and model Prescriptive guidance Catalogue of architecture deliverable and artefact Enterprise Architecture Content Metamodel Recommended set of products and configurations

4.1.3 What Actually is a Business Architecture The term architecture in business design, refers to structures, metamodel and methodologies that enables business to function as a socio-technical system. Looking at business design

s, in

Business Architecture (BA) is a multidisciplinary concept which integrates the fundamental disparate concepts of an organisation to guide its transformation to the target or new organisations. BA is an ongoing process (Hoogervorst 2004) that represents the real world aspect of the business and integrates the fundamental concepts of an organization to guide its transformation to the target or new organizations (Josey 2009).

At this point it seems that there is some confusion around Business Architecture. This confusion comes from research and industry where the BA is used for various purposes and in different scopes. They are mainly IT centric that aim in guiding enterprises in IT investment decision making. However in the domain of IT architecture a multitude of tools and concepts already exist such as TOGAF. However there is no common understanding of

the main concepts of BA (Burton 2008a) as a business centric strategic tool, and no holistic BA framework is available.

Table 6 illustrates the various definitions for EBA;

Business Architecture Definition Reference

Business Architecture :describe the fundamental relationships between a business

(IBM/ BisADS

blueprint of governance structure, business semantics and value streams across the extended enterprise. It articulates the structure of an enterprise in terms of its capabilities, governance structure, business

(BAWG 2009a)

business processes information, as well as the interaction between these concepts. It describes the product and/or service strategy, and the organisational, functional,process, information, and geographic aspects of the business environment, based on the business principles, business goals, and strategic drivers.

( The Open Group 2009a)

BA is that part of the enterprise architecture process that describes through a set of requirements, principles and models the future state, current state and guidance necessary to flexibly evolve and optimize business dimensions (people, process, financial resources and organization) to achieve effective enterprise change.

Gartner, 2008

Table 6: Enterprise Business Architecture Definitions

orchestration, as well as operationalizing the value proposition (Ross et al. 2006) within the chosen ecosystem of the business. This definition indicates several important elements that create the foundation for BA practice.

It is all about business: The most fundamental aspect of BA is that it represents the abstract model of business components. BA focuses on the essence, structure and overall transparency of the business. As such, its focus is not necessarily on all aspects of business, but it addresses the essentials that represent a business.

Business components integration and orchestration: It is about business elements, their interrelationships and principles of its design and evolution. It provides a guideline to effectively structure, bundle and leverage business components/capabilities both internal and external to the business.

Operationalizing value propositions: BA provides a great deal of transparency in a business that allow managers/executives to streamline planning which helps to create the foundation for the business to move from strategy to value proposition execution

Business ecosystem: An organisation is an active member of various ecosystems of firms. Business Architecture must, therefore, be able to represent portions of a business environment that have mutual interaction.

4.1.4 Contextual Concerns in Business Architecture Practice Architecture practices are applied to provide rigorous description of enterprise components in a context in which the enterprise operates. The context refers to the major situational conditions that determine the effectiveness of different architecture approaches. Architecture approaches support enterprises in managing, integrating, and evolving its components within their environmental contingencies. A key contribution of architecture practice is aligning the operation design with business stakeholder needs. Furthermore the context of use for an architecture practice should have the capability to support different contexts.

The context, related to internal and external contingencies, defines and shapes the architecture practice. It is crucial to explicitly identify and integrate the architecture context to the architecture practice in order to improve the alignment of operation to its mission and vision as well as its dynamic environments (Antunes, G. 2011).

An architecture capability is determined not only during the design time (Strategic Context 8) but also during implementation (Implementation Context8) as well as during business evolution (Environmental Context) when the time comes. Architecture approaches should produce models that identify and analyse organisational context, requiring -specific or adaptable Saat, J 2010). By reflecting organisational context and domain-specific characteristics on architecture components the problem boundaries can be clearly established. C omain specific concerns can be proposed. Context is defined by identifying different users, environment, and services and further is refined by what, who, where, and why (Hervas 2010).

4.1.5 Modular Architecture A related architecture approach is mo

(Schilling 2000)

Increased level of modularity in a system/object enables the system components to be separated and combined with much greater flexibility (Pil and Cohen 2006) to respond and adapt to its environment. The idea of modularity has been applied to various domains, including IT system and architecture, product and organization(Schilling 2000).

Daft and Lewin (Daft and Lewin 1993) proposed a ncept as a new paradigm that promises to meet continuously change and solve problems through interconnected coordinated self-organizing

(Daft and Lewin 1993). The organizations who adopt the modular (loosely coupled) form, are be able to create flexible configurations and maximize their flexibility (Sahaym et al. 2007). In a loosely coupled form they gain flexibility through use of strategic alliances and contingent workforce. In this form the elements of the organization are responsive but retain evidence of separateness and identity (Orton and Weick 1990).

Modularity in the architecture concept, facilitates resource/capability manageability by reducing interdependency among the modules (Pil and Cohen 2006), and ultimately enabling dynamic capability within the organization (Galunic and Eisenhardt 2001). The modularity principles can be applied to a variety of organizational components such as strategy (Richard and Devinney 2005), process, capabilities and services (Seth et al. 2011).

Modular object design requires, first segregating objects into logical blocks that can be

and related parameters, and third, specifying the components/modules, interdependencies (interface) and formalizing their relationship into visible design rules (Baldwin and Clark 2000). They consist of description of: architecture, the identity and role of components in the object, interfaces, rules specifying how the components interact, process for integrating the components and governance to test manage the object and embodied components performance. Figure 16 depicts the Modularity design rules presented by Baldwin (Baldwin and Clark 2000).

Figure 16: Modular Design Rules: Adopted by Service Oriented Architecture

As shown in Figure 16 the design rules, which are defined based on modules interaction and relationship, are inputs in the architecture process. The modules, components and interdependencies are defined and completed iteratively based on the knowledge gleaned from experience with previous architecture and to ensure that their interactions reach the desired value.

4.2 Organization Building Blocks Although it has been sa (Morgan et al. 1997), there are a number of concepts and coordination mechanisms from organizational design that have been used as building blocks in organization frameworks.

Mintzberg considers activity based decomposition for an organization design. He breaks down an organization into five basic task-base parts which are, Strategic Apex, Middle line, Operating Core, technical, and support staff (Mintzberg 1993). Other decomposition parts in the organizational and management science include process/routines (Pentland and Feldman 2005), service (Karmarkar 2004), knowledge, role/human (Davis and Smith 1983) oriented decompositions.

In response to an unstable environment caused by innovation and increasing intensity of en introduced (Grant 1996). Business capabilities which are

representing what the organization does to earn its living (Helfat and Peteraf 2003) have been introduced as the (Grant 1991). They are characterized

(Crick and Chew 2013).

Using organizational capability-based analysis provides common understanding of market position and its dynamics (Collis 1994a). This provides an adequate way to understand and

e proposition. In the positioning of a advantage from differentiation is attributed to its supply of uniquely configured resources, product and services at a point in time (Porter 1985). Nevertheless RBV attributes the

continually innovative (Grant 1991). Here is what researchers and practitioners have realized is the essence of organizational design and architecture that provides the best capability orchestration that allows the generation of effective innovation.

The organization capabilities are idiosyncratic and show strong elements of continuity, therefore they advance the evolutionary nature of the firm (Dosi et al. 2000). They are known

(Winter 2000). They contribute to more effectively choose and implement business activities. While they involve the transformation of physical inputs into outputs, they function as the best complement to technologies(Collis 1994b). A capability driven approach to business strategic development provides strategic solutions that are both internally (in changing business contexts) and externally (in line to technological changes) fit ( ).

Nevertheless in the context of business design and architecture business capability is an appropriate unit of analysis. Capability-based approach in business/enterprise architecture practice helps to simplify the BA practice and demonstrates the business value of the subsequent architecture practice to the firm executives (Blosch and Burton 2013). Therefore it makes it easier to engage the firm executives with the BA practice. It also helps to orchestrate business components into specific and identifiable capabilities which provides a

powerful tool to model and define their relationships with the business ecosystems (Burton and Allega 2014).

It has been said that business capabilities are context-aware (Henkel, M. 2016) which sought to deal with aligning changes in the environment with enterprise development and management. A business capability is designed to perform a business purpose for a specific situational context. In essence, a business capability formulates and fulfils the requirements to align business strategic direction with processes and resources by distinguishing the business context in which the certain business processes and resources operate (Sandkuhl K, 2014).

4.3 Value Proposition and Value Co-creation The identification and characterisation of value proposition in management science goes back to the mid-eighties (Bower and Garda 1985; Lanning and Michaels 1988) and since that time the concept has been used by many researchers in management and organisation domains.

(Kaplan and Norton 2001). Developing and executing superior value proposition leads to sustained competitive advantage and improved financial advantage (Kambil et al. 1996).

The initial works describe a value proposition as a promise of value to customers that positions a firm in favourable points of difference (Kambil et al. 1996; Kaplan and Norton 1996) s,

(Kaplan and Norton 2000). is the key in developing a value proposition concept.

(Kaplan and Norton 2000).

- -D) perspective (Lanning and Michaels 1988) - -D) perspective (Vargo and Lusch 2004). In G- ped to resonate with customer needs by applying traditional means such as market research (Anderson et al. 2006). It is driven by the notion of marketing as a value-adding activity (Porter 1985). Whereas in S-D perspective firms offer value proposition in which different actors such as supplier, business partners, allies, and customers collaborate in the creation of value hat value-in-exchange will be linked to value-in- (Lusch et al. 2007). Align with later perspective, more recently the notion of value proposition has moved from a customer-supplier perspective to a broader view that includes multiple stakeholders or actors within a business ecosystem (Vargo and Lusch 2011).

The value proposition with S-D logic has two main aspects: co-creation of value and the importance of resource and capability integration (Gummerus 2013). The value proposition is

crafted based on the sense of the value that the customer is expecting (Payne et al. 2008). The value is co-created by establishing cooperative practice between the actors within the entire value proposition process (Ballantyne and Varey 2006). Furthermore, in a move towards

the firm, its customers, and other stakeholders may collaboratively co-produce or co-define the internal and external resources in order to execute the value proposition i.e. co-creating

- (Grönroos and Voima 2013). In the new approach that the value proposition is created and developed in a collaborative environment of the business ecosystem, the resources and capabilities can be leveraged and integrated from different entities (Vargo et al. 2008).

In essence the two aspects of S-D logic have provided the foundation to build a theory of -co-creation configurations of people, technology,

value propositions connecting internal and external service systems, and shared informati (Maglio and Spohrer 2008). Service system entities interact via value propositions (Spohrer and Kwan 2010). According to service science value co-creation is

service systems that can contribute to system well-being as determined by the environmental context (Vargo et al. 2008). The global economy is a large service system in need of

(Maglio et al. 2006) and developing business with service is a key goal for enterprises (Eggert et al. 2014).

A great way to craft the firm value proposition is through understanding its business model. Business Model notion has been defined with different perspective e.g. economics, organization performance (Christoph Zott 2007), strategic management (Teece 2010) and innovation (Onetti et al. 2012). Despite the diverse body of conceptual and analytic research and the lack of consensus on the business model definition, some commonality can be recognized in the business model articulations within scholarly literature. First, Business Model is a

a firm along with its boundaries e.g. partners and stakeholders. Third, it provides the rationale of how firms create, deliver and capture value. While current business model frameworks loosely map value proposition with business component, it is important to inclusively architect and consciously address the outcome of business strategies and model from the abstract to the tangible and functional level (Ross et al. 2006).

Nevertheless, the concept of value proposition as articulation of business strategy provides a useful foundation for developing business architecture. Crossing the value proposition development and service domain principles into architecture domains brings remarkable potential in establishing an agile value proposition (Fraser 2007). Implementing value

sustainable business (Teece 2010). BA is a model for articulating and formalizing organization structure and the way an organization operates in terms of capabilities, processes, knowledge/information in line with its business strategies (Glissmann and Sanz 2010). Customers and dynamic market should be the main attributes in BA in which business

strategic goals are aligned with the decisions regarding key initiatives, products and services, partners and suppliers. Since the value proposition concept emphasizes the role of the customer and focuses on their co-created value (Magretta 2002), I argue that reflection of value proposition in business architecture practice helps to manifest customer/stakeholder requirements in a s the co-created value. This will be best facilitated by applying the value co-creation principle from service science (Maglio and Spohrer 2008) to the integration of BA and value proposition which is the key to innovative business design and development (Cavalcante et al. 2011; Teece 2010).

4.4 Organisational Dynamic This section is drawn on elaboration of the organisation science and management theories

adjustment to the environmental contingencies and identify the outfit and interrelationships between the business external and internal elements that interact to co-create value.

4.4.1 Resource Based View and Dynamic Capability Dynamic capability has been introduced in strategic management science in order to understand how firms can dynamically sustain a competitive advantage by responding to and creating environmental changes (Teece 2007). The concept initially has been proposed (Teece and Pisano 1994) to expand the Resource Based Theory (RBV) that is regarded as a static view (Wernerfelt 1984). The RBV regards the unique resources of an organisation as the primary source of competitive advantage.

According to (RBV) organisation success is driven by valuable - (VRIN) and heterogeneously distributed within the

organisation (Barney 2001; Barney et al. 2011; Wernerfelt 1984; Wernerfelt 1995). These resources that include all assets, capabilities, organisational processes determine the enterprise success and source of value creation (Connor 2002; Kraaijenbrink et al. 2010; Maritan and Peteraf 2011). Despite the significance of this view, it does not adequately

a dynamic environment could be provided.

The original definitions of dynamic capability was the

(Teece et al. 1997). Further dynamic capabilities are regarded as the

intangible, and human assets) (Helfat et al. 2007). It is also characterized as processes which es to

resources to enhance competitive advantages (Teece and Pisano 1994). In this regard Teece (2007) identified three types of process: those that support sensing and shaping opportunities; those that support seizing those opportunities; and those that support managing threats and transforming the business to maintain competitive advantage (Teece 2007). They were also

(Eisenhardt and Martin 2000). In order to obtain a better understanding of the dynamic capability view, in Table 7 various definitions are presented:

Dynamic Capabilities Definition Reference

products and processes and respond to changing market circumstances (Teece and Pisano 1994)

(Eisenhardt and Martin 2000)

n of collective activity through which the organization systematically generates and modifies its operating

(Zollo and Winter2002)

" Dynamic capabilities are those that operate to extend, modify or create ordinary capabilities "

(Winter 2003)

"Dynamic capabilities are the abilities to reconfigure a firm's resources and routines in the manner envisioned and deemed appropriate by its principal decisionmaker"

(Zahra, Sapienza etal. 2006)

"Dynamic capabilities firm's behavioral orientation constantly to integrate, reconfigure, renew, and recreate its resources and capabilities and, most importantly, upgrade and reconstruct its core capabilities in response to the changing environment to attain and sustain competitive advantage".

(Wang and Ahmed 2007)

"Dynamic capabilities are the capacity of an organization to purpose fully create, extend or modify its resource base".

(Helfat, Finkelsteinet al. 2007)

threats, to seize opportunities and, to maintain competitiveness through enhancing, combining, protecting, and when necessary, reconfiguring the busine

(Teece 2007)

formed by its propensity to sense opportunities and threats, to make timely and

(Barreto 2010)

Table 7: Dynamic Capability Definitions

a current position with a new position leading on to strategic changes and better performance (Teece 2007). They address concerns around management decision making, processes, organisational learning, and growth in the context of environmental change. They have a

direct impact on a formance and indirect impact through resource orchestration and reconfiguration (Eisenhardt and Martin 2000).

While dynamic capabilities are concerned with strategic issues, their development in an organisation involves multiple levels of analysis, from strategic level to operational level and to business ecosystem (Helfat and Peteraf 2009). They are an evolutionary, learning-based, repeated practice (Eisenhardt and Martin 2000; Winter 2003) which is essentially specific and

ow effectively a capability performs Also

dynamic capability enables an organisation to make a living by creating, extending, or modifying its resource base [in line with the external environment] (Helfat et al. 2007).

Notwithstanding dynamic capability concept and its conceptual framework provide another lens through which to view and develop architecture practice in a dynamic environment context. In fact it can be said that business/enterprise architecture is positioned in the higher level of abstraction that manages/configures the firmcapability. The identification of architecture practice as a strategic tool that manages/acts on dynamic capabilities, opens up evolutionary thinking to the enterprise architecture research domain that has often been neglected. This research intends to explore this knowledge gap. It would shed light on applicability and measurement of the architecture practice within an organisation.

4.4.1 -evolution Influenced by biological ecosystem, business ecosystem is defined as an open, loosely coupled, domain clustered, demand driven, self-organising entities environment, where each entity is proactive and responsive regarding its own benefit but is also responsible to its ecosystem (Moore 1993). In a business ecosystem, organisations work cooperatively and competitively to support innovation and value creation. Organisations form a part of business ecosystem that cross a variety of industries. The business ecosystem provides an environment that thrives on heterogeneity, learning, connectivity, and mutually influencing interaction.

Business ecosystem as an overarching context provides the social and economic context for exchanges between the entities inside and across the ecosystem. It extends business value proposition and creation beyond consideration of enterprise relationships with its customers and other stakeholders. A business ecosystem includes the owners and other stakeholders of these primary species including government agencies, regulators, associations, standards bodies, and representatives of the host community. To one extent or another, an ecosystem also includes direct and indirect competitors that, as circumstances shift, may also be collaborators(Moore 1996).

The business ecosystem influences the structure and architecture of the enterprises and of their social and business networks. In such an environment, organizations, as socio-technical systems, are characterized as consisting of a large and diverse number of internal and external

elements that interact to co-create value. The constituting elements (technology, organizations, and people) of business ecosystems are inherently dynamic (with emergent behaviours), and such dynamisms must be accommodated in the organization design and structural configuration of an enterprise (Volberda and Lewin 2003).

Developing business architecture in the context of business ecosystem requires adaptation of multiple theoretical lenses. Business architecture can be shaped by the ecosystem dynamics such as resources/capabilities, and/or industry rules and regulators. Architecture rules and standards that take into consideration ecosystem dynamics are particularly potent in such a dynamic environment where speed and strategic flexibility are essential. In essence BA should shift the level of analysis from discrete execution to the external strategic relationships that may significantly affect organisational capabilities development and hence the scope of value co-creation. The relationships include not only those within the industry value chain (i.e. buyers and suppliers), but also those with other firms (complementary) and institutions (regulators).

A business ecosystem consists of modular and decentralized entities along with processes for recombining these entities. The business architecture should facilitate flexible recombination

s/capabilities to leverage changing opportunities. Thus such a BA can benefit from modularity principles and information transparency.

Ehrlich and Raven (Ehrlich and Raven 1964) introduce the term coevolution and use it to describe the reciprocal evolution that results from the interactions of unrelated species. Different species coexist in an ecosystem in which adaptation by one type of entity alters the fitness landscape of other types of entity, that is, action is reciprocal. In an organizational setting, McKelvey (McKelvey 1999) considers coevolution and competitive behaviour of

significanceare fundamentally interrelated and co-evolving. They must have adaptive/learning capability and be able to interact and mutually influence each other (Lewin et al. 2004; Volberda and Lewin 2003).

This perspective also provides a foundation for developing an evolutionary business architecture practice, to understand the contextual conditions under which it is effective and enables a firm to co-create value within its ecosystems. In essence organizational design and architecture play a vital role in comprehending and responding to environmental contingencies that confront organizations (Ethiraj and Levinthal 2004).

4.4.2 Contingency Theory

Contingency theory is a prominent branch of management sciences that regards the performance of the firm as dependent on its specific operating conditions and environment (Child 1975), rather than on the unique set of resources the firm is able to deploy, as with the resource based view (Wernerfelt 1984; Barney 1991). According to contingency theory there is no specific best way to define enterprise structure. In preference the optimal business

structure is contingent upon the various internal and external environments (Fiedler 2005a). The co-evolutionary nature of a firm (Volberda and Lewin 2003) requires its adaptation to the environmental contingencies (Ethiraj and Levinthal 2004).

Enterprise strategic development using a contingency-based approach tailors the strategies that guides an organization to manage uncertainties within dynamic environments (Donaldson 2001; Ginsberg and Venkatraman 1985). This is consistent with the necessity of flexible strategies in small and medium enterprises to gain competitive advantages in dynamic environments (Aragón-Correa et al. 2008; Noke and Hughes 2010). Strategic orientations toward collaboration and market contingencies can determine the form of collaboration networks and facilitate value creation (Noke and Hughes 2010).

This perspective also provides the foundation for developing an evolutionary business architecture practice, which incorporates the contextual conditions under which a business is effective and enables the firm to co-create value in the chosen ecosystem. At the same time organizational design and architecture play a vital role in comprehending and responding to environmental contingencies that confront organizations (Ethiraj and Levinthal 2004). In essence business architecture is determined and shaped by path-dependent evolution of a

-technical capabilities as well as its ecosystem contingencies.

According to contingency theory, organizations are able to accomplish their objectives when their structures and strategies are aligned to particular elements of their contextual technological and institutional environments (Donaldson 2001). Contextual environments for SMEs are defined as social/political, technological, collaborative network/partner, and customer/market.

.

5

This section presents final version of the proposed Business Architecture Reference Model (BARM). It has been iteratively defined, evaluated, and refined using the afore-described design science research methodology (Figure 4) in Chapter 2. After completing each stage of this research methodology (Figure 4) the proposed BARM is evolved and refined. The experience gained from each stage including continual feedback by EA experts executives, have been incorporated into the evolution of each iteration of BARM design. Summary of the changes made to BARM at each stage of this design science research, is presented in the relevant section as follow:

Desk Validation Overall Analysis Result

Peer Review-Conference Papers Results

MSA Case Study Result- Evaluation

IHealth4Me Case Study Result- Evaluation

REC Case Study Result-Evaluation

The overall evolution of BARM is summarised in section 7.5.2 BARM Refinement.

5.1 Conceptual Foundation for BARM The growth and evolution of BARM in term of components and approaches, have led to the need for a common foundation in order to set the basis for better understanding, communicating and stimulating further evolution in this area.

The conceptual foundation of BARM is structured to address strategic development requirements and their organisational dynamics. I structured the foundations around architecture science and business design as well as strategic management theories and organisational science. Figure 17 illustrates an overview of the conceptual foundation of BARM.

Figure 17: Conceptual Foundation of BARM

5.1.1 Architecture Science and Business Design

The first stepping stone for this research is drawing on architecture definitions and principles (AMICE 1993; Force 1999; Williams 1998; Zachman 2007) as a guide to develop the proposed BARM foundation. In developing the Business Architecture Reference Model (BARM) I also have adapted established and proven architecture frameworks and principles based on,

Zachman principles and architecture abstractions (Zachman 1996),

BAWG business architecture views (BAWG 2009a),

TOGAF Architecture Development Method (TheOpenGroup 2009),

modular design (Pil and Cohen 2006).

(What, Where, When, Why, Who and How) to describe and analyse SMEs architecture

components/views (compared to BAWG views). Using these questions allows us to simplify the business architecture concept and explain the architecture of SMEs in an organized way. It also allselected business requirement and related scenarios, without losing sight of the overall enterprise context. The interrogatives of Zachman EA framework guide the overall positioning of the business architecture components in BARM.

interdependency between two business components. The modularity is attained by the elimination of unnecessary relationship and unambiguously defining the necessary relationships. An important property of this approach is that the impact of environmental contingencies is localized within a specific business component or sub-components. This results in increasing the adaptability of business as a system in dynamic environment.

5.1.2 Strategic Management Theories and Organizational Science

With the first stepping stone in place, I move to the second conceptual foundation which is based on elaboration of organisation science and management theories that address the

requirements in response to the dynamic environments. The second foundation is built upon: value proposition/value co-creation (Kaplan and Norton 2001), resource based view (Grant 1991; Wernerfelt 1984), dynamic capability (Teece 2007), evolutionary theory (Lewin et al. 2004), and contingency theory (Donaldson 2001). Together they support organization architecture adjustment to the internal and external contingencies.

As the starting point in developing business architecture in the business ecosystem context, I follow the coevolution behaviour of firms that asserts that there is mutual adaptation between the ecosystem entities. The principles of co-evolving organisations are defined to recognise

-evolution rate of the systems (including institutional configuration, industries, social movement, etc.). The context has been defined as business components, competitors, customers, suppliers, Government agencies, trade associations, and labour unions (Moore 1996). These are the entities from the co-evolutionary core of the business ecosystem in which change by one entity will likely lead to reciprocal change by the other entities. Therefore, in developing BARM I analyse and map a SME at the level of its chosen ecosystem. I unambiguously define close relationships and interactions between internal business components and ecosystem key entities/actors with which they co-evolve.

others or impact directly on the firm value proposition. Figure 18 illustrates co-evolutionary relationships between the ecosystem entities and business components that is adapted from (Moore 1996). The architecture in the business ecosystem content must focus on socio-technical aspects of both internal and external business components-including their relationships-to enable innovation and enterprise-in-environment adaptation.

Figure 18: Business Components and Ecosystem- Adapted from Moore 1996

Second, I adopt a value proposition perspective to build business architecture of a firm driving value co-creation within a business ecosystem. Following this perspective I aim to

operation level which is vital to sustained value co-creation. The primary reference point in this adaptation is the potential value co-creation- described by value proposition- in the business ecosystem which applies to all actors within the chosen ecosystem. BARM provides a strategic view of business components that reflects the integration and implementation

the requirements for the architecture of its business.

Third, grounded in Resource Based Theory I attempt to structure, orchestrate and integrate

-technical business capabilities that are; valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable. Therefore using BARM, I aim to connect the firm resources and capabilities to the strategic direction of the firm and provide a roadmap on how a SME can leverage, develop and manage socio-technical capabilities. In addition in

capabilities that contribute in achieving competitive advantage, are distributed across the firm and within the business ecosystem in which the business is functioning.

As dynamic capabilities are evolutionary, the perspective is well suited to define the architecture of a business in a changing environment over time. However the architecture

practice needs to be deployed more or less continuously in order to create requisite value. In

rest of the business components are formed around these capabilities.

The implication of Dynamic Capability in developing BARM is twofold. First is the adaptation of micro foundation of DC in mapping and integrating internal and external capabilities which enables the firm to create sustained value in a dynamic ecosystem. In fact BARM with its focus on external business components (business ecosystem), helps SMEs to define dependencies between business capabilities-including dynamic capabilities-with the rest of the business elements that are crucial for successfully executing strategies and

dynamic capability. It enables a firm to operationalize its business, direct strategic change and feature the external environment. Building on Teece framing in DC micro-foundation, the architecture capability serves the capacity to ensure integration, reconfiguration, and transformation of the business as the ecosystem evolves. Given the dynamic nature of the ecosystem, SMEs need to institutionalize continuous architecture practice in order to effectively manage continual adaptation. This might involve continuing incremental changes as well as business transformation, and trigger different circumstances including but not limited to structure, capabilities and technological changes.

I also follow the four business design principles, proposed by Haeckel (Haeckel 2013), for creating an adaptive organisation and achieving dynamic capabilities:

Dynamic Commitment of resources through personal accountabilities and procedures.

Designing modular business capabilities (Processes).

Designing processes that enable learning.

Designing firm-specific governance mechanisms that help the firm to clearly articulate expectations, responsibilities and shared activities/capabilities.

5.2 The BARM Place in a Company In order to get a better understanding of the BARM and its role, it is important to explain how it is positioned in the company. As indicated in the previous section a business architecture defines the organisation logic of business which provides requirements for their integration, orchestration and operationalization within a chosen ecosystem of firms. As such I develop

its core socio-technical business components- to enhance internal fitness- aligned to the dynamics external fitness. This allows SMEs to use BARM to design or define the

-evolve with the ecosystem dynamics in line with the business strategic direction. Mapping these three environments enables an

enterprise to enhance its external and internal fitness in both strategic level and operational level. Therefore, as illustrated in Figure 19, BARM, forming a triangle, represents the

intersection between an oecosystem.

architecture, is a new approach to re-join three different schools of thought. BARM as a strategic tool facilitates execution of strategy in alignment with dynamic ecosystem. It provides shared and common understanding of business function as a system and facilitates communication between the three heterogeneous and widely spread systems. Following

(2004) strategy maps manifesting the business internal fitness- and evolutionary and Dynamic Capability theories manifesting the business external fitness-, I explain the BARM role as the intersection between the three realms.

Figure 19: Business Ecosystem, Value Proposition, Strategy and Business Architecture

5.2.1 Operationalizing of Value Proposition-Internal Fitness

Using the BARM capacity to orchestrate and integrate socio-technical internal and external capabilities, the first element of the triangle represents the BARM ability to operationalize

operational Operational excellence refers to the strategy management capability that helps to identify and focus on the right things to provide differentiated value to the customer. It involves the ability to execute strategy and ensure continuous improvement over the long term. Customers and dynamic market should

be the main attributes in BA in which business strategic goals are aligned with the decision regarding key initiatives, products and services, partners and suppliers. Since value proposition of a firm ll create value for them (Kaplan and Norton 1996; Magretta 2002), I argue that reflection of value proposition in business architecture practice helps to manifest customer/stakeholder

RM is the means by which business will achieve the differentiated value proposition for the customer.

This will be best facilitated by applying value co-creation principle from service science (Maglio and Spohrer 2008) to the integration of BA and business model which is the key to innovative business design and development (Cavalcante et al. 2011; Teece 2010).

5.2.2 Managing Business Ecosystem Dynamisms/External Fitness

This relationship represents the role of BARM in assisting to adapt and shape the ecosystem. I also argue that BARM enables the enterprise to enhance the capacity of sensing, seizing, and integrating opportunities offered by the ecosystem through the orchestration of internal business components as well as external capabilities. This is depicted as Dynamic Capability (DC) that helps the enterprise to manage the rapidly changing environments (Teece 2007).

5.2.3 Business/ICT Architecture Alignment

BARM provides organisational alignment where the reflection of three areas is appropriately represented and deployed from the ICT perspective. It is bel

(Whittle and Myrick 2004) which unites the enterprise to a form a harmonious whole.

5.3 BARM Introduction

usiness components, their significant relationships, and for the development of consistent architectural principles and specifications supporting strategic development and execution of SMEs9. BARM contains structures, metamodel and methodologies that guides business functioning as a socio-technical system and is used as a base for instantiating business architecture for a small and medium enterprise.

BARM provides a base for logical division of business components which makes it easier for

domain.

BARM is a reference model and is used as a template for composing business components. This means that it is not directly tied to any technologies or standards, but aims to provide common semantics

different business scenario/requirements. As such BARM can be specialized for different business scenarios. The requirements and goals of the SME of the specific architecture practice is critical input during the BARM development, so that the individual instance of business architecture may vary in scope, component and composition.

Referring to the original architecture definition I have defined a reference model framework that incorporates the following components:

Business Architecture Component: A conceptual model and constructs that cover fully or partially internal and external business domain/components

Business Architecture Metamodel: Outlines the key relationships between the architecture components

BARM Implementation Process: describes the implementation process of the BA reference model and techniques that are used in the specific context in which the BA can be developed for a specific SME.

Business Architecture Notation of the framework elements

5.4 BARM Architecture Components

In order to define the Business Architecture Reference Model, I first identify five internal and three external main business areas that constitute the essential business components of a SME. Figure 20 illustrates an overview of the architecture reference model, its main internal and external components, their high level relationships, and how the pillars of the reference model are linked to SMEs value proposition.

As shown in Figure 20, n positioning market, products/service, and business operation model which are defined as a firm value proposition, define requirements for BARM. Conversely BARM provides foundation for the firm value proposition establishment and execution. Therefore a business value proposition is a starting point for BARM practice.

Figure 20: BARM Architecture Components-Overview

Influenced by the BAWG business architecture views and organisation science and strategic management theories, I propose a reference model which highlights the following internal and external business elements

Internal Elements o The Business Strategy view (How aspect)

components are defined and fit together in order to create competitive advantage. It provides clarity and direction to business requirements/scenario.

o The Business Capabilities view (What aspect), describes what the business

o Business Service View (What aspect), provides boundaries that link the business to the technical level with great details of business services, their performance metrics, the people responsible, and their interconnections.

o The Business information/Knowledge View (What aspect), establishes the shared semantics which form the vocabulary that the organization relies upon to communicate and structure the understanding of the areas they operate within and external environments.

o The Organizational view (Where/Who Aspect): In this view I define people/responsibility and locations

External Element o Institutional Environment o Macro Environment o Competitive Environment

In order to define the second level of granularity in BARM, the aforementioned architecture components have been broken down into a set of interrelated sub-components. The 8 architecture components are decomposed into 20 sub-components. This decomposition allows conceptualizing the proposed business architecture on lower level of granularity and in more details to meet specific business requirements. Figure 21 illustrates the overall view of the BARM components and sub-components.

Figure 21: BARM Internal and External Components and Sub-Components

These elements and sub-elements are a synthesis of the architecture science and business design, strategic management theories, and organizational science that are described in section 4 and 5.1.

5.5 Notations and labelling of BARM Components and Related Elements 5.5.1 BARM External Elements

The external elements in BARM reflect extensive and diverse theoretical perspective to ground the implication of BARM on environmental adaptation and managing changes. They are seen as the exogenous context determining institutional, competitive, and macro environments conduct and structure (See Figure 22).

The external elements are defined based on the adaptation theory to the environment which is proposed by Lewin. According to his proposition a firm adaptation occurs in three levels of institutional, macro and competitive environments (Lewin et al. 2004).

5.5.1.1 Institutional Environment

Dynamism around institutional boundary in SMEs is reflected by numerous social control agencies including regulatory agencies and standards. Institutions are social structures that are constructed by humans to provide stability and meaning to life (Poole and Van de Ven 2004). In the organizational context they condition the characteristics and action of organizations (Dacin et al. 2002). Institutional environment directly determines the behavior of a firm, including internationalization and its capacity to create competitive advantage. Institutional arrangements and their impact on an organization are diverse and in some cases difficult to understand. Their regulations internal hiring) or to organization in an industry (e.g. technology standards, rules of market competition). Their pressures may also vary in form, quality, or state over time (Scott 2013). At the same time ses to the institutional environment are contingent upon their size, industry, level of participation in collaborative network.(Scott 2013).

Institutional environment in BARM includes the regulatory agencies, professional trade associations and scientific/technical communities that legitimize, regulate, and standardize a technology.

A regulatory agency is a government department that has responsibility overseeing and enforcing the compliance with a given sector. They can impact a variety of businesses through regulation on products, antitrust rulings, compliance laws, and so on. As an example in the US the Federal Trade Commission voiding a proposed merger of Microsoft and Yahoo, out of concerns that a combination of the two companies would have an unfair competitive advantage in the market.

Professional and trade associations are membership organizations, usually non-profit, which serve the interests of members who share a common field of activity. Professional associations have the additional objectives of expanding the knowledge or skills of its members and providing professional standards. The definition of a profession is an occupation that requires considerable education and specialized training, such as medicine, law, accounting, and engineering. However, many use the term more loosely to encompass any coherent occupation class. There is a fine line

between professional associations and scientific or academic societies, especially in certain fields, such as the applied sciences or education. Academic societies aim exclusively at advancement of the discipline, rather than being concerned with the methods of practice and economic well-being of the members.

5.5.1.2 Competitive Environment

In the business ecosystem customer, partners, and competitors based on market structure participate in resource integration and creating value, even in the face of competing and

ecosystem. Therefore, the customer, suppliers, and competitors, in the competitive environment are considered as having a must determine its role in interacting with its partners, customers and competitors to deliver an appropriate value proposition. The business architecture determines which actors interact and how the SME leverage/share the required capabilities.

In developing BARM I focus on different aspects of architectural change using the business level as a unit of analysis. The external environment impact also is analysed from the business level of analysis. In this regard I link the architectural components inside the firm with architectural elements of the competitive environment.

As illustrated in Figure 22, competitive environment in BARM is composed of:

Market structure: represents size, entry barriers, product differentiation, location, and requirements which directly determine the firm conduct and strategy.

Customer: Customers have diverse motives for engaging in resource integration practices, and increasingly wish to co-create personalized experiences, sometimes using the same resources, but creating unique and phenomenologically determined value for themselves (McColl-Kennedy et al. 2012).

Key partners: represents the list of partners, agreed policies and procedures and joint processes, capabilities, services and clear relationship of the boundaries between a firm and its partners.

Competitors: A company should have a model that describes its position in the competitive landscape compared with its competitions.

5.5.1.3 Macro environment Macro environment refers to the uncontrollable forces that indirectly impact on a operation and working condition. In BARM macro environment is composed of social, political and technological elements.

The political factors affecting business are often given a lot of importance. Several aspects of government policy can affect business. All firms must follow the law.

-cultural

environment, the rate of emergence of new technologies, and acceptance of new technologies.

The social element represents the norms and standards that form behaviour, attitudes and value of the society that a business operates in. Social forces impact on the nature of products and services in demands.

Technological element consists of the factors related to knowledge applied and the material and machines used in the production and delivery of products and services

Figure 22: BARM-External Components

5.5.2 BARM Internal Elements

5.5.2.1 Strategy View-How Conceptualization of strategy has evolved from the conceptual SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis of 1960s deep insights from both the Industrial Organization Economics literature and Organizational Economics literature (Ghemawat 2002). Strategy is about providing a company vision, designing an organization that achieves a fit between internal strengths and weaknesses and external threats and opportunities (Learned et al. 1969), positioning the company in the market (Porter 1985), defining a set of goals and objectives (Drucker 1988), the steps to achieve them and the way to measure them (Kaplan and Norton 1996). According to Porter

business strategy involves defining a the marketplace, making the hard trade-offs about what

the company will and will not do to provide value to customers, and forging hard to replicate

(Porter 1996). Enterprise structure and its culture that are shaped by the well-defined strategies, values and policies along with their execution determine the quality of products and services offered and produced by companies.

In essence environmental contingencies and competition have become crucial factors in the . The business strategies need to be formulated in a way that

suppliers, potential entrant, and substitute products and services (Porter 2008). (Fiedler 2005a; Waterhouse and Tiessen 1978).

In BARM the strategy orientations were defined emphasizing the dynamic competitive strategies developed by Thomas in 2009 (Hutzschenreuter and Israel 2009) which comply

(Donaldson 2001). The contingency approach to enterprise strategies tailors the strategies that guide organization to manage uncertainties within dynamic environments (Ginsberg and Venkatraman 1985). This aligns with the necessity of flexible strategies in small and medium enterprises which determines the form of collaboration and facilitates value creation within a dynamic ecosystem (Aragón-Correa et al. 2008; Noke and Hughes 2010).

Adapted from Porter (Porter 1996) the business strategy view focuses on the

elements of wha (Porter 1996). Therefore, in line with his in

order to creates competitive advantage and according to irst refers to the simple consistency between each

activity and business strategy. Second is the fit that occurs when activities are reinforcing.

information exchange across business components (Porter 1996).

However, this approach is not similar to what Zachman has proposed. He considers strategies and motivation of the enterprise in the

d

Sub-components in this view are defined in line with co-evolutionary theory (Volberda and Lewin 2003). It is proposed to adapt business to the contingencies which occur in three levels: first organization level which links internal capabilities and strategies, second level that links company to competitive environment, and third level which adapts the company to

(Lewin et al. 2004). As illustrated in Figure 23 the strategy view

Internal strategies: Refers to strategic initiatives that guide SMEs to overcome their internal constraints and improve their innovative performance. Oana Branzei identified three internal strategies of; human capital, process and product (Branzei and Vertinsky 2006). (Hutzschenreuter and Israel 2009; Noke and Hughes 2010).

/or emergence of new capabilities which is believed to enable superior performance. Product strategies

efforts within a technological domain. Process strategy reflects the initiatives which aim at increasing the efficiency and effectiveness on internal product/service development.

Competitive Environment Strategies: refers to strategies that guide SMEs to respond to the dynamisms that occur in; market, partners, competitors.

Macro Environmental Strategies: refers to the strategies that guide SMEs to respond to the contingencies that occur in social, political and technological level. These strategies mainly focus on a structure and strategies to maintain alignment with changing technologies, and social and political factors. A technology strategy is a set of decisions, related to the use and development of technology is intended to confer advantage to the firm.

Figure 23: BARM-Strategy View

5.5.2.2 Business Capability View-What: According to the resource based view, heterogeneity of capabilities is a source of competitive advantage and a key factor that grants competitive advantage (Teece 2007). Business capabilities are enumerated as the main constraint in SMEs. Being the source of competitive advantages, requires defining appropriate capabilities which are viable economically, performable with measurable outcome (Helfat and Winter 2011) and also are aligned with

nd requirements (Collis 1994b).

The business capability view which is considered as a core in the proposed reference model, I

have adopted the notion of capability presented in strategic management literature as a firm a specific

which has root in resource based view (Peng et al. 2008)representing organizational processes reflecting the human aspect, that utilize and perform business capabilities to deliver value (Crick and Chew 2014; Grant 1991; Teece et al. 1997). In a more clear definition presented by (Teece 2007) capabilities are enterprisan organization to perform a coordinated set of tasks, utilizing organizational resources, for

. In this research I adopted this definition and followed three features that are proposed by Hefat and Winter (Helfat and Winter 2011) to identify SMEs capabilities;

Each capability has a specific and intended purpose The ability to perform particular activities The performance driven by the capability is repeatable and reliable

competitive advantage (Rangone 1999); the first is ability to develop new products and processes, and achieve superior technological and/or management performance (e.g. development costs, time-to-market). The second is, production capability, which is the ability to produce and deliver products and services to customers, while ensuring competitive priorities, such as quality, flexibility, lead time, cost, and dependability. The third ismarket and sell its products effectively and efficiently. Likewise managing collaboration networks within an entire collaboration lifecycle to facilitate the collaboration processes is seen to be a challenging task and also important for SMEs (Adler et al. 2011a; Camarinha-Matos et al. 2009b; Chiu et al. 2006a). SMEs should be able to gain collaboration advantages through reconfiguring and combining resources across organizational boundaries (Msanjila and Kamuzora 2012). The company should be able to exploit and create value from the collection of networks resources, manage inter-organizations conflict and collaborate functionally within the networks value chain (Allred, Fawcett et al. 2011). Furthermore SMEs need to develop their collaboration capabilities to perform effectively across networks of organizations in both inter-functional and inter-organizations aspects.

Influenced by capability topology presented by Day (Day 1994), I break down the capability view to second level and map SMEs critical capabilities (identified above) to the capabilities

presented in this topology. As shown in Figure 24 the capability topology contains three types:

-out Capabilities, refers to capabilities from inside the firm in response to market requirements and opportunities (e. g. production and service/product delivery).

Outside- refer to externally oriented capabilities in order to sense and anticipate market requirements and decide how best to meet them (e.g. market sensing, customer relationship management, network sensing, and network relationship management).

Capabilities are the capabilities that integrate the company inside-out and outside-in capabilities (e.g. learning and new product development).

Figure 24: BARM-Business Capability View

Table 8 presents the firm capabilities topology adapted from Day (Day 1994) and mapped to

Outside-in Spanning Inside-out

Market sensing Learning Production

Market relationship

Management

New product development

Knowledge Management

Service and product delivery

Network sensing

Network relationship management

Table 8: Business Capabilities Topology Adapted From (Day 1994)

Aforementioned business capabilities can be further refined to address a specific business context. The business context encompasses the information specific to the situation in which a business capability is defined, used, and enabled. The business context may affect operationalization of a capability as well as its performance and outcomes (Sandkuhl, K. 2014).

It is beneficial to model the context surrounding the business, specifically business capabilities, to understand how capabilities adhere to changes in execution (Berzisa, S. 2015). The context around a business capability can be analysed by identifying its users (people), information, processes, environment, services and technologies.

5.5.2.3 Business Service View-What Business service view represents specialized (knowledge and skills) through deeds, processes and performances for the benefit

(Vargo and Lusch 2004). The business services are an adaptive system of people, processes, systems, and applications and infrastructures that are working together to create value to different levels of stakeholders (business units, customer, suppliers and networks).

Following service science proposition (Maglio et al. 2009) business services are defined as applications of business capabilities for the benefit of stakeholders/customers. Deriving a fit-for-purpose business service from a business capability requires a rigorous understanding of the underling capability logic ( 2014). Following Resource Based View I will identify strategic goal (Grant 1991) and position the company to sustain a competitive advantage. Figure 25 illustrates the business capability view, consistent with the capability definition presented by Peng (Peng et al. 2008), as well as the services that are mapped to a different level of capabilities and related processes. The business services derived from the capability view, are well defined, encapsulated, reusable, business driven with clearly outlined

operation, input, outcomes and visible metrics. As shown in Figure 25, services can encapsulate specific business capability or sub-capability, group of capabilities or business processes performing the capabilities. Therefore the size and scope of the logic represented by the services can be varying.

Figure 25: Business Capability and Service View

In BARM the service view is mainly driven by capability view. Therefore as shown in Figure 26 business services in the second level are defined as:

Figure 26: BARM-Business Service View

Following service oriented design rules in this view I specify service role, operations and stakeholders/users (exciting and potential). In order to reach reusability and agility in service view, the services are defined with the highest level of consistency with capability logic (Baldwin and Clark 2000; Erl 2005).

The business services will be linked to ICT services and the requirements for their implementation. So the value (outcome) and stakeholders are the points to define structure and nature of required ICT services. Furthermore business service view provides a foundation for designing the application and services that will be supported by the technologies. It also guides the company in the investment, assessment and reuse of the IT applications and systems.

5.5.2.4 Information/Knowledge View-What Information and knowledge are valuable resources in both large and SMEs. They play a significant role in facilitating enterprise decision making and sustainable value creation (Wiklund and Shepherd 2003). More importantly SMEs require accurate and reliable information in order to discover and exploit opportunities (Wiklund and Shepherd 2003), choose the best or most appropriate resources and capabilities within networks (Lee and Lan 2011).

Learning, information, and knowledge are the main elements of organization that can help build and develop dynamic capabilities within an enterprise (Eisenhardt and Martin 2000). Furthermore information has gained special attention in integrating organizations horizontally and within networks of organizations (Richard and Devinney 2005).

More specifically some researchers recognize the importance of information architecture which can acquire, analysis, and store information for SMEs from the business ecosystem (Chan and Chung 2002a; Saiz et al. 2010). SMEs across their chosen ecosystem must open up their knowledge process where they acquire knowledge from external sources. Therefore they need to consider knowledge exploration, retention and exploitation inside and outside their boundaries (Lichtenthaler and Lichtenthaler 2009).

In this view information structured by BARM will be used to specify, develop, and validate internal knowledge and external knowledge (see Figure 27).

External knowledge refers to generated knowledge/information from external resources that are collaboratively congregated to be utilized by firms (Choi et al. 2008b; Fjeldstad et al. 2012).

Internal knowledge includes both tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge that are generated inside the firm. Furthermore, the information/knowledge view constitutes internal knowledge and external knowledge.

Figure 27: BARM-Information/Knowledge View

The knowledge is determined by strategic orientation of SMEs and enabled by people (TheOpenGroup 2009). This view brings humans and dynamics to the how aspect (processes) proposed in the capability view. According to knowledge management theories, knowledge involves know-how and information (Helfat et al. 2007). Know-how refers to the capabilities and expertise and information comprises facts that may be codified. In this regard various BA components are involved in internal and external knowledge exploration, retention, and exploitation.

5.5.2.5 Organisation View-Who/Where In the new digital economy, as global companies grew and their geographic expansion unfolded, more and more businesses have been able to decentralize their resources, capabilities and market and business partners. Consequently companies need to reshape and reinvent their organizational structure in different settings and new global enterprises around the world (Fjeldstad et al. 2012)to locate their business, resources, and where to choose target market, partners to collaborate with and also determine who/responsibilities in these locations) are important decisions that the owner/manager of a company has to make.

The organizational view represents the geographical context as well as the responsibilities/roles which could influence the density of possible external capabilities and resources that mig (see Figure 28). In this view I define people/responsibility, locations where the responsibilities are performed, as well as customers and partners. I also define the relationships among people, capabilities and business location

and responsibilities, the decomposition of those business locations into subunits, and the internal or external management of those units.

Figure 28: BARM-Organisational View

5.6 BARM Metamodel: Interdependencies Between the BARM Components

BARM metamodel outlines the key relationships between the architecture components and provides architectural contents to support capability orchestration capacity and Value co-creation/appropriation within dynamic ecosystem. Figure 29 illustrates BARM metamodel and the interdependencies between architecture components. Table 9 illustrates the one to one relationship between each architecture components. I simplified the relationship between the BARM components in a two-dimensional matrix depicted in Table 9. These relationships are represented in the cells, that is, the intersection between the BARM components. Each cell represents mapping from column (e.g. strategy) to each row item (e.g. capability).

The interdependencies are guided by architecture principles which are consistent with dynamic capability, SMEs constraints and requirements, and external dynamisms. It identifies consistencies between components and provides guidelines for consistent business architecture design. The fundamental relationships are presented in two categories to internal and external fitness of the architecture in line with dynamic organizational evolution. These relationships are explained below:

Figure 29: BARM-Metamodel

The fundamental relationships between BARM components are presented in Table 9 to show the organization logic of business components which guides SMEs to manage their constraints by orchestrating their socio-technical resources/capabilities. It guides SMEs in their value creation/appropriation by aligning value proposition with business strategy and defining strategic fitness both internally and externally.

Business architecture component orchestration and integration:

o With the aim of enhancing external fitness I mapped the capability view to the institutional and macro environment where SMEs can utilize adequate capabilities through partnership, sensing market requirements, linking to the customer, bonding channels, engaging in industry, and monitoring technologies. Mutually the SME capabilities are shaped by market demand, industry architecture, as well as technology changes. Some environmental (e.g. government policies, technology changes) circumstances also affect capabilities which might initiate change in the capability or retire the capability (Helfat and Peteraf 2003).

o Business capabilities are driven by SMEs strategies (Stanford, 2007). At the same time performing strategies requires different types and levels of capabilities (Sirmon and Hitt 2009). Capabilities involve individual/team (organisation view/who) to coordinate and perform the related process (Helfat and Winter 2011). The capabilities are incrementally enabled and orchestrated by business services. Service view is linked to organisational vi(customers, partners and internal staff) and are simultaneously performed/used by them.

o The business services are enabled as a result of the configuration of people/processes, information, and technologies (note: an instance of this configuration constitutes an organizational capability) that mutually create value. The customer/stakeholders are connected and interact by value proposition. The firm strategic position which is reflected in its value proposition (Porter 1985) drives changes into business service in both scope and extent (Tinnilä 2012)value proposition, business strategy and services and enables the firm to establish

-creation process (Lusch et al. 2007; Vargo and Lusch 2004).

o The creation and transformation of information more importantly tacit knowledge (which is not easily communicated) require constant interactions between people (including partners, customers and staff) over time (Teece 2000). The tacit knowledge, as the main interest in this research, also co-evolves with the capability and service view to establish the learning process in related processes (Winter 2003).

Strategy Capability Information Organizational Service Macro Environment

Institutional Environment

Strategy Realized by/ drives changes to/ define requirements

Realized by/ drives changes to/ define requirements

Realized by/ drives changes to/ define requirements

Realized by/ drives changes to/ define requirements

Realizes Realizes

Capability

Realize Acquire Performed by Performed Shaped Shaped/Shape

Information

Feeds/Realizes

Feed Feeds Feeds Realizes Realizes

Organizational

Realizes/Shaped

Performs Utilizes Performs/ Utilizes Realizes/Shaped Realizes/Shaped

Service Realizes/Shaped

Performed by Utilizes Performed Realizes Realizes

Macro En

Drives Shapes/Changes/Drives

Shapes/Changes/Drives

Shapes/Changes/Drives

Shapes/Changes/Drives

Institutional En

Drives Shapes/Changes/Drives

Shapes/Changes/Drives

Shapes/Changes/Drives

Shapes/Changes/Drives

Table 9: BARM Internal and External Components Relationship

Value co-creation/appropriation within dynamic ecosystem:

o I elaborate on SME value creation/appropriation in the architecture reference model by defining dependencies between BARM components, to the firm value proposition (VP). To that end I positioned BARM at the level that helps SME first enhance internal and external fitness within its value proposition and second shape, define and change requisite value proposition model for execution. Changes driven from the evolutionary

platforms that enable SMEs to change their value propositions and collaborate in powerful new ways with their customers, partners within the dynamic ecosystem. Likewise I believe that unambiguously mapping and correlating the value proposition to the BARM components, provide the SME with a capacity to ensure strategic alignment of value proposition to business strategy, especially its internal and external fitness. The fundamental relationship between BARM components and the value proposition are represented and explained in Table 10.

o The relationships between external components and internal components of BARM represent the requirements for SMEs adaptation within the business ecosystem. They also define the relationships between internal and external BARM components are explained in Table 10.

VP and External components

Mapped to Internal Components

Selected dependencies and relationship

Key Partner

Strategy view This relationship represent contingency theory for defining partnering strategy

Outside-In capabilities

This relationship represents the requirements for evolutionary and

acquired/leveraged

Organization view

This relationship determines who is the partner and where is its location

Service View This relationship represents the shared services/solutions.

Knowledge view This relationship represents shared knowledge base between partners and the firm.

Market Structur

Strategy view This relationship represents contingency theory on defining strategy toward customer segmentation

e and Customers

Capability view This relationship represents service science and value co-creation in service and capability configuration.

Service View This relationship represents service science and value co-creation in service and capability configuration.

Information view (tacit knowledge and learning

This relationship is built to reflect learning whereby the value delivered to customer is realigned based on the performative experience from the customer (or stakeholders).

Organization view

This relationship determines who is the customer and where is its location and the people who deliver value

Institutional Environment

Strategy View This relationship determines the business strategy decisions in entering into a new market.

Capability View This relationship determines the degree of alignment between the capabilities in given institutional environment.

Service View This relationship determines the degree of alignment between the business services in given institutional environment.

Knowledge View This relationship determines the degree of alignment between explicit knowledge in a given institutional environment.

Organization View

This relationship determines the degree of alignment between the roles and responsibilities in a given institutional environment.

Value Proposition

Strategy view This relationship represents contingency theory for creating value

Capability view This relationship represents RBV and DC on capability view

capabilities represent the knowledge, skills, tacit knowledge, and processes to deliver value (via services).

Service View This relationship represents value co-creation principles on defining and delivering services

Information view (tacit knowledge and learning)

This relationship is built to reflect learning whereby the value delivered to customer is realigned based on the performative experience from the customer (or stakeholders), which is also mapped to service and capability view to reflect the customer feedback.

Table 10: BARM Components and Value Proposition Interdependencies

5.7 BARM Implementation Process BARM implementation process describes the method for developing and managing a business architecture practice within SMEs using the proposed BARM. As illustrated in Figure 30 the BARM implementation process follows a basic chain of logic and at the same time is proposed as an iterative and evolutionary process.

The BARM implementation process s management/executives team in order to solve their strategic development and management (including execution) problemsimplementation. They will work closely together to define, create, refine and reach closure on solutions and deliverables. Using this process I aim to support participatory actions in reaching a shared cognition which establishes learning (Yeo and Marquardt 2010).

Using the principles of agile methodology (Highsmith 2002), based on an iterative and incremental approach, the framework will be implemented as a scenario-based practice. In line with the agile methodology the iterative and scenario-based nature of BARM implementation outputs are delivered incrementally, enabling some benefits to be realised early on in the project. It encourages active SME managers involvement throughout the BARM application which in turn establishes learning. The small incremental scenario based approach helps to identify any issue early and make it easier to respond to change.

I also complemented this process with the principles derived from the theories that built the BARM conceptual foundation.

Figure 30: BARM Implementation Process

Step 1: The goal for this stage is first to specify the context in which the business operates and second to identify how the business works. The identification of the context for a business is based on the external and internal conditions in which the business is working. I identify and assess internal and external ecosystem business components according to the Business Model Canvas framework (value proposition) (Osterwalder 2004) and the ecosystem model presented by Moore (Moore 1996) . I use the Canvas model as a mean of

(Stähler 2002). Although the Canvas framework can be criticised as being less definitive about the ecosystem architectural integration, it has been known as a simple tool to describe business model requirements. In Table 11 I have listed the 8 components in the Canvas along with a description of each component. The financial aspects of the framework are outside the scope of this research.

In order to identify ecosystem elements I have added 3 main ecosystem elements, based on the Moore ecosystem model (Moore 1996).

Canvas/Ecosystem Elements

Elements Description

About the business Introduction

Business Goal and Strategies

Strategy is about achieving a fit between internal strengths and weaknesses and external threats and opportunities, positioning the company in the market, defining a set of goals and objectives, the steps to achieve them and the way to measure them

Customer Segments Formal decomposition of the individuals or organisations interested in a

Value Propositions (Product/services)

Ways in which a business seeks to satisfy a customer

Channels Communication, distribution, or partner vehicles used to deliver value to customers

Customer relationships

Ways in which business maintains strong and lasting communication with customers

Key Activities The work that must be performed in order to deliver value (fulfil the value proposition), derive revenue and manage cost structures

Key Partnerships Third parties that deliver products and services to a business

Key Resources/capabilities

The people, funding, technologies or other assets required to deliver customer value (fulfil the value proposition)

Social and political factors that impact on business

Several aspects of government policy can impact on a business. All firms must follow the law. Political decisions affect the economic environment, the

-cultural environment, the rate of emergence of new technologies, acceptance of new technologies.

Government agencies and other regulatory bodies

A regulatory agency is a government department that has responsibility over the legislation for a given sector. They can impact a variety of businesses through regulation on products, antitrust an example the Federal Trade Commission voiding a proposed merger of Microsoft and Yahoo, out of concerns that a combination of the two companies would have an unfair competitive advantage in the market.

Professional associations

To specify professional associations and their impact on SME

Table 11: Analysing As-Is Business Adopted from Canvas and Ecosystem Model

Step 2: In the second step I define business scenario in order to outline SME business requirements/problems and specialize BARM to address the identified requirements. I adopted Intuitive Business Scenario Planning technique (Huss and Honton 1987) in order to articulate business requirements to address; key business drivers, related business decisions, internal and external (environmental) factors, and the implied architecture requirements (Fraser 2007). This relationships among economic, political, technological, social, resources and environmental

(Huss and Honton 1987). Through this technique several plausible narratives about the SMEs internal constraints and environmental contingencies will be constructed (Huss and Honton 1987).

Scenario based approach allows for uncertainty and ambiguity in the macro and institutional environments to be acknowledged in SME requirements in business and architecture terms as well as its strategic development. This approach s (Foster 1993) in the architecture practice, resulting in learning for the management team and helping to evolve and govern the architecture practice beyond current business requirements. This process also helps managers to expand their planning horizon beyond short term and internal contingencies (Bradfield et al. 2005). Intuitive approach in defining business scenario, that is most frequently used, defined by Stanford Research Institute International (SRI) (Huss and Honton 1987) includes 8 steps:

1. Analysing the decisions and strategic concerns

2. Identifying the key decision factors

3. Identifying the key environmental forces

4. Analysing the environmental forces

5. Defining scenario logics

6. Elaborating the scenarios

7. Analysing implications for key decisions factors

8. Analysing implications for decisions and strategies

At the same time business scenario technique in architecture development is introduced by TOGAF in order to drive enterprise architecture requirements directly from business and identify business requirements that need to be addressed by architecture practice (TheOpenGroup 2009). The TOGAF method in defining business scenario consists of seven steps:

1. Identifying, documenting and ranking the problem driving the scenario

2. Identify the business and technical environment of the scenario

3. Identifying and documenting desired objectives

4. Identifying the human actors (participants) and their place in the business model

5. Identifying computer actors

6. Identifying and documenting roles, responsibilities and measures of success per actor

7. Checking for "fitness for purpose" and refining only if necessary

I adopted the methodology in defining business scenario by SRI and the process introduced by TOGAF shown Figure 31:

In order to specialize BARM in context business requirements can be associated with all or some of the BARM elements, implying that the specialized BARM elements meet the business requirements. The specialization lets the situation-specific requirements be realized by the BARM elements. However specializing BARM in a specific business context or need, requires a general knowledge of that context. It is important to capture the unique patterns of the context that define the specialization in BARM.

In the adopted business scenario creation process, first I analyse SME strategic development requirements by concentrating on the key business problems. In step 2 the scope of the architecture will be specified. Once the problem/requirement is identified the internal and environmental factors (institutional and macro environments) that influence the architecture scope and decision will be specified. The core in this process, is business scenario elaboration in an applicable business architecture logic. The architecture based scenario logic helps to organise primary architecture components, principles, and assumptions. This logic should encompass most environmental and internal contingencies and at the same time be open to be refined and revised. Based on business strategic development requirements and concerns, in the next step I define measures to validate the architecture outputs and results. All these steps need to be reviewed and refined, as required, to ensure that all SME concerns are addressed in the resultant scenario.

Figure 31: Adopted Business Scenario Creation from SRI and TOGAF

Step 3: In this step I refine and define business strategies. The business strategies determine how a firm satisfies the requirements from the value proposition. Therefore the value proposition is a vital starting point in developing business strategies (Kaplan and Norton 2000).

Step 4: In this step through an iterative cycle I develop architecture descriptions that address the key business challenge outlined in the business scenario. This phase includes the following steps.

Defining business strategies

Building business capabilities

Defining business locations and responsibilities

Defining business services

Defining and building information/knowledge model

Step 5: business objectives and business requirements. Based on the evaluation outcome the architecture solutions will be reviewed if it is required.

Step 6: In this step transformation plan will be developed. Transformation plan determines and prioritizes the implication for any changes that are expected to be proceeded (e.g. ICT adaptation). The output is presented as a set of principles, implementation guideline/roadmaps which guide the SME through changes (e.g. providing a road map to facilitate a business decision-making process toward cloud computing migration).

5.8 Business Architecture Principle Architecture principles are the key elements in the Enterprise Architecture (EA) area and are most important for BA practice as a principle driven discipline (Minoli 2008). To get more practical results from BARM, SMEs should review the compliance of architecture with respect to the suggested principles. For this purpose a clear definition of each principle, structure and its implication are also needed to be presented. In this research BARM principles are defined based on EAP (Enterprise Architecture Principle) method presented by TOGAF. Each principle is formulated:

Name: represent the essence of the rule and it should be easy to remember.

Statement: Should succinctly and unambiguously communicate the fundamental rule.

Rationale: Should highlight the business benefits of adhering to the principle, using business terminology.

Implication: Should highlight the requirements, both for the business and IT, for carrying out the principle - in terms of resources, costs, and activities/tasks. (TheOpenGroup 2009).

The proposed principles are defined, first to address architectural and structural design (See Table 12), second to affirm that the desired level of internal and external fitnesses are achieved. The former relates to architecture work that guides the architecture process, affecting its development and applicability for SMEs. These principles enable SMEs to make consistent decisions in using BARM to meet their goals. The latter category refers to simple rules that a firm aspires to as it attempts to create sustained value within dynamic environments following dynamic capability concept.

Architectural/ Structural Principle:

Derived from Business Architecture Body of Knowledge (BusinessArchitectureGuild 2014) I apply the following core architectural principles:

Principle Name Statement Rational Implication Reference

Principle 1

Iterative BA practice is a repeated process that is continuously completed over the time.

managers are the key stakeholders in the BA practice. In order to ensure that the architecture is aligned with

requirements, build knowledge and experience, they need to be involved in all the processes in such a way that they understand, learn, and own the BA as capability for further development.

Stakeholders collaboration and interactions over process

achieve early feedback

Improve the process continually

(BusinessArchitectureGuild 2014; Highsmith 2002)

Principle 2

Reusable The proposed BA practice will be utilized and applicable in various business scenarios

Changes are constant opportunity to evolve the business. Proposed BARM would help SMEs to embrace the opportunities in various changes.

As new requirement and needs arise the BA framework can be adjusted and reused for.

(BusinessArchitectureGuild 2014)

Principle 3

Business oriented

Business Architecture is all about designing the business

It is about transformation of?? the business. BARM enables SMEs to align the business with strategy and technological changes

Transformation requires a relentless outside-in focus. The focus should first be applied and assess with top-down approach starting from business.

(BusinessArchitecture Guild 2014)

Principle 4

Context Awareness

BARM as an architecture reference model is contextual

The context in which the firm operates shapes the business architecture

Understand and model the business context can be a mean to cope with environmental contingency

The open Group, TOGAF version 06.

Table 12: Architectural Principles

Principles to achieve internal and external fitness

In order to articulate the principles that guide establishing internal and external fitness through BARM practice, I define principles in each viewpoint that guide the steps associated with individual components for that purpose.

Strategy View Principles: BA is a strategy driven management discipline and in the proposed framework case is strongly influenced by an ever changing macro and institutional environment. In this environment the dominant paradigm in the BA strategy level is the dynamic environment which determines the strategy direction (Augier and Teece 2009; Teece et al. 1997)direction drives the DC capacity within the organisation (Ambrosini and Bowman 2009; Zhou and Li 2010).

Business Capability and Service View Principles: In this view, three principles are identified. First is customer/stakeholder engagement which implies the value co-creation with the stakeholders in services. Second principle in this component refers to maintaining capabilities or resources such as technology or structures while acquiring or leveraging new capabilities/services. This is because

a critical issue for SMEs due to their limited resources and capabilities (Catteddu and Hogben 2009; Dillon et al. 2010; Sultan 2011). Third is modularity principle which facilitates resource/capability manageability by

reducing interdependency among them, (Pil and Cohen 2006) and ultimately enabling dynamic capability within the organization (Galunic and Eisenhardt 2001). Modular object design requires, first segregating objects into logical blocks that can be developed in parallel and integrated as needed, second, describing the

specifying the components/modules, interdependencies (interface) and formalizing their relationship into visible design rules (Baldwin and Clark 2000).

Knowledge/Information View Principles: There are some considerations in managing information and knowledge for SMEs especially for those which are acting within networks of enterprises. In order to facilitate the knowledge

an important issue.

into consideration (Chan and Chao 2008; Wiklund and Shepherd 2003). The next aspect is sharing the enh the learning and decision making process (Gnyawali and Stewart 2003). As a result of above, review and accessibility, accuracy, reliability, and sharing are the principles that are defined in the knowledge/information view.

Organisational View Principles: Designing business oriented architecture requires concentrating on interactions and establishing close relationship in the organisational level more especially between service provider and stakeholders. This requires the application of maximum interaction as a core principle in this view.

Business Architecture View

Principle Name Statement Rational Implication Reference

Strategy View Principle 4 Dynamic environment orientation

Dynamic environment determines the strategy direction

BA is strongly influenced by the dynamic environments Macro environment

Institutional environment

(Augier and Teece 2009), (Zhou and Li 2010)

Capability/ Service View

Principle 5 Customer/stakeholder engagement

Customer and stakeholder to be engaged in defining and delivering services

Delivering value to its stakeholders is ultimate goal.

Service co-create value (Chesbrough and Spohrer 2006), (Maglio and Spohrer 2008)

Principle 6 Control Managing new resources and capabilities

and services or even change of the capabilities or resources.

Acquiring or leveraging new capabilities/services

(Catteddu and Hogben 2009), (Dillon et al. 2010)

Principle 7 Modularity BA components can be separated and recombined

Improving manageability and flexibility by reducing interdependency among services and capabilities

High degree of independence between design components by standardizing their relationship

(Baldwin and Clark 2000; Pil and Cohen 2006) (Haeckel 2013)

Information/ Knowledge View

Principle 8 Accessibility Access to external and internal information

To facilitate the knowledge enhancement from external sources

Communication channels

(Chan and Chung 2002a)

Principle 9 Sharing Information

Sharing information within organisational

To capture information and improve innovation, and facilitate learning

Improve process and tools to share knowledge and

(Wiklund and Shepherd 2003), (TheOpenGroup

view information 2009)

Principle 10

Accuracy Accurate information effects on decision making and innovation

Information validation (Wiklund and Shepherd 2003)

Organisation View

Principle 11

Interaction Maximum interaction within organisation view.

Designing business oriented architecture, knowledge sharing, co creation value

Internal and external communication channels

(Gruber 1995; Haeckel 2013)

Table 13: Principles in Achieving Internal and External Fitnesses

5.9 BARM Specialization and Adaptation As a generic reference model the BARM is intended to be applied and used in a variety of SMEs in terms of size and industry, with different context, requirements and challenges. It supports variability in order to be applicable in a variety of SMEs, so that the resulting specialized BARM meets the particular needs of each SME. To establish business

ic requirement. Therefore BARM can be translated and specialized to a business context for a

derived from BARM by adapting, extending and/or partially modifying the generic model.

BARM can be tailored as a customized model suitable for a specific SME by eliminating unnecessary parts. It also can be adapted as a customized model suitable for a specific SME by modifying, updating, and fine-tuning related components. This helps to establish a specific business architecture based on an understanding of BARM to meet the need of a specific

specialized BARM should comply with the particular application context. Application context depends on SME specifics as well as requirements of different user groups within SME.

In order to comply with particular application contexts, BARM is to be aligned to a specific business to comprise concepts that facilitate an easy and efficient adaptation process. The main advantage of BARM specialization is that the knowledge and capability captured in the reference model serve for constructing the specific business architecture without imposing a detailed solution.

I start the specialization by defining business scenarios that are differentiated by practice-specific typology. Each scenario is a concrete representation of the use/purpose/need to which the BARM will be applied for. The scenarios are grounded for architecture decisions which a development requirements. These requirements are envisioned as possibilities to be enabled by BARM.

In order to define a business scenario I elicit a clear articulation of the business case that is driving the development of the BARM (e.g. cloud computing transformation, executing collaborative business model, and executing IOT based business model). During this step I

e identifying the primary drivers for the architecture practice. Then I refine the business area which is affected by the architectural design decisions, so that I can consider these decisions. More details on specializing BARM are provided in section 5.7.

6 -

6.1 Interviews-Industry Experts and SME’s Executives Desk-validation of BARM occurred between June 2012 and November 2013, through collecting independent feedback from senior managers. The interviews were conducted in order to desk-effectiveness, completeness, simplicity and understandability (March and Smith 1995). In doing so, I use rather different approaches for the two groups of participants.

The first desk validation was conducted with SMEstep, 4 interviews were conducted. Due to lack of knowledge of the domain within SMEs, face-to-face long interviews were conducted in more than one session. In the initial meeting I

c architectural requirements and examining how the interviewees and their companies plan to execute strategies. This helped requirements for BARM in the later sessions and also served as an indicator especially for SMEs as to their receptivity with the use of the concepts. In the later sessions I presented

etc.). Then interviews were conducted to seek their feedback. Each session took place in 60 to 90 minutes.

The second validation was comprised of an examination of BARM attributes through one-on-one interviews with selected experts. Six interviews were conducted with enterprise/business architecture experts and consultants. In each session a short description of the BARM attributes was provided in advance to the interviewees. This was reinforced through a 10 minute presentation of BARM, followed by a 30-45 minute discussion to elicit feedback on the reference model.

veness, completeness, simplicity and understandability, the interview had been developed containing 10 questions grouped into two categories (see Table 14 below). First category refers to the questions on

cond category refers to the questions on framework completeness and fidelity with real world and applicability in SMEs.

The intent of the interview was to obtain critical feedback on the BARM design. Consistent with the nature of interview the participants were encouraged to provide qualitative comments that might guide enhancements of the reference model, rather than rating the framework on a scale of perceived value.

6.1.1 Interview Analysis and Findings Not surprisingly, very few SMEs and consultants used the architecture practice for the SMEs.

There is a strong need for strategic planning within SMEs but I haven’t seen managers using the concept of architecture as it used by large organisations”. Interestingly the owner of one small recruiting company had mapped out his external and internal relationship of its business components without having any knowledge of architecture concept. This could be seen as the use of some sort of architecture concept. Some of both expert Table 14.

Table 14 presents the questions and an overview of their outcome (favourable is shown as P, reluctant as N, and neutral answers as E). The interview analysis along with some of the

opini

Question Domain Validation Questions

Interview Out Come

Questions on

requirements for BARM as a strategic management tool

How do you/SMEs plan to align business strategies to operational level?

I don't know how many start-ups I've seen where they have no clue what capabilities they need.” “…Our (a SME’s) systems and business structures are defined by experiences and based on new projects as well as the government policies.”

applicable to SMEs? “As you describe, SMEs often don't have the resources/time to be as formal as some larger organisations. But at the same time specific industry & associated expectations & regulations/compliance requirements should affect/influence the model all practice” “The level of BA practice can vary quite significantly. So the model needs to be comprehensive and adjustable for e.g. a business with less than ten people making 2 million a year and a local data centre turning over 10 million a year with 20 or so” “… Next comes the problem of how BA can help us (SME) deal with "changing environments". That one is tricky.”

How does an architecture model help you/SMEs to create/sustain competitive advantages within dynamic environments?

“…Having a set of tools with some guidance can benefit even the smallest of businesses as it helps define what needs to get done.” “…A business architect with BA tools can go a long way to helping structure the company, set up the organization and get everyone on the same page in terms of process, roles and services.”

Question Domain Validation Questions

Interview Outcome

Expert1

Expert2

Expert3

Expert4

Expert5

Expert6

SME1

SME2

SME3

SME4

Questions on framework completeness

In your opinion is the proposed model, components, relationships and related terms simple and understandable for SMEs?

p

N P N P

E

N P P

E

and fidelity with real world and applicability in

SMEs real world and applicability in SMEs

How could such a model help a SME define/execute strategy related to business, market and collaborative network?

N P N P P

P P P P

P

How could this model enable SMEs to react in dynamic environment (Changes in ICT, market and business ecosystem)?

P P P P N

P P N P

N

to structure, manage ICTs and associated capabilities?

P E N P P

N P N P

P

How such a model could serves you/SMEs as the architectural guide for executing value proposition?

P

P E P N

P

P P N

P

In your opinion what elements are missing? P P N, Q P N, Q P P P P N

In your opinion what elements should not belong to the model?

P P P P E P P P P N

Indicators; P: Positive answers N: Negative answers E: Neutral answers Q: Quote Table 14: Interview Structure and Outcome

Impression on BARM simplicity and understandability for SMEs: In the first question I aimed to find out if in the interviewees opinion BARM was a suitable guideline for SME architecture. with SMEs due to the fact the you have chosen the business scenario in an iterative architecture process development is more effective in order to build required knowledge” his major concern was that” the level of "business architecture" you want to get into here can vary quite significantly… so their business should be understood first the model tailored based on their business and industry model”. Another architect insisted on the role of business/industry expert as an important architecture team member. Three adjusted BARM (managers. They all were satisfied with the presentation where they could see a sneak peek of their business architecture. A manager of a government agency, was required to implement the

although the big picture seems a bit new for us, it is very great that you can see whole and their relationship in a page. It is useful to make a decision on business priorities”.

The responses to the first question have been analysed and illustrated in Figure 32. Only 30% of the interviewees reported negative feedback, with 20% remaining neutral on BARM simplicity and understandability.

Figure 32: Interview Analysis- Impression on BARM simplicity and understandability

: The idea of articulating business ecosystem entities and their relationship in an architecture model were gained through Q2 The key to the model is to explore the results that these entities produce for each other and I would like to see how that works in reality When pointing business transformation, I infer that you want to support these businesses in terms of looking forward to possible changes in the industry, and how they might need to react, or possibly even articulate to themselves how their existing capabilities can be leveraged and repurposed in order to drive change to their competitive advantage. I can see all can be seen in your model”. I would be really interested to be able to follow your progress, because I think you have zeroed in on something really important. It seems to me that we are moving into an age of decentralization and distribution of enterprise of all kinds, and we are going to need new institutions to manage this transition and beyond

The manager of a small manufacturer that is an active member of the textile community, saw the value of institutional environment in mapping out on its business strategies and capabilities and impact on its operation. I like the fact that I can see technology and network changes impact on my business, I need that to bring more advantages on my business network”. The mentioned SME that requires to migrate toward cloud computing

positioned technology elements and institutional/macro environmental policies and their mutual impact on their decisions toward the disrupting technologies”. BARM role on shaping future business also interests an E/BA architect/cloud

I think organizations will need to develop and manage business capabilities in interesting ways based on changes in their eco-systems. That is addressed clearly in your model”.

environment have been analysed and illustrated in Figure 33. Only 25% of all interviewees reported negative feedback, with no neutral feedback. The overall assessment in these questions is considered positive, since the total of 75% provided positive feedback.

Figure 33: Interview Analysis-BARM's Ability in Enabling SME to React in Dynamic Environment

s ability to structure, manage ICTs and associated capabilities: The BARM possible contribution in facilitating decision making process leading to choosing proper technology solutions, was recognised by E/BA experts. The cloud consultant was interested to see the mapping from business capability to business services. He using the term of business services makes it more sensible for business level manager who want to choose best cloud services”. His statement, Starting from business capability will give you a clear understanding about the future drivers of your business and where you will have to support it from an IT point of view , is supported by a consultant Don't forget to assign clear responsibilities for these capabilities . This also was acknowledged by another architect

Long before they hire their first IT person, having a solid structure is the name of the game”.

point made by an arc why BARM did not show the clear mapping to IS, after all the effort is to IS development”. The reply to this was when I map BARM to value proposition the key capabilities will explicate the business services and from which the IS model will emerge.

to structure ICTs and associated capabilities have been analysed and illustrated in Figure 34. Only 30% of all interviewees reported negative feedback, with 10% neutral feedback. The overall assessment in these questions is considered positive, since the total of 60% provided positive feedback.

Figure 34: Interview Analysis-BARM's Ability to Structure, Manage ICTs and Associated Capabilities

proposition execution: The ability to unambiguously map out business components and ecosystem elements to execute business model, seems to interest SMEs and experts. BA will play the major role in the future enterprise re driving the business value or value proposition in the market and it is good to see this has pointed in this framework

The responses to the questanalysed and illustrated in Figure 35. Only 20% of all interviewees reported negative feedback, with 10% neutral feedback. The overall assessment in these questions is considered positive, since the total of 70% provided positive feedback.

Figure 35: Interview Analysis-

Impression on BARM completenesscompleteness using the two last questions. According to a former architect who is providing

all required elements clearly mapped out and to me it is complete representation of a business architecture. The fact that the components are broken down to meet their purposes is quite new”. He also insisted that the model would become even more

event were added to the elements that affect SMEs capability mapping as a market opportunity. There was a positive impression on theoretical foundation of the BARM as one of the BA experts indicated that “I appreciate applying the different disciplines and academic review in your research that brings more business view in the architecture area”. A medium sized manufacture owner stated that “I would like to see the business operational level impact”, as his major concern was “…staying more on strategic level slows down our operational level”.

The responses to the question on BARM completeness have been analysed and illustrated in Figure 36. Only 20% of all interviewees reported negative feedback, with 5% neutral feedback. The overall assessment in these questions is considered positive, since the total of 75% provided positive feedback.

Figure 36: Interview Analysis- BARM Completeness

6.1.2 Overall Analysis Result s and experts were all in favour of both the

significance of BA practice for SMEs and fidelity of the proposed BARM. An architect and I very much agree that an appropriate BA framework for

SMEs is both valuable and important. There are a few people who have been looking at E/BA as it might apply to SMEs and I'll be keen to take a look at if the attempts overall demonstrate the expected value”.

Overall interview results have been analysed by combining the final percentages from the five validation categories. The final percentage as shown Table 15 determines the overall BARM desk-validation results indicators (positive, neutral, and negative).

Validation Criteria Positive Negative Neutral Manage and structure ICT 60% 30% 10% React in dynamic environment 75% 25% 0 Value proposition execution 70% 20% 10% BARM Completeness 75% 20% 5% Understandebility 50% 30% 20% Overall Analysis 66% 25% 9%

Table 15: BARM- Validation Analysis Results

Figure 37: BARM- Validation Overall Analysis Results

As shown in Figure 37 only 25% of all the participants gave negative feedback, 9% remaining neutral. A total of 66% of all the participants provided positive feedback. Therefore the overall validation can be considered satisfactory.

back into the iterative development process and impacted the scope and structure of BARM. This step resulted in following changes to the initial model of BARM:

Changes in BARM implementation

o requirements/circumstances

o Added coaching and training approach to build knowledge of architecture and effectively implementing BARM

Refined knowledge/information view to address knowledge gap in SMEs

Building on external element to address the dynamic environment contingencies

6.2 Peer Review-Conference Papers The second validation involved peer review of one conference paper which was presented and published three months before the final evaluation of BARM (Dehbokry and Chew 2015c). Reviewer feedback from the paper submission and conference presentation were captured and fed back into further adjustment in the final evaluation of BARM. Feedback and answers to their questions from the paper reviewers and conference participants is summarised in the following main criticisms/suggestions:

The proposed reference model is based on a selection of strong organizational theories. The argumentation is coherent. The authors refer to a large amount of research and other literature, especially within organizational science.

There is a multitude of research in this area however few approaches attempt to take a multidisciplinary approach; therefore, this paper would be a useful addition to the SME enterprise architecture body of knowledge.

It is not clear enough how the presented model supports, in practice, the natural dynamics and evolution of companies in their preparedness and business models. In other words, what has to be done by SME managers, IT engineers and all involved actors to handle the model and its lifecycle? become involved in the rigorous process of defining their strategic requirements, business scenario, and development of their business architecture in order to solve their real problem.

Why BARM has no description of business processes? This is implicit with the capabilities concept as capabilities are built on top of business processes as lower level of granularity (Crick and Chew 2013).

Why BARM didn't show the mapping to IS (after all this is an IS conference)? When I map BARM to BM canvas the key activities will explicate the business processes (which will cohere with the organizational capabilities the above point) and from this the IS model will emerge.

7 The following case studies serve as illustrations of the application or implementation of the proposed Business Architecture Reference Model (BARM) in the real world. Using these case studies I evaluate the applicability of BARM to real world business phenomena. The BARM has

the solution of their real business challenges that were under investigation.

The three case studies were conducted between October 2014 and January 2016. Each case study ran in different timeframes that did not necessarily meet its expected deadline. The delay was caused by the unavailability of the participants. For each case study, I as a business architect worked cumulatively in a total of three week duration approximately (overall participant engagement time per case over two years), attending meetings, gathering data, mapping, developing solutions, and preparing for meetings to perform the case study analysis.

My approach followed the protocol of the constructive research approach (Eisenhardt and Graebner 2007; Hevner et al. 2004). I implemented the proposed BARM at three different small companies and consequently tested whether the exercise yielded benefits for the company.

The presentations of case studies in this section are structured according to the proposed BARM implementation process, architecture components, and metamodel. They represent three possible presentations of BARM based on the three different business scenarios (the SMEs requirements). A characteristic of BARM is that it can be specialized to specific SME needs and usage. Each case study represents a specific business scenario which was developed based on its key business requirements and challenges. BARM is adapted based on the type of scenario at hand. Therefore the architecture components, descriptions, and implemention process are specialised accordingly. The aim and presentation of BARM for each case study in particular is explained in the following sections. Further I provide a rich description of the BARM practice on each different case context. It is intended to enable the reader to replicate the same approach in other business scenarios.

7.1 Case Study Plan I approach each case study in the form of a project. I define a project proposal (Appendix B- BARM Project (Case Study) Proposal) for each case and present it to its executives and senior managers in a one hours meeting. The proposal is a representation of BARM practice and simplified for the executives/managers to establish BA awareness among them. All the projects (case studies) have gained full support from the executives, which is critical for the success of architecture practices.

Each case study is to be accomplished within two weeks, following BARM implementation process, presented in section 5.7. were engaged in several

workshops and meetings, through which the business requirements were identified and solutions were presented. Each workshop will run for a maximum of participants (selected prior to the project) are to be considered as a project team. We work closely together to define, create, refine and reach closure on solutions and deliverables.

In order to collect data for empirical evaluation I conduct a semi-structured interview with different stakeholders at the end of BARM implementation as well as after a period of time (for post-implementation review). In order to determine the value of BARM practice, depending on each managers, business executives, and managers.

7.2 Case Study 1: BARM to facilitate Cloud Based Business Transformation

7.2.1 Case Study Introduction In this case I aim to develop and implement business architecture-using BARM - that facilitates cloud migration process of a small size Australian company named Manufacturing Skills Australia (MSA). The specialized BARM for the cloud based business migration process articulates a vision to reconfigure, use, and manage cloud based services to support its strategic direction. In doing so I specialised BARM to reflect specific cloud computing characteristics and considerations that are entailed in this specific case study.

This case provides a specific perspective on the role of BARM in the cloud based business transformation. Over the course of its one-year delivery timeframe, the transformation impacted its employees in various locations.

After a brief introduction of MSA business I follow the BARM implementation process to develop and implement its business architecture. Then I define cloud requirements and considerations for the different architecture executives to define their cloud based business transformation journey, the defined artefacts are presented to the cloud consultant to confirm that the business requirements are precisely translated to technology level, where the fit for purpose cloud services and deployment model will be defined. Also the result of semi-

the task of facilitating cloud computing migration. In addition the implemented specialized BARM is measured based on a qualitative assessment of its strategic fitness over a period of one year.

7.2.2 MSA Introduction: Manufacturing Skills Australia (MSA) is a small size national body which aims to bring together manufacturing industry, educators and government and unite them on a common industry-led

agenda for action on skills and workforce development. MSA is responsible for ensuring that manufacturing enterprises have the workforce skills they need to be globally competitive now and into the future. MSA works with enterprises, employers and industry associations, trade unions and industry advisory bodies to identify what skills are needed and how these can most effectively be implemented in industry. Specifically, the formal roles of MSA include:

Providing integrated industry intelligence and advice to the Australian Government and enterprises on workforce development and skills needs

Actively supporting the development, implementation and continuous improvement of high quality training and workforce development products and services, including industry Training Packages

Providing independent skills and training advice to enterprises, including matching identified training needs with appropriate training solutions; working with enterprises, employment service providers, Registered Training Organisations (RTOs)

Engaging with state and territory governments, state and territory Industry Training Advisory Bodies and peak representative bodies in their area of industry coverage.

MSA defines its strategic direction for a three 3 year period. Based on the strategic direction MSA defines an annual project plan. The board of MSA reviews the strategic direction of MSA and the KPIs to monitor its performance. MSA has a defined ICT strategy in line with its strategic direction but it had little influence on, and visibility of, ICT decisions. Most of the IT investment and implementation choices were made at divisional and project levels. Limited systematic approach had been used for technology selection and implementation.

MSA has identified the needs to reduce cost of in-house ICTs maintenance and leverage cloud computing technologies. Using this technology they aim to create better relationships with partners and other stakeholders and facilitate remote working among staff.

“In overall terms, MSA needs secure data and information that can be accessed by authorised persons, who may be using a range of devices and may be located anywhere in the world.” CEO

7.2.3 Case Study Execution Following BARM implementation process, architecture solutions are developed and evaluated in close collaboration with MSA senior managers (CEO and Deputy CEO) as well as IT provider and a consultant in cloud computing over a period of one month. Meanwhile, due to urgency of the cloud transformation, some cloud based services, including cloud storage, had already been used.

units. However the BARM practice was executed and established with the CEO, deputy CEO, and IT providers. The first phase (Analysing As-Is Business) was accomplished through information research on their documents and a series of open interviews with the company managers. During a number of workshops the business architecture scenario, list of cohesive desired architecture elements, prioritized business capabilities and information policies and legislations are defined and identified. This resulted in a first draft of architecture framework which includes; MSA capabilities, service, Information, and organizational architectures, Cloud considerations for each proposed views, and some guideline for its governance. The draft had been finalised and confirmed by the CEO and deputy CEO over two workshop sessions.

7.2.3.1 Step One: Analysing As Is MSA Business MSA is owned by industry and managed and governed by a Board from across industry, funded by the Australian Government through the Department of Industry. The board establishes the

ue, strategic direction, goals and objectives, employs the Chief Executive, identifies and monitors the management of corporate risks and monitors and assesses the Chief Executive and organisation performance.

Table 16 presents As-Is business for MSA and its internal and external components.

MSA Business Elements Elements Description

Bus

ines

s Mod

el C

anva

s Ele

men

ts

Business Goal and Strategies Goal: To provide high quality information and resources around skill development to support the participation of industry in developing an innovative, highly productive and globally competitive manufacturing industry.

Customer Segments Australian Government, enterprises, and Registered Training Organisations (RTOs).

Value Propositions (Product/services)

Skills Development tools design, improvement and implementation, Direct advice and data on industry workforce requirements, including skills demand to governments and the training system and enterprises, Training package, the training products have been a strategic strength of MSA.

Channels Face to face meeting, teleconference, email, Email, Newsletter and Escans, Social media, Website

Customer relationships Face to face meeting, teleconference, email, Email,

Newsletter and Escans, Social media, Website

Key Activities 1- Engage stakeholders and undertake consultations to determine appropriate needs and content of Training Material

2- Develop and continuously improve training packages that reflect industry needs, other stakeholder inputs and relevant policy

3- Support the implementation of training packages

4- support the implementation of Government policy to deregulate and reform the national training system, including undertaking processes and providing information as required to meet the Commonwealth Govand deregulation policy, as directed by the Department

5- Engage in the implementation of initiatives that strengthen the national training system

6- Build, cultivate and maintain relevant contacts, networks and partnerships

7- Develop, deliver, promote, evaluate and continuously improve systems, products and services that assist in meeting the skills and

sectors

8- Establish and implement transparent business practices in relation to conduct of contractual obligations and use of public funds

Key Partnerships Industry peak bodies and associations/Unions, Enterprises, Other Industry Skills Councils, Council of Australian Governments, Key Australian Government Departments including the departments of Industry, Defence, Education, Employment, Foreign Affairs and Trade, Infrastructure and Regional Development, Environment and relevant

agencies, Key bodies in the governance of the national training system (once established) Industry regulators, State and Territory Authorities/Departments, State and Territory industry training advisory bodies, State Training Boards, Peak provider groups and RTOs/relevant higher education providers, Recruiting, contracting and labour hire companies, Research bodies including the Cooperative Research Centres, Members of our specialist advisory and reference committees, Learners and career seekers

Key capabilities Stakeholder management, Training Package Development, Government Funded Projects Management

Eco

syst

em E

lem

ents

Social and political factors that impact on business

Factors that impact on MSA structure: Government policies

development services: Government policies, Industry requirements, New workplace environment, Globalisation

Government agencies and other regulatory bodies

Australian Government-Department of Education Australia

Industry Manufacturing transition to high-skilled and knowledge-intensive industry

Technology Technology changes and advancement: Cloud computing

Investors ---

Trade associations ---

Table 16: MSA As-Is Business -Case Study 1

7.2.3.2 Step Two: Defining Business Scenario and Specializing BARM In this section the business scenario is presented that defines MSA initiative in applying BARM. I also define the role of BARM in this specific initiative from a solution perspective. For this purpose, I follow adopted business scenario creation defined in section 5.7.

1. Management Requirements:

In order to aaround skill development to support the participation of industry, MSA has identified the need to leverage cloud computing technologies. The main MSA motivations for the cloud migration effort are to achieve cost-effective ICT usage, provide a strong and effective platform to engage its stakeholders and facilitate remote working among its staff. This requires analysis and planning for purposeful architectural implementation in terms of business and technology.

2. Scenario Overview:

Cloud computing is disrupting IT service delivery that creates ability of provisioning ICTs resources and capabilities with lower costs and immediate access (Marston et al. 2011).

computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider

(Mell and Grance 2011).

MSA requires analysis and planning for purposeful architectural implementation in terms of business and technology, for which a business tool is needed to facilitate business-executive decision making on choosing, using and managing cloud based business services.

3. Role of BARM:

BARM in the context of cloud computing is a set of design rules, policies, and key decisions that position the company to integrate the cloud environment allowing the company to meet its strategic intentions. The specialized BARM for MSA for the cloud service business transformation, focused from business perspective, allows SMEs to transparently and systematically transition toward this cloud-based business environment based on their strategic intent. It provides a guideline to facilitate the use and management of cloud services within the business. It helps to identify the business capabilities, organisational role, processes and partners that plan to employ cloud services. For this purpose I define cloud requirements that need to be considered within each business component. These requirements are defined based on the cloud computing characteristics, the challenges and opportunities that are identified within the cloud environments. Table 16 and Table 17 present summaries of the goals and requirements for cloud based business transformation that need to be addressed within each BARM components. They also present the required architecture artefacts and outputs for each component. They provide a structured yet comprehensive way of analysing the cloud computing impacts on the internal and external business components.

BARM Component

Goals-Cloud Based Business Transformation Out puts

Strategic View Determine how to develop organizational competency to generate value from the cloud technology. Determine the extent of using the cloud technology (Security, management). Determine the gaps that a company has in the transformation process. Manage risk.

Cloud strategy Key Cloud Requirements Key business gaps and risks

Business Capability View

Determine core competencies or source of competitive advantages Determine the value (Output) of the chosen capabilities (to measure cloud performance). Identify operational flexibility (Dependencies on other capabilities) of the chosen capabilities Determine business services.

Business Capabilities and business services mapping

Value and purpose of business capability

Service Level agreement addressing the availability of the services, security, and performance Business

Service View Define foundation for designing applications and services that will be supported by the cloud technologies. Guide company in the investment, assessment and reuse of cloud services.

Knowledge View

Determine how to bring insights into what customer wants. Determine information policies, regulatory Security.

Information mapping Legislative and policy obligation to

protect and manage information Data Location

Organisation View

Define roles/responsibilities in using the cloud services. Determine value of the cloud for different stakeholders/users. Determine the level of the cloud service globalisation ( if any, determine cultures, regulations and standards in different countries)

Roles and responsibilities Gap analysis Possible changes to organisational

structure Business Architecture -Integrated View

Define unique composition and orchestration of business services, capabilities and information. Determine how will cloud technologies are implemented and executed. Determine how to integrate existing capabilities with the cloud technologies. Defining risks and challenges.

Business architecture-integrated view Business Architecture Catalogue Architecture component interaction Strategy Execution Roadmap

Table 17: Cloud Considerations in BARM Internal Components

BARM-Cloud Based /business Transformation (External Elements)

Goals-Cloud Based Business Transformation

Out puts

Institutional Environment Determine policies and regulations that

model.

List of legislative and policy obligation to protect and manage information

Competitive Environment Define business opportunities with partners, competitors, and communities based on market structure. Determine ecosystem architecture (Information architecture/flow and quality and associated risks, service to leverage/share). Determine collaboration model with partners/business ecosystem.

List of partners and stakeholders A collaboration model describing

relationships with the partners Business service model/architecture

that can be shared or leveraged within ecosystem

Customer requirements

Table 18: Cloud Considerations in BARM External Components

BARM also supports architecture approach of a cloud based business model. It is designed to provide a comprehensive reference model of all the elements necessary to support the modularity principles. Through this approach I aim to define business capabilities that can be reusable and arranged and rearranged and also can be realised by services that are available in the cloud environment. This leads us to design flexible business capabilities and ICT systems and services, which maximize their mobility, changeability, and replaceability and ultimately dynamic capability. Figure 38 illustrates the scheme for the cloud based BARM describing a MSA cloud services based business architecture from a business perspective.

Figure 38: Specialised BARM-Cloud Based BARM

7.2.3.3 Step Three: Defining Business Strategy-Cloud Considerations

Internal Strategic Initiative:

o Re-structure of the training products in order to present into new sectors for a broader market.

Competitive Environment Strategic Initiatives:

o Establish MSA as the single best communicator about the skills issues and training reforms across Australia related to skills relevant to manufacturing and systems maintenance.

o Design and implement a rapid skill development and transfer program targeting broader industry sectors.

o Take a leadership role in influencing key stakeholders regarding key aspects of the national manufacturing training agenda.

o Engage with all Federal Parliamentary groups to ensure that they are well informed about role function and outcomes of MSA.

Macro Environment Strategic Initiatives:

o Provide high quality information and resources around skill development and also engage industry and enterprises in skill development.

For the purpose of this case study I elaborate on the cloud service strategies (as technology strategy) in order to make the best decision on creating and deploying cloud based services which shall create more value and less cost. Derived from main business strategy and goal which are influenced by the cloud technology characteristics, industry regularity and government policies, the cloud strategy will be formalized to specify to what extent and through which model the company requires and leverages the cloud opportunities. It also determines the gaps that a company has in the transformation process.

In doing so and in alignment I have identified requirements and principles around cloud considerations which are depicted in Table 19. These considerations set the strategic direction for cloud computing at MSA and also set rules to define MSA deployment model and to what extent this company acquires the cloud services. It also helps to define principles to manage further service evolution and development which are constrained by industry and government regulatory practices and policies.

-

-

-

-

Table 19: MSA Strategy View-Cloud Considerations

7.2.3.4 Step Four: Business Architecture 1. External Architecture Components

Figure 39.

Figure 39: MSA's External Architecture Components

Macro Environment

The provisioning of cloud technology sets the environment context in this case. In particular I analysed the impact of cloud technology in the business and adapted BARM for the cloud computing context. The technology element within Macro Environment is particularly

I consider the cloud computing characteristics (deployment and service model) as the main technology factors that impact overall business architecture of a MSA. These considerations are incorporated into the model in a way that the BARM components and methodology are all defined with cloud awareness.

Cloud Computing Characteristics: These specific characteristics are a guideline to select the - -

capabilities without requiring provider interaction. This can open opportunities for companies to leverage the required capabilities. T the consumers can access

to multiple consumers in a multi-tenant model, virtually, physically and based on their demand. The

resources are automatically controlled and optimized, and also the amount of usage can be monitored and controlled by both

consumer requirements by using different service interfaces (Application Program Interface (API). Defining interfaces between services enables a company to integrate new developments to their business model and increase innovation (Iyer and Henderson 2012).

Service dimension: This dimension indicates the scope of services that are provided by the cloud. Services in the cloud are delivered in five different models that are represented in different layers. First, Business Process-as-a Service (BPaaS) refers to provisioning of business processes that are sourced from the cloud. Second, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is a capability provided to users to utilize shared software services and applications accessible via the internet or a program interface. In this model the user pays by units of consumption and except for limited user application configuration, does not manage or maintain the cloud infrastructure. Third, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provides the environment for developing and provisioning applications, using programming languages, testing and managing services and tools in the cloud. The underlying cloud infrastructure (including network, servers, operator systems and storage) is managed and controlled by the service provider, however the user can control the deployed application. Fourth, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) comprises the on demand provision of computing resources including data storage, communication channel (e.g. virtual servers with a unique IP address). With IaaS the user has control to manage operational systems and deployed applications but does not manage and control the underlying cloud infrastructure. Fifth, Storage as a Service is where a company, under a signed agreement can rent storage space on a cost-per-gigabyte-stored and cost-per-data-transfer basis to store data. The key advantage of this model in companies is economies of scale in personnel and physical storage space (Mell and Grance 2009).

Deployment Model: Cloud services can be deployed in four models that represent the openness of the services. Public cloud offers cloud infrastructure and services available for open use by the general public and provisioning of the resources according to required quantities or a pay-per-use model. Through this model consumers have access to scalable and low price cloud resources that can be accessed in parallel by different consumers which can be a potential threat to security. A private cloud offers services for one designated user or group of users e.g., a single organization including multiple consumers. In this model services can be owned, managed, operated and controlled by the consumers or a third party and the consumer/organization retains full control over data, security guideline and performance. Community cloud is provisioned for exclusive use of a specific community with shared policy and requirements. This model is a generalized private cloud model. Hybrid cloud model offers a combination of cloud deployment models (private, community or public) with shared responsibility between consumer and provider (Mell and Grance 2009)

Multi-tenancy service models, data and infrastructure provisioned in the cloud are associated with different security issues, level of control and charging models. The more open the

deployment model, such as public or community then the less level of control and greater economies of scale for the service consumers. The decision on the cloud (IT) costing model and level of control are specified in the strategy for the business architecture reference model. The companies which are influenced by market and network strategies, derive the service level agreement which addresses the following issues related to the cloud deployment model (Dillon et al. 2010; Rimal et al. 2011):

Availability of service Performance Security / privacy of the data Disaster Recovery expectations Location of the data Access to the data Portability of the data Process to identify problems and resolution expectations Change Management process Dispute mediation process Exit Strategy with expectations on the provider to ensure smooth transition

Institutional Environment

Australian Government- Department of Education: MSA receives funding support from the Australian Government through the Department of Industry. MSA will continue to work with the relevant sections of the Department of Industry and other arms of government to identify and address the current and future skill needs and issues of the manufacturing industry and those

rates predominantly under a funding agreement with the Australian Government Department of Industry and commits to fulfilling its part of the agreement by providing the services and performance as described in the agreement.

Competitive Environment

o Customers :

MSA is a non-profit organisation. It provides services for two different pools of customers. First it provides integrated industry intelligence and advice to the Australian government who in fact funds the company. Second it provides skills and training advice to enterprises, including matching identified training needs with appropriate training solutions. MSA is working with enterprises, employment service providers, Registered Training Organisations (RTOs). Therefore

alian Government, enterprises, and Registered Training Organisations (RTOs).

o Partners:

MSA is engaging with state and territory governments, state and territory Industry Training Advisory Bodies (ITABs) and peak representative bodies in their area of industry coverage. Its partner are; Industry peak bodies and associations/Unions, Other Industry Skills Councils, Council of Australian Governments, Key Australian Government Departments including the departments of Industry, Defence, Education, Employment, Foreign Affairs and Trade, Infrastructure and Regional Development, Environment and relevant agencies, Key bodies in the governance of the national training system (once established) Industry regulators, State and Territory Authorities/Departments, State and Territory industry training advisory bodies, State Training Boards, Peak provider groups and RTOs/relevant higher education providers, Recruiting, contracting and labour hire companies, Research bodies including the Cooperative Research Centres, Members of their specialist advisory and reference committees, Learners and career seekers.

o Industry

Education.

2. Internal Architecture Components

Business Capability and Service Views

In a cloud oriented enterprise every business capability has a set of stakeholders (internal and external) for whom the cloud service has value. Therefore the stakeholders and value are the basis for defining the structure and nature of the required business. management requirement is to build stronger relationship with its partners and customers, I mainly concentrate on capabilities that enable this goal and are acting as competitive differentiators in this regard. In the cloud environment the business services derived from the capability view are well defined, encapsulated, reusable, business driven with clear outlined operations, input, outputs and visible metrics.

Business service view provides a foundation for designing applications and services that will be supported by the cloud technologies and also guides company in the investment, assessment and reuse of cloud services. Deriving from service oriented design rules in this view service role, operations and ststrategies and policies drive the service level agreement which addresses the availability of the services, security, and accessibility of the data (Rimal et al., 2011, Dillon et al., 2010), are specified in the Service Information/Agreement. (See Figure 40 )

Figure 40: Business Capability and Service Views-Cloud Environment

MSA potential cloud services are defined as a number of modules with clear relationships and minimum dependency. These services are defined to be generic which makes them reusable by other business capabilities. Their interface and outputs for each capability are explicitly specified in the service specification. The MSA capabilities include:

Inside-Out Business Capabilities o Training Product Management, which includes two sub-capabilities; Develop and

Improve Training Products and Promote the Training Products. o Workforce Development, contains three sub-capabilities; Workforce

Development Design and Improvement, Promotion as well as Project management

Outside-In Business Capabilities o Customer and Stakeholder Management

Spanning Business Capabilities

o Research and Planning capability.

To support the mentioned capabilities and sub-capabilities the following business services are defined; marketing cloud, cloud based research system, cloud based project management. The mapping between business services and capabilities are illustrated in Figure 41. MSA needs to ensure control over strategic capabilities that may provide a competitive advantage (e.g. Research and Planning capability and Workforce Development). However in order to meet MSA operational excellence in the operational capability level cloud based accounting is also identified to support accounting process.

Figure 41: MSA Business Capability and Service Views

Table 20 presents a summary of the cloud requirements defined for and services. The business capabilities that are presented in the first column drive the business services. The values associated with each business capability (presented in the second column) are defined based on the strategies defined in previous step. They can be used to measure the cloud services performance. The business services and associated cloud services will be evaluated based on these business values. The required cloud based services, service model, and deployment model are defined accordingly.

Business Capability

Purpose/Value Business Service Required Cloud Based Service

Service Model

Deployment Model

Cloud Performance

Availability Response time

Customer Relationship Management

Stakeholders satisfaction

Customer Relationship Management Marketing Partner Relationship Management

CRM Based Cloud

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Private Network Percentage available critical business hours

Critical time is defined as 12am to 12pM Monday through Friday

Research and Planning

provide equity reports and statistics

Research Management Knowledge Management

Research Based Cloud

Cloud Storage

Storage as a Service Software as Service

Private

Network Percentage available critical business hours Storage percentage available

Critical time is defined as 12Am to 12PM Monday through Friday

Training Product Management

Stakeholders satisfaction

Skill Development Project Management

Cloud Based Project Management Cloud Storage

Storage as a Service Software as Service

Private

Network Percentage available critical business hours Storage percentage available

Critical time is defined as 12Am to 12PM Monday through Friday

Workforce Development Management

Stakeholders satisfaction

Skill Development Project Management

Cloud Based Project Management Cloud Storage

Storage as a Service Software as Service

Private

Network Percentage available critical business hours Storage percentage available

Critical time is defined as 12Am to 12PM Monday through Friday

Table 20: Cloud Considerations-MSA's Business Capabilities and Services

Organisational View

Figure 42 .

Figure 42: MSA's Organisational View

MSA requires an environment that encourages and supports online collaboration between people internal and external to the organization where commentary and editorial changes linked to an item are captured and also some offline capability is available to users when access to the internet is not possible. This model also supports better engagement between MSA external partners. Table 21 presents cloud cons

-

Table 21: MSA Cloud Requirements-Organizational View

Knowledge/Information View

Knowledge View in the adapted reference model has two main parts, first the architectural aspect to draw out the relationship between capabilities/services that will be supported in the cloud (Shown in Figure 43). Second, the information and data concerns that impact the adaptation of the cloud technology (Marston et al. 2011). The first aspect will be addressed in the

legislations that need to be met in an open environment.

Figure 43: MSA knowledge/ Information View

MSA information and data concerns in the cloud computing environment are identified in Table 22: MSA Cloud Consideration-Knowledge View Table 22.

Cloud Requirements: MSA Case

Information View

- -

-

Table 22: MSA Cloud Consideration-Knowledge View

3. MSA Business Architecture-Integrated View

Figure 44, displays an integrated view of the various architecture views, mentioned above. The architecture overview outlines the relationships between these views. It also provides context for user of the reference model.

Figure 44: MSA's Business Architecture-Overview

4. MSA Cloud Considerations_ Summary

Summary of proposed cloud requirements for MSA is presented in Table 23

Architecture view

Cloud-based Business Transformation Strategic Objectives

Clouds Solution Requirements

Strategy View

Determine how to develop organizational competency to generate value from the cloud technology.

Determine the extent of using the cloud technology (Security, management).

Determine the gaps that a company has in the transformation process

Manage risk

Integration Solution: an enterprise grade integration solution is required that integrates collected data from various sources.

Secure Data Management: ensuring that data privacy and integrity are considered in the design of the platform.

Collaboration and sharing solutions: technologies and solutions which enable collaboration and knowledge sharing amongst partners and stakeholders across Australia

Reduce ICT cost: Offsetting costs of hardware, maintenance and user support

Business Capability View

Determine core competencies or source of competitive advantages

Determine the value (Output) of the chosen capabilities (to measure cloud performance).

Identify operational flexibility (Dependencies on other capabilities) of the chosen capabilities

Determine business services.

Shown in Table 20

Business Service View

Define foundation for designing applications and services that will be supported by the cloud technologies.

Guide company in the investment, assessment and reuse of cloud services

Knowledge/information View

Determine how to bring insights into what customer wants?

Determine information policies, regulatory Security.

Privacy: disclosure of personal information to a cloud service provider Accessibility: ensuring ongoing accessibility for the agency and data

subject Storage: Located in Australia Retention and disposal: authorised data retention and disposal

Organisation View

Define roles/responsibilities in using the cloud services.

Determine value of the cloud for different stakeholders/users.

Determine the level of the cloud service globalisation ( f any, determine cultures, regulations and standards in different countries)

Business Architecture Integrated View

Define unique composition and orchestration of business services, capabilities and information.

Determine how will cloud technologies are implemented and executed.

Determine how to integrate existing capabilities with the cloud technologies.

Defining risks and challenges.

Exemplar is shown in Figure 45, Table 24, and Figure 44

Institutional Environment

Determine policies and regulations that impact oud integration model.

Clouds solutions must comply with the following regulations: State Records Act 1998: regulates the creation, management and

protection of the records of public offices and provides for public access to those records.

Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (GIPAA): gives members of the public an enforceable right to access government information.

Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (PPIPA): provides for the protection of personal information and contains obligations in relation to storage, access, use and disclosure

Competitive Environment

Define business opportunities with partners, competitors, and communities based on market structure.

Determine ecosystem architecture (Information architecture/flow and quality and associated risks, service to leverage/share).

Determine collaboration model with partners/business ecosystem.

Resourcing requirements: The initial work involved engagement with the Australian government,

skill councils, Industry bodies and enterprises

Table 23: MSA Clouds Solution Requirements_ Summary

7.2.3.5 Step Five: Defining Transformation Plan- Moving Forward-Strategy Implementing/Execution

As a result of specialised BARMpractice in the cloud service context, the following service candidates have been identified that will form the basis for the cloud service design; Marketing Cloud (CRM), Cloud Project Management, Research Cloud, Cloud Storage, and Cloud based Accounting.

This section refines the integrated view of the architecture to add detail and then develops a roadmap for executing/implementing a chosen business strategy.

Example:

MSA Strategy: To provide high quality information and resources around manufacturing skill development and engage with industry and enterprises in skill development.

I illustrate an exemplar of business process that leverages the proposed cloud services (see Figure 45). It also is shown in order to present the strategy execution in an actual MSA business process.

Figure 45: MSA Research Process

Table 24 presents a list of all internal and external business components that interact to execute the MSA chosen business strategy.

Business Strategy

To provide high quality information and resources around skill development and also engage industry and enterprises in skill development.

Architecture Components

Capabilities Business services Information People Location Partners Customer Competitors

Institutions

o Research and planning o Partner Relationship

Management o Customer Relationship

Management

o Customer Relationship Management

o Marketing o Partner Relationship

Management o Research

Management o Knowledge

Management

o Knowledge of industry

o Knowledge of companies (Skills requirements)

o Policies and regulations

o Research and development

o Industry advisor

o Australia o RTOs o Enterpri

ses o ISCs

o Australian Government

o Enterprises o RTOs

o Department of education

o Industry Peak Bodies and associations

Table 24: MSA Business Architecture Catalogue- Exemplar

7.2.4 MSA Case Study Result- Evaluation

Setting the strategic goal of establishing better relationship with partners and customers in the cloud environment has been a trigger in MSA to develop business architecture practice using BARM. In this section some evidences are provided that despite the challenges, BARM practice was a worthwhile pursuit. The result of semi-structure interview from the project stakeholders is also presented. In conducting the interview, I used unstructured questions at various stages of the project. With this approach I aimed to give the participants an opportunity to express their opinions in a free flowing manner at different stages of the project.

The Business Architecture Reference Model (BARM) is applied and specialized by delineating the cloud technology dimensions as an external element into business architecture. The specialized BARM for the cloud service business transformation, focused from the business perspective, allowed MSA to transparently and systematically transition toward this cloud-based business environment based on their strategic intent. Therefore, it contributed to:

Providing a road map to facilitate a business decision making process toward cloud computing migration and to determine which cloud services (PaaS, IaaS, SaaS) and cloud deployment model (public, private, hybrid, or community cloud) could be selected. For this purpose, I defined the key cloud computing requirements that need to be considered within different BARM components. The requirements are defined based on the cloud characteristics and cloud adoption challenges (E.g. security, privacy, compliance, and interoperability) and their impact on different MSA business architecture components. Identifying these considerations helped MSA to assess and identify the key business information and services suitable for cloud adoption (Table 20). It also helped to identify the cloud values and impacts on existing initiatives. This resulted in 1) establishing a vision for the new cloud based business services as the transformation outcome (List of business services as shown in Table 20 and 2) defining a set of guideline explaining how MSA should make the transformation to meet its business requirements and regulations (see Table 19, Table 20, Table 21, and Table 22). Ultimately this has led to successful implementation of the cloud services.

Supporting an architectural approach to design, orchestrate, use, and manage internal and external business capabilities that can be deployed in cloud services and also to support their integration considering the possibility of services/resources reusability and future changes. This resulted in defining an overview of components and their relationships (see Figure 39, Figure 41, Figure 42, Figure 43, and Figure 44). This has given flexibility to identify and adjust changes.

The overview of (including artefacts, principles and blueprints) was presented at the end of stage

support and approval. MSA is facing changes in their structure constantly therefore it was difficult to foresee the organization structure three years into the future. However, the value of having an overview of business components was apparent before the end of the project. As

BARM gave the flexibility to identify and accommodate the changes”.

The vision for the cloud based services was presented to a cloud consultant to see if they precisely address all the technical aspects of the cloud service architecture. In addition, they

the requirements are translated and recognized by the architecture practice. The results were

view, I provide a tool that enables SMEs to see where their main and strategic cloud requirements are, visualize the different stakeholder engagements, make the business components and concerns transparent to show where the risks are, where is need for improvement, and what services are best fit and set priorities

The close coupling between the MSA’s strategic direction, cloud based strategy, and the more detail business services is evident when designing the required cloud technologies and services.”

is measured after one year of operation. In reservices, provided the required platform to CEO stated…. There has been very little change in the public face of MSA and the ways we use to engage people and to provide online interaction. This is exactly how we wanted it to be…. … the move to cloud-based has reduced our capital outlay, greatly simplified and probably improved data security as well as reducing overall maintenance worries and costs”. The new form of architecture einforce some key values

The balance of cost vs. convenience, combined with quite sophisticated data security has given a greater level of comfort overall to MSA”.

There were initial challenges, particularly around communication and establishing architecture awareness. The Feedback and lesson learns from this case study have resulted in refining BARM in the following areas

The terminologies are refined and are simplified

Small steps and constant feedback during the project was crucial. The BARM implementation process is refined accordingly.

The Service view is refined to address IT requirements of the SMEs

External element is refined to address the cloud technology requirement

The result of this case study also has been published in (Dehbokry and Chew 2015a)

7.3 Case Study 2: Developing Business Architecture for IOT Based Business Model Execution

7.3.1 Case Study Introduction I conducted the second case study within a Brazilian based small high-tech company named IHealth4Me. In this case I aimed to -Is business architecture and second to execute its IOT (Internet of Thing) based value proposition. Assuming that the company has successfully aligned its vision and business model, I defined clear relationshproposition and the BARM external and internal components.

This case study provides a specific perspective on the role of BARM in value proposition execution. In order to conduct an effective execution business capabilities and the critical relationships between different architecture components. In essence BARM as a set of business blueprints and design rules ensures that business

ision becomes integrated into its value proposition.

Over a four months period (Sep 2015-Dec 2015), I conducted a number of workshops, meetings and interviews to develop and evaluate the specialised BARM for IHealth4Me. Two owners of the company in two different locations (Australia and Brazil) were involved in the BARM practice. Therefore, I used different tools including email, Skype, phone, to run our meeting and workshops.

An open interview was conducted at the end of the project with the two owners of IHEalth4Me. The result of this interview is presented below appropriateness in facilitating

7.3.2 IHealth4Me Introduction IHealth4Me is a personalized e-Health recommendation Platform. It offers solutions aiming at changing consumer behaviour towards a healthier life style. IHealth4Me provides information and tools that enables individuals to define and execute a Personal Health Strategy which results in increased life quality for the individual and reduces cost for the healthcare system.

The solutions are predominantly designed based on scientific research by international scientists in data, health, fitness and nutrition. They include innovative diagnostics such as DNA sequencing and heart rate variability analysis. In addition, iHealth4Me is not only designed for the end consumer but also to assist physicians on preventive medicine and big companies on their employee benefit programs.

7.3.3 Case Study Execution

7.3.3.1 Step One: Analysing As-Is IHeath4Me Business Model

As-Is business model of IHealth4Me is identified and presented in Table 25.

Business Elements Elements Description

Vision iHealth4Me is the globally leading online platform that enables people to live a healthier life

Mission To Change consumer behaviour towards a healthier life style

Value Propositions (Product/services)

To provide instant and personalised health solutions through a user friendly cloud based platform.

Customers Working people

Key Partnerships SAP: Technology partnership on big data analytics MIT: Research on health technology Harvard: Research on business models MuleSoft: Technology partnership on cloud integration IBM: Technology partnership on cognitive computing (target partner) Apple: Technology partnership on user experience (target partner)

Product/services White labelled Employee Health Improvement platform as SaaS White labelled Member Health Improvement platform as SaaS iHealth4Me Essentials iHealth4Me Premium

1. DNA Insights 2. Explore My Body

Table 25: IHealth4Me As-Is Business Model

7.3.3.2 Step Two: Defining Business Scenario IHealth4Me Strategic Management Requirements

IHealth4Me has defined an IOT based business model and then had to decide on its execution and future evolution. The founders had opted for a collaborative business model, positioning itself as an Ihealth service provider to improve its customer experience. Under this business model the partners will touch many aspects of the business. Together they contribute toward the creation of a new ecosystem which provides instant and personalised health care solutions.

IHealth4Me needed a roadmap of how and what to integrate different business components that create the foundation for business execution, leading to greater success.

Scenario Overview

part of Future Internet including existing and evolving Internet and network developments and could be conceptually defined as a dynamic global network infrastructure with self-configuring capabilities based on standard and interoperable communication protocols where physical and intelligent interfaces, and are seamlessly integrated into the information network (Gubbi et al. 2013). The IoT (Gubbi et al. 2013)has the potential to cause a digital business revolution in many industries, in the way it re-defines services/products, revenue stream and business ecosystem.

IOT based business model is a collaborative model of ecosystem of things (species) that have been integrated. In this model different players interact with each other, thus creating a business ecosystem that shares a common goal.

Role of BARM

In this case BARM primarily focuses on providing guidance for the execution of the IOT based business model. It provides rules, principles, blueprints and guidelines that enable the company to integrate different business components within IOT ecosystem. In this context BARM extends the business architecture meta-model to include the different players of IOT business ecosystem that provide value to customers.

In addition BARM helps companies to describe the ways by which the ecosystem entities impact on their value propositions.

7.3.3.3 Step Three: Defining Business Strategy IHealth4Me strategies are defined in three levels as follow (see Figure 46):

Internal Strategic Initiatives: strategies at this level guide the firm to overcome its internal constraints and improve its innovative performance. They are categorized to address human capital, process and products/services:

o To increase employee satisfaction through providing aspiration-driven career development.

o To provide high quality service by improving availability of the platform and user friendlier application

Competitive Environment Strategic Initiatives: these strategies guide the firm to :

o To increase customer satisfaction, by establishing value co-creation process based on their feedback

o To improve brand recognition

o To establish collaborative environment with partners Macro Environment Initiatives: these strategies emphasis on a

changing technologies and social and political factors. The main element in this level is technology strategy which refers to a set of decisions related to the use and development of the technologies to help accomplish the business goal. Therefore, the technology strategies are defined based on business requirements and a set of common principles across the technology area.

o Technology strategy: to enable Ihealth4Me to become more reliable, accessible, flexible, and responsive. To achieve this the key technology requirements are:

Big Data Solution: a dedicated big data database solution is required in order to cope with the amount of data generated by health tracking devices for a large number of users.

Integration Solution: an enterprise grade integration solution is required that integrates collected data from various sources.

Scalable Platform: a delivery infrastructure which can support solution deployment in different locations and the changing demands (based on traffic)

Mobile-by-Design: mobile based solution is required for the users Secure Data Management: ensuring that data privacy and integrity are

considered in the design of the platform. Collaboration and sharing solutions: technologies and solutions which

enable collaboration and knowledge sharing amongst partners and stakeholders

o To improve health and life quality

Figure 46: IHealth4Me Strategy View

7.3.3.4 Step Four: Business Architecture 1 External Architecture Components

Institutional Environment

Institutional environment impacts on IHealth4Me business at the two levels, international and national (see Figure 47).

At the international level, first, it needs to comply with European Data Protection law that defines law and regulation for data privacy across European countries. Second, it needs to integrate the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) requirements, a non-profit healthcare professional association that promotes the coordinated use of established standards such as DICOM and HL7. These standards aim at improving the way systems in healthcare share information.

At the national level The Department of Health has a privacy policy for personal information collection by eHealth systems based on the The Privacy Act regulates how App entities collect, hold, use and disclose personal information and how an individual can access and seek correction of that information. In dealing with personal information the Ihealth4Me should abide by the commonwealth Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy principles (APP). This may impact on the

deliver the services.

US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the USA and Therapeutic Goods Administration in Australia provide regulations and supervision of food and drug safety in the USA. The IHealth4Me as a medical product needs to comply with their regulations.

Certifications (e.g. IT-014 Health Informatics Committee (AU), SBIS (BR)) are used for quality assurance purposes. For instance: Hospitals in Brazil are generally just implementing medical records with SBIS certification. The certificate not only ensures compliance to the local data privacy regulations but also increases the brand credibility of the medical record on the market.

Advisory boards (e.g. CFM (BR), Federal Council of Medicine) provide recommendations related to data privacy. These organisations are also working together with national health departments on new data privacy laws, therefore, their recommendations are pioneering for future legislation.

Figure 47: IHealth4Me Institutional Environment

Macro Environment

Internet of Things (IOT) technology is the main element of macro environment. The IOT covers a huge scope of industries and applications including:

Communication

Backbone

Hardware

Protocols

Software

Data Brokers/ Cloud Platforms

Machin Learning

Cloud Computing is main technology that impact on the IHeath4Me business model and architecture. It could impact on service delivery model, information architecture and privacy concerns. Any changes to the Cloud Technology would change the above business elements.

Competitive Environment

Customers: IHealth4Me is targeting companies to subscribe to the Ihealth application and their employee to use it. The customers are located in Australia, Germany and Brazil. Each market location implies different requirement in terms of regulation and customer needs.

Partners: IHealth4Me has partnered with the following companies and institutes:

SAP: Technology partnership on big data analytics provides big data analytics service in order to bring insights from the intense amount of data.

MIT: Research on health technology MuleSoft: Technology partnership on cloud integration

Competitors: Table 26 provides an overview comparison of IHealth4Me and its competitors based on the service functionalities:

Table 26: Comparison of IHEalth4Me and its Competitors

Figure 48: IHealth4Me Competitive Environment

service suppliers. It offers a personalized application, so that the user can get advice based on

his/her interests and health condition. Therefore, the main is

espectful information that values the health of each individual. Customers include companies that buy the IHealth4Me service and their employees that use it.

The collaborative business model for IHealth4Me involves users and partners closely working together to deliver health services. In this model the focus is on business model structuring value propositions and partnership to exploit opportunities to capitalize collaboration effects.

Users often have conflicting goals including quality of life, accessibility, and health condition. To provide a personalised health solution, the users are equal partners. They are involved as active participants in managing their own health and lifestyle and personalise the health related services. The health advice will b

health records. At the same time through processes of providing, collecting, and analysing ices will be improved. The entire process is enabled through

collaboration between the business partners. This collaboration model and the parties who are involved in are illustrated in Figure 49. This model is articulated in business capability and information views (see Figure 50 and Figure 52).

Figure 49: IHealth4Me- Partners and Users Engagement Model

2 Internal Architecture Element

Business Capability and Service Views

The main business capabilities for IHeath4Me are defined as follows:

Inside-

Solution Development o Cognitive science o Data Analytics o Software development o Scientific health management o Scientific fitness management

Outside-In in order to sense and leverage environment opportunities: Partner Relationship Management Customer Relationship Management Marketing and sales

Spanning capabilities that integrate the above capabilities: Research Knowledge Management

As a result the following business services are identified. They are derived from business capabilities and way that co-create value for IHealth4Me and the customers

Fitness management: Creating individual fitness plan Nutrition management : Creating individual nutrition plan Emotion/Cognitive science management: creating individual emotion/cognitive plan Genetic sequences : Assisting people to discover genetic health risks Recommendation for healthier products and special activities: creating a tailored plan

to reduce use of antibacterial and allergic products that cause disease Electronic Health record

Figure 50: IHealth4Me Business Capability View and Service View

IHealth4Me value co-creation occurs in three stage of service co-design, co-production, and co-deliver (Zine et al. 2014). The co-design happens when the userconditions is incorporated in the developing health recommendation and advice. As a result the recommendations will be personalized as per specific conditions and requirement of the user. The user in co-production stage is involved in order to specify the kind of service based on his/her desire. In the co-delivery o-creation of value-in-use) stage the user actively participates in the execution of business capability/services through the IHealth4Me

platform. Therefore the services will be customized based on the user requirement. The service customization involves offering flexibility to the users to choose the service components, service level (response time for a service delivery), and service frequency (number of time the service is demanded. The service customization plan is illustrated in Table 27.

Service Components (SC) Service Level (SL) Service Frequency (SF) Electronic Health Record SL1 < 1 hrs.

SL2 < 2 hrs. SL3 < 3 hrs.

As per requirements Genetic Sequences Nutrition Management Fitness Management Emotion Cognitive Management Recommendation

Table 27: Service Customisation Plan- Value Co creation Opportunities

Organisational View

In order to deliver intended services IHealth4Me involves two groups of people including people who design and implement the IHealth products and people who contribute in the product development as health and fitness experts. They are located in different countries including Germany, Brazil and Australia.

Figure 51: IHEalth4Me Organisation View

Knowledge/Information View

Knowledge and information in IHeath4Me play an proposition depends upon accurate data as well as the knowledge that is created.

IHealth4Me acquires a lot of knowledge from external sources (Partners) and also devotes some resources to build the required knowledge base. The IHealth platform collects information about user health conditions (e.g. blood pressure, physical activity, glucose

s can monitor their health condition. Internal and external knowledge are including:

Internal knowledge o Algorithms o Product architecture o o Recommendation Matrix

External Knowledge o Health information and knowledge (Hospital information system, personal

health record) o Information from devices o Technology

Figure 52: IHealth4Me Knowledge/Information View

3 IHealth4Me Business Architecture-Integrated View

The Business Architecture Reference Model (BARM) overview shown in Figure 53, displays integrated view of the various architecture views, mentioned above, to outline and detail the

IHealth4Me business architecture. The architecture overview view outlines the relationships and flows between these views. It also provides context for the user of the reference model.

Figure 53: IHealth4Me Business Architecture-Integrated View

7.3.3.5 Step Five: Defining Transformation Plan- Moving Forward-Strategy Implementing/Execution

The next steps are to refine the integrated view of the architecture to add detail and then develop a roadmap for executing/implementing a chosen business strategy.

Table 28 presents a list of all internal and external business components that interact to execute the competitive environment business strategies.

Business Strategy

Competitive environment Strategic Initiatives: To increase customer satisfaction by establishing value co-creation process based on their feedbacks To improve brand recognition To establish collaborative environment with partners

Architecture Components

Capabilities Business services Information People Location

Partners

Customer Competitors

Institutions

o Solution Development Cognitive science Data Analytics Software development Scientific health

management Scientific fitness

management o Partner Relationship

Management o Customer Relationship

Management o Marketing and sales

o Fitness management

o Nutrition management

o Genetic sequences

o Emotion/ Cognitive management

o Recommendation o Electronic Health

record

o Algorithms o Product

architecture o

codes o Recommend

ation Matrix o External

Knowledge o Health

information and knowledge

o Information from devices

o Technology

o Cognitive health scientist

o Health scientist

o Product architecture

o Data scientist

o Developers

o Australia

o Germany

o Brazil

o SAP o MIT o Mule

Soft

o Users (Employees)

o Buyers (Companies)

o Department of Health

o FDA o SBIS o Health

Informatics Committee

o Advisory Boards

o European Data Protection Law

o IHE Table 28: IHealth4Me Business Architecture Catalogue for Competitive Environment Strategy

Architecture components interaction matrix:

Table 34 illustrates the relationship and interaction between business capabilities and different business components. I centred the business capability view and outline the remaining architecture views around this view.

Table 29: IHealth4Me Architecture Components Matrix

Figure 54 illustrates competitive environment strategy execution roadmap. It represents mapping between the business components associated demonstrates only the key facts linking business capabilities to the business

services and is utilized as a communication platform for business stakeholders. The detailed service execution plan is also presented in Table 30. This provide opportunities for value co-creation in the three stages of co-design, co-production, and co-delivery.

Figure 54: IHealth4Me Competitive Environment Strategy Execution Roadmap

Related Business Capabilities

Activity Involvement Stage Users IHealth4Me

Cognitive Science Customer Relationship Management

Identify health and lifestyle requirements

Co-Design

Data Analytics Customer Relationship Management

Analyse and insight

Scientific health management Scientific fitness management Customer Relationship Management

Prepare the service components

Co-Production

Health Plan

Software development Customer Relationship Management

Service Delivery Co-Delivery

Table 30: Service Execution Plan-Opportunities for Value Co-creation

7.3.1 IHealth4Me Case Study Result- Evaluation A company with IOT based business model depends heavily on business ecosystem interactions (Leminen et al. 2012). in the business ecosystem environment involves arranging the structure, facilities, and mechanism needed to manage its

entities. It is crucial to define a mechanism that drives the value creation and makes the business ecosystem viable.

Together with IHealth4Me senior managers, we applied BARM to design and implement IHealth4Me value proposition across its chosen business ecosystem. In doing so using the specialized BARM to articulate its value proposition in the operational level. The business components are orchestrated and mapped to

execution requirements. Some guidelines and blueprints are provided that enable IHealth4Me to integrate business components to establish value co-creation mechanism. I also present some opportunities to the involved partners for value co-creation. Table 31 provides summaries of the actions and outputs that took place in order to meet IHealth4Me strategic requirements at different business components.

BARM Component

Actions Outputs

Strategic View To articulate business strategic

requirements in Macro, Institutional, and Internal strategic initiatives

Internal Strategic Initiatives Competitive Environment Strategic Initiatives

Macro Environment Initiatives

External View

Determine policies and regulations that IOT integration

model. Define business opportunities with partners, competitors, and communities based on market structure. Determine external environment architecture Determine collaboration model with partners Determine model of customer and partner lue proposition and value co-creation

List of legislative and policy obligation to protect and manage information List of partners and stakeholders A collaboration model describing relationships with the partners and customer

Business Capability View

Determine business capabilities and their interrelationships.

Business Capabilities and business services mapping Opportunities for value co-creation in terms of three aspects viz. co-design, co-production and co-delivery

Business Define foundation for designing

Service View applications and services that will be supported by the IOT technologies. Determine customer participation model in value co-creation at the service level

Provide opportunities for value co-creation in terms of three aspects viz. co-design, co-production and co-delivery

at the service level

Knowledge View

Determine how to bring insights into what customer wants. Determine information policies, regulatory Security.

Information mapping Legislative and policy obligation to protect and manage information Data Location

Organisation View Define roles/responsibilities Roles and responsibilities

Business Architecture -Integrated View

Define unique composition and orchestration of business services, capabilities and information. Determine how will value proposition be implemented and executed. Provide opportunities for value co-creation in terms of three aspects viz. co-design, co-production and co-delivery

Business architecture-integrated view Business Architecture Catalogue Architecture component interaction Strategy Execution Roadmap Example of execution process Detailed service execution plan

Table 31: IHealth4Me Case Study-Actions and Outputs

instant and personalised health solutions through a user friendly cloud based platform s value proposition), IHealh4Me defined the following key competitive environment strategic initiatives (section 7.3.3.3). (a) Increasing customer satisfaction by establishing the value co-creation process based on their feedback; (b) improving brand recognition, and (c) establishing a collaborative environment with partners. These strategies have implications for how and what customer information is gathered, what business capabilities are required, and how to engage with the partners and customer.

In helping IHealth4Me to execute the strategies defined in section 7.3.3.3, BARM contributed to the following outcomes:

It defined the mechanism by which the IHealth4Me and its partners and customers interact in order to co-create value. Therefore, it defined the clear relationships between the company, partners and customer. This included defining the business components and clear relationships with the ecosystem elements defined in section 7.3.3.4, part . The engagement model for the customer and partners are presented in Figure 49. Therefore, the different roles of people who are involved in developing IHealth services are clearly defined (shown in Figure 51). Also the required information is specified and presented in Figure 52. The relationship between business and ecosystem components determines the integration and configuration patterns in the IOT environment.

I focused on the customer/partner-centric business capabilities (Customer/partner relationship management) to increase the level of customer involvement in the value creation. The customers as well as partners, are allowed to obtain information (defined in section 7.3.3.4) by using the IHealth product. This is where the company requires an open platform to engage its customers as well as other stakeholders and enable their Outside-In business capabilities. Some opportunities are provided in service view for value co-creation in terms of three aspects of co-design, co-production and co-delivery (See Table 30).

BARM practice is completed with close collaboration of the two founders of the business. In fact they were involved in developing the artefacts and outputs in entire process. At the final stage the result and outputs of BARM practice including architecture artefacts (e.g. Figure 50, Figure 51, Figure 52, Figure 53, and Figure 54) and transformation plan (e.g. Table 28) have been finalized and signed off by the two founders. It had been confirmed that they precisely map with the IOT based value proposition and enable its execution;

“The BARM helps to describe some key business operating model components and hence can form the foundation of a company blueprint. The decision making of IoT business follows the same principles as many other businesses, therefore BARM is applicable,” said the CEO

At the end of the project I also evaluate the BARM using an interview. The general consensus of the founders was that the use of BARM provides a useful way of structuring

Business architecture is a key element of business strategy execution. The BARM also makes sure all relevant areas of business architecture are covered, based on best practises in the industry

However the participants suggested that The BARM together with the business model allows a model-driven development of the key business strategy components. A mapping between the BMC and BARM would be great.” My response to this comment is; full mapping BARM to BM is beyond the scope of this research.

As suggested by one of the founders, the result of the BARM practice and its applicability to IOT based business model execution was presented to IOT Community in Sydney10. The BARM practice has gain lots of attention and interest within IOT practitioners. Although the audience (IOT Experts) were technical but they were receptive engaging. This is addressing a big gap in the domain, looking at the business level how to implement IOT based business Mentioned by one of the audiences.

“Potentially I think your Model can help with discussions to move forward on investment proposals and innovation initiatives. I have downloaded your papers from UTS site to understand more” Mentioned by one of audiences.

“Although the audience was certainly primarily technical, the questions at the end show that there is interest and my conversations afterwards also show the people understand the importance” Feedback by the Event Organiser.

BARM also was referred in IOT Community Network in Perth 11(See below slide Figure 55 taken from the presentation to IOT Community Network in Perth).

Figure 55: Presenting BARM to IOT Community Network

Learning from this case study resulted in following refinements to BARM:

Value co-creation principles are reflected in the BARM components

Ecosystem concept is considered and the related theories are incorporated in BARM foundation

Service concept and service design are refined

7.4 Case Study 3: BARM to Establish a Collaborative based Business Model

7.4.1 Case Study Introduction I conducted the third case study within an Australian community based small organisation named Renewable Energy Community (REC). REC aimed to develop a business architecture using BARM to help the community to establish and execute a collaborative business model in order to leverage combined expertise, knowledge, and capabilities to develop affordable and profitable renewable energy across Australia.

The collaborative business model involves the establishment of a non-profit community organisation managed by its members. It aims to promote the social, economic, and environmental benefits of delivering clean energy services to individuals and SMEs. REC also aims to embrace a collaborative business model to provide a mechanism for government, NGOs, organisations, individuals (including volunteers) and other communities to support renewable energy and energy efficiency projects.

Over a six months period (Jan 2015- June 2015), I conducted numbers of workshops, meetings and interviews to develop and evaluate the specialised BARM for REC, and the resultant business architecture Two board members of REC were involved in the BARM practice and evaluation. In addition the project results were presented to different members, including partners, at different stages of the project. Their feedback in different stages fed into the project and its outputs were revised accordingly.

BARM implementation and execution. So at the time of writing this thesis REC BA project yet. Therefore in order to evaluate the case study results, I focus

An open interview was conducted at the end of the project with the two participants of REC.

7.4.2 Case Study Execution

7.4.2.1 Step One: Analysing As-Is REC Business REC is run predominantly by a group of volunteers. REC aims to promote the social, economic, and environmental benefits of delivering clean energy services to individuals and SMEs at a lower cost. It aims to embrace a collaborative business model to provide a mechanism for investors such as government, NGOs, organisations, individuals (including volunteers) and other communities to support renewable energy and energy efficiency projects at the local level and small-scale.

The REC business is focused on supporting the development and implementation of affordable renewable energy services to the end user (SMEs and householders). The renewable energy projects are funded by investors and the services are provided by an energy service company, which can be a private or public utility, a cooperative, a nongovernment

organisation (NGO), or a private company. Table 32 presents the As-Is model of REC business.

Business Elements Elements Description

Business Goal Goal: To promote the social, economic, and environmental benefits of delivering clean energy services to individuals and communities.

Customer Segments There are two main customer segments that REC provides service (value) for.

Investors including: o Community investors (i.e. retail investors who form a

community of geography or interest around an individual project)

o Commercial investors (such as bank, institutional investors or sophisticated investors such as Bendigo bank, Bank Australia, ARENA)

Consumers: o SMEs: organisations who host the solar panels on their

roofs and who utilise the energy the solar panels produce and benefit from closer connections with the community who funded them.

o Householders (Individuals)

Value Propositions (Product/services)

The REC value propositions target the two customer segments (Investors and Consumers):

1- For Investors: Providing high returns investment opportunities in renewable energy projects.

2- For Consumers (SMEs): Facilitating implementation of profitable and affordable renewable energy, contributing to local economic growth by creating jobs and helping businesses improve profitability.

Channels Face to face meeting, teleconference, email, social media, public events

Key Activities Proposal development/ Defining a new project (To develop an understanding of the energy needs of society)

Marketing and Promotion Developing contracts (i.e. legal agreements) Stakeholder relationship management Managing RE project operation Research and Development (R&D) RE Consultation Financing

Key Partnerships Communities (Randwick, Waverley and Woollahra councils, Repower Shoalhaven. Blue Mountains Renewable Energy Co-

operative, City of Sydney) Energy Providers Institutions (Institute for Sustainable Futures at UTS) Government agencies (Marrickville Council)

Key Resources Nationbuilder - community engagement, relationship management and website content management. Online banking. Google Apps (Google Mail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Groups). Basecamp - project management and team collaboration solution. Solar PV design and production software (e.g. Sunulator, PVSell).

Social and political factors that impact on business

Energy price (economic impact of RE), environmental impact, infrastructural impact, social awareness

Government agencies and other regulatory bodies

Government, Regional/local Government, local communities, NGOs energy retailers, network and grid operators.

Table 32: REC As-Is Business

7.4.2.2 Step Two: Defining Business Scenario REC Strategic Management Requirements

Renewable Energy Community has identified the need to establish and execute a collaborative based business environment that supports affordable and high value renewable energy in small scale for individuals and SMEs.

Scenario Overview

Collaborative based business model is a model where an organisation cooperates with other organisations to create competitive advantages aligned with their shared business goal (Adler et al. 2011a; Leminen et al. 2012). Building a collaborative network of enterprises provides opportunities for its members to combine resources and expertise in order to co-create value.

The impact on an enterprise of building a collaboration network must be anticipated and incorporated into a plan to visualize the cross functional impacts on the organisation. The key requirement for this scenario is to build dynamic and effective collaborative relationships, obtain visibility into the different aspect of business that are impacted by the collaborative model including knowledge, capability, activities, services.

Role of BARM

BARM provides the visibility to understand the complexity of the collaboration-centric business and facilitates a cross-functional plan to address this complexity. BARM helps to articulate collaborative based business requirements into an operation and execution model. It defines the key interdependencies and relationships between the business components and network environment in order to integrate and leverage its opportunities.

BARM also provides a roadmap to define clear structure, roles and responsibilities among the cooperatives.

Table 33 provides summary of BARM components in the collaborative business model context. It also presents the required architecture artefacts and outputs for each component through which they guide execution of the collaborative based business model.

BARM Component

Collaborative Business model Execution Plan

Outputs

Strategic View

Provides overall direction and boundaries: Determine how to develop organizational competency to generate value from the collaborative environment Determine the extent of leveraging network opportunities

Internal strategic initiatives

Macro environment strategic initiatives

Competitive environment strategic initiatives (Customers and partner strategies)

Business Capability View

Determine core competencies or source of competitive advantages Determine the value (Output) of the chosen capabilities Identify operational flexibility (Dependencies on other capabilities) of the chosen capabilities Determine business services.

Business Capabilities and business services mapping (internal and external)

Value and purpose of business capability

Business Service View

Guide company in the leveraging and managing of internal and shared services.

Knowledge View

Determine how to manage and retain knowledge and information

Information mapping Knowledge requirements

Organisation View

Define roles/responsibilities of partners Roles and responsibilities

Business Architecture -Integrated View

Define unique composition and orchestration of internal and external business services, capabilities and information. Determine how to integrate existing capabilities with the network capabilities

Business architecture-integrated view

Business Architecture Catalogue

Architecture component interaction

Strategy Execution Roadmap and action plan

Table 33: BARM Components in the Collaborative Business Model Context

7.4.2.3 Step Three: Defining Business Strategy REC strategies are defined in three levels as follow:

Internal Strategic Initiatives:

To support renewable energy development by leveraging a range of funding sources

To manage development and implementation of high value renewable energy project

Competitive Environment Strategic Initiatives:

To support investment in small-scale renewable energy

To facilitate productive cooperation between renewable energy developers, investors, institutions, communities and government, to build local expertise and capacity that will support the development of low cost renewable energy.

To support implementation of affordable and high value renewable energy for the benefit of small business and householders.

7.4.2.4 Step Four: Business Architecture 4 External Architecture Components

Institutional Environment

The Institutional Environment that impacts the Renewable Energy Community includes Local, Federal, Regional Governments, and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).

Macro Environment

This element refers to the major external and uncontrollable factors that might influence the -political,

technological factors and governmental agencies.

The political factors manifest in government influence on energy policies and legislations.

The social factors manifest in social awareness toward renewable energy consumption and investment and energy price.

Technological factors refer to the rate of development and changes of technologies in both ICT as well as RE equipment.

The government agencies refer to Local and Federal government, NGOs and communities.

Competitive Environment

Customers:

nergy consumers which are categorised as SMEs and house holders/building owners and investors including retail and commercial investors.

Partners:

The key partners include:

The NSW Government that may invest in renewable energy projects

The government agencies who provide resources and volunteers.

Local business who helps inform industry-specific market needs, and form research and collaboration partnerships to develop innovative, export-oriented products and services for market.

Investors including Australian Renewable Energy Agency, venture investors and banks who provide funding opportunities to deliver small-scale renewable energy projects.

Universities and research institutes, such as University Technology Sydney (UTS) who build productive research and education partnerships to create value for the community.

Small scale supplier of renewable energy.

Figure 56.

Figure 56: REC External Components

5 Internal Architecture Element

Business Capability and Service Views

dules with clear relationships and minimum dependency. They include

o Inside-out capabilities to respond to its customers. They are listed as RE Project Management, RE Project Financing, RE Consultation.

o Outside-in capabilities in order to sense and leverage environment opportunities. These are identified as Community Business Development (including Networking, Identification of Best Practices), Customers Management (including Issue Management, Incentives), and Community Management (including Control/ Management, Moderation and Rule Enforcement, Elicit Participation, and Rewards and Incentives).

o Spanning capabilities which are the capabilities that integrate the above capabilities. They are identified as Research and Development (R&D) and Knowledge Management capabilities

The identified capabilities drive services which are delivered by people (identified management requirement is

to build and execute sustainable community based renewable energy solutions, I mainly concentrated on capabilities that enable this goal. In this regard Out-side-In capabilities are the main capabilities that built competitive advantage for the community.

The business services represent an adaptive system of people and capabilities across the community that are working collaboratively to develop and deliver affordable renewable energy solutions for consumers.

Figure 57.

Figure 57: REC Business Capability and Service Views

Organisational View

REC is owned and technically and financially managed by members. It is run by a group of volunteers selected from communities and institutions in order to deliver defined services to customers. The cooperative ensures and supervises the development, installation, maintenance, safe operation, financial management, and payment between users, contractors and operators. The REC personnel has to perform the following functions:

o Community Business Development Management

o RE Project Implementation and Management

o Consulting

o Administration and Finance

The organisation view and the relationships between the member and consumer are presented in Figure 58.

Figure 58: REC Organisational View

Knowledge/Information View

The knowledge view illustrates high level information and knowledge within the REC business and environment domains and their relationships to one another. Tacit knowledge (which is not easily communicated) is the main element in this view that requires constant interactions between people. Knowledge in the community includes:

o Consumers Information

o Investors information

o RE project information

o Financial Information

o Policies and regulations information

o RE technologies and equipment information

o Partners information

The information/knowledge view is presented in Figure 59.

Figure 59: REC Knowledge View

6 REC Business Architecture-Integrated View

The Business Architecture overview shown in Figure 60, displays an integrated view of the various architecture components, presented above, to outline and detail the RECarchitecture. It also outlines the relationships between these views and provides context for a user of the reference model. This model is an instance of specialised BARM for REC which

Figure 60: REC Business Architecture-Integrated View

7.4.2.5 Step Five: Moving Forward-Strategy Implementing/Execution In this section I establish a plan and blueprint for how REC can implement and execute its business model using an exemplar of one value proposition. It sets plans, actions, and principles to use the specialised BARM in the execution of the value proposition. This also sets out the context for the future transformation and executions.

I centred the capability view as core and outline the remaining architecture views around this view. They are consolidated to execute the value propositions in alignment with the

. Figure 61 illustrate the blueprint of the value proposition. It presents the architecture components and their dependencies in order to execute the chosen value proposition. Table 34 shows the consolidated list of business components and their relationships are presented in Figure 61. Table 35 also presents the discrete steps necessary to define and plan the REC execution roadmap as well as protocols and principles for managing further evolution and changes.

Value Proposition: Facilitating development and implementation of affordable renewable energy. The main differentiator and value proposition of REC is the collaborative model of providing and facilitating renewable energy. This model engages all potential partners and stakeholders to meet its purposes.

Associated Architecture Components:

Capabilities:

Consumer management Community management R&D Projects financing

People:

Community Business Development Project implementation and management team Consulting Administration and finance

Knowledge

RE policies and regulations Partners information Customer/Investor information RE knowledge

External Environment

Institutions (e.g. University Technology, Sydney (UTS)) Communities

Government agencies SMEs Local businesses RE providers

Customers:

SMEs

Technology

ICT Technology: Nation builder (community engagement, relationship management and website content management), Basecamp ( project management and team collaboration solution)

RE Technology: Solar PV design and production software (e.g. Sunulator, PVSell).

Capabilities : RE project Implementation and management

Services People Knowledge/Info Partners: UTS

Capability Provides RE Enabled by Implementation team

Fed by RE information and knowledge

Leverage; volunteers (students), resources

Service Renewable energy is enabled

Enabled by RE Implementation team

Requires; Customer feedback, Financing information

Enabled by volunteers (students

Knowledge/Info Feeds; RE knowledge, RE

project information, RE regulatory, Partner information,

Feeds: consumer feedback, and financing info

Feeds; RE knowledge, RE project information, RE regulatory, Partner information, Costumer info

RE knowledge, RE project information, RE regulatory, Partner information, Costumer info

Partner: UTS Enables ; Students and Volunteers , venue, other resources

Enables ; Students and Volunteers

Build; Students and Volunteers build project team

Feed; RE knowledge Fed by project information and consumer info

Tool Enable; ICT and RE equipment

Enable; communication with consumer, enable RE

Enable; communication Manage; information and knowledge

Manage; communication, relationship

Table 34: Architecture Component Interaction

Figure 61 illustrates execution roadmap for the above value proposition for SMEs.

Figure 61: REC Execution Roadmap-Example

Value proposition: Facilitating development and implementation of affordable renewable energy, contributes to local economic growth by creating jobs and helping SMEs improve profitability

Business Capabilities

Community Business Development Community Management Consumer Management

Research and Development

Plans Building effective networks, partnerships and industry

intelligence Attracting renewable energy

investment

Defining SMEs requirements for

RE

Building renewable

energy expertise

Activities

Identify key stakeholders and network

Develop Stakeholder Engagement and Communication Plan

Identify and participate in opportunities to develop cross-sectoral networks and partnerships

Maintain relevant stakeholder engagement

Improve the process of network connections

Improve the process of network connections

Engage members early and effectively in renewable energy projects

Create an online information portal that provides information to investors

develop

integrated

approach to assess

ment of renewa

ble energy project

s

Create an online information portal that provides information to Consumers

Promote the benefits to consumers

Conduct renewable energy research

Engage with research centres and universities

Principles and guidelines

abilities Minimise interdependency between capabilities

Co-creation of value: Customer and stakeholder engagement in providing and delivering services

Knowledge retention and management

Connectivity: The community must ensure proper connection with its partners and stakeholders

Table 35: REC Business Model Execution Roadmap

7.4.3 REC Case Study Result-Evaluation BARM is specialised and implemented in close collaboration with the two senior managers of REC. Architecture concept and practice were “new” and “complex endeavourone of the participants. Through several workshops and meeting BARM and its applicability to the community are presented. During the project coaching was provided to support the development and implementation of specialised BARM. At each stage of the project the outputs and artefacts are developed and finalised with the participants.

The final result and outputs of BARM practice for REC have been confirmed with the two main participants. At the end of the project I also evaluate the BARM using an open interview. The general consensus of the founders was that the use of BARM provides a useful way of articulating the collaborative based business model. The initial implementation of BARM for the Renewable Energy Community was very well received in the community. Although the

now they have a clear view of what it takes to support the business model executionBoard. By developing REC business architecture, using BARM, and defining the roadmap to execute and implement community based business model, the organisation has achieved following:

The community members now have clear end-to-end visibility into their internal business s opportunities (external components) and dependencies which

enable them to better prioritise their plan and actions (see Figure 60, Figure 58, Figure 61) I can see the value that your approach has added in bringing greater levels of simplicity

and comprehension to the business model”. A Member of the Board The REC value proposition inherent in the architecture, along with the input from the

strategy view has enabled the members to fully integrate their value proposition and strategies into the business execution. The specialised BARM for REC provided a transformation plan to build a sustainable community. It also defined clear relationships among the members. “I see the biggest potential in a model like this is the way in which it identifies and articulates all the elements of the business architecture. From a strategy point of view, this is very helpful to know the full context for which you are defining and executing your strategy.” “Understanding the full context in which we are operating has significant value and allows better decision-making when thinking about ICT and other capabilities and how we'll structure and manage those capabilities.” A Member of the Board

A key success factor for REC to execute sustainable community based renewable energy services is the member engagement in the implementation and planning process. BARM enabled REC to define a model to engage the members (see Figure 58).

‘If we were to adopt this BARM model, then the model itself provides not only the 'as is' situation, but also the methodology for visualising the conceptual views of how business components work in a larger business model context. Which is a way of saying that when we bring in new components we need to update the BARM model - both the diagrams and the supporting narrative/documentation.” The Member of Board

complete BARM implementation and execution. This was a concern for the member of board.

“The artefacts, rules and principles almost completely have provided the required platform to facilitate collaboration between REIW and businesses, communities and regulators. While the artefacts are accurate in their representation of the architecture of REC, some additional work will be required before they can be applied. Specifically, REC is a democratic organisation with a very, very flat hierarchy. REC is also a largely volunteer run organisation, where the volunteers are somewhat representative of the diverse society that exists in Sydney. This means that a decision to adopt the architecture needs to be made by a larger group, some of whom may require careful explanation of the concepts surrounding business architecture.”

“My biggest concern right now (in a pre-evaluation environment) is gaining the approval and support/buy-in from the rest of the community team in adopting this model. It's not clear how I'm going to do this at this stage. There appears to be a valley of comprehension that needs to be crossed before people can even see the value in the methodology”. The Member of Board

In response to this comment I would add that, the challenges of enterprise politics and the management of the architecture practice is a valid argument. However it is related to the environmental influences in the architecture projects and is beyond the scope of this research.

‘However I'm deeply enthusiastic about your Business Architecture methodology and using it for the benefit of the community energy sector in Australia.” The Member of Board

7.5 Evaluation Summary Over the 4 year period of this research 3 different architecture projects (case studies) based on BARM were executed and each project incorporated an evaluation activity. The experience gained from each project as well as continual feedback loop involving the expert opinion and

feedback received from each evaluation activity was fed back into the iterative design process and impacted the scope, structure and specification of the BARM meta-model and implementation process.

The reference model construct described in chapter 5 is a refined and final version of the proposed BARM. It has been continually refined throughout the design process, desk-validation, and evaluation. Most importantly the evaluation result from the case studies has enhanced the fi practical utility and confirming many of its strengths.

7.5.1 Case Studies Summary I conducted three case studies within three different companies seeking to implement business architecture using BARM in order solve their strategic management requirements. The case studies examined how well the BARM was used by the chosen SMEs. The evaluation was conducted through a qualitative method of analysing the proposed solutions and artefacts against

, guided conversation with the participants during the implementation process, and open interview at the end of the practice.

The MSA, IHealt4Me, and REC case studies provide conclusive validation as to the applicability of BARM in strategic development and execution of SMEs. Findings show that the BARM has successfully enabled MSA to define the required cloud based business solutions which has been partially implemented. In IHealth4ME and REC cases BARM also has achieved notable milestones in the process of defining strategic requirements for and developing a transformation plan for executing their chosen business model. The summary of case studies, their results, and utility for SMEs are presented in Table 36 Table 35.

Case Study

Purpose of implementing BARM

Role of BARM Results Validation

Utility for SMEs Design Decisions Contribution to the

project purpose/case strategies

MSA Cloud Based Business Transformation

Specialized BARM for the cloud service business transformation, focused from business perspective, enables MSA to transparently and systematically transition toward this cloud-based business environment based on their strategic intent.

Strategy View: Determined the extent of

using the cloud technology (Security, management). Determined the gaps that the company has in the transformation process.

Defined Key Cloud Requirements And Key business gaps

1. Mapping the defined solution to the implemented cloud services

2. Interview with

executives as well as IT consultants throughout the project implementation and after SS12

A methodology for articulating the SMEs strategy and underlying technology solutions requirements (e.g. Cloud based business transformation)

Business Capability View: Determined core

competencies or source of competitive advantages

Determined the value (Output) of the chosen capabilities

Identified operational flexibility (Dependencies on other capabilities) of the chosen capabilities

Determined business services.

Mapped business capabilities and business services Defined value and purpose of business capability Defined Service Level agreement addressing the availability of the services, security, and performance

Business Service View: Guided MSA in the

investment, assessment and reuse of cloud services.

Defined foundation for designing applications and services that will be supported by the cloud technologies.

months

Knowledge View: Determined information

policies, regulatory Security.

Mapped information

Mapped information Defined legislative and

policy obligation to protect and manage information

Defined data location Organization View: Defined

roles/responsibilities in using the cloud services.

Determined value of the cloud for different stakeholders/users.

Determined the level of the cloud service globalisation

Roles and responsibilities

Gap analysis

Business Architecture -Integrated View: Defined unique

composition and orchestration of business services, capabilities and information.

Determined how will cloud technologies be implemented and executed.

Defined unique composition and orchestration of business services, capabilities and information.

Determined how will cloud technologies be implemented and executed.

I Health4Me

IOT Based Business Model Execution

To define the -

Is business architecture

To execute its IOT (Internet of Thing) based value proposition

Strategy View: Determined internal and external business strategies

Internal Strategies Competitive

environment strategies Technology strategy

Implementing BARM following learning based practice approach Provided execution roadmap, engagement model Interview with IHealth4Me founders throughout the project

Business Model Execution

Business Ecosystem Architecture

Business Capability and service Views: Determined core

competencies or source of competitive advantages

Identified operational flexibility (Dependencies on other capabilities) of the chosen capabilities

Determined business services.

Inside-out, Outside In, and spanning business capabilities and their interdependencies.

Value and purpose of business capability

Business services

Organisation View: Defined roles/responsibilities and locations

Roles and responsibilities

Gap analysis

Knowledge View; Determine how to bring

insights into what customer wants?

Determine information policies, regulatory, security

Information mapping Legislative and policy

obligation to protect and manage information

Presenting the project result to IOT Community

External Architecture Components: Determine policies and

regulations that impact on

execution Defined business

opportunities with partners, competitors, and communities based on market structure.

Determined ecosystem architecture (Information architecture/flow and quality and associated risks, service to leverage/share).

Determined collaboration model with partners/business ecosystem

List of legislative and policy obligation to protect and manage information

List of partners and stakeholders

A collaboration model describing relationships with the partners

Business Architecture -Integrated View: Define unique composition and orchestration of business services, capabilities and information.

Business architecture-integrated view

Business Architecture Catalogue

Architecture component interaction

Strategy Execution Roadmap

REC Establish and execute collaborative based business model

To provide the visibility to understand the complexity of the collaboration-centric business. To facilitate a cross-functional plan to address this complexity. To visualise the operation of collaborative business model. To define the key interdependencies and relationships between the business components and network environment in

Strategy View: Provides overall direction and boundaries. Determines how to develop organizational competency to generate value from the collaborative environment. Determines the extend of lopportunities

Internal strategic initiatives

Macro environment strategic initiatives

Competitive environment strategic initiatives (Customers and partner strategies)

Implementing BARM following learning based practice approach Provided execution roadmap, collaboration model and guideline Interview with REC participant throughout the project

Business Model Execution Collaborative Business Network management

Determines core competencies or source of competitive advantages Determines the value (Output) of the chosen capabilities Identifies operational flexibility (Dependencies on other capabilities) of the chosen capabilities Determines business services.

Business Capabilities and business services mapping (internal and external)

Value and purpose of business capability

order to integrate and leverage its opportunities. To provide a roadmap to define clear structure, roles and responsibilities among the cooperatives.

Service View: Guides company in the leveraging and managing internal and shared services Knowledge View : Determines how to manage and retain knowledge and information

Information mapping Knowledge

requirements

Organisation View: Defines roles/responsibilities of the members

Roles and responsibilities

Architecture Integrated View: Defines unique composition and orchestration of internal and external business services, capabilities and information. Determines how to integrate existing capabilities with the network capabilities Provides execution plan.

Business architecture-integrated view

Business Architecture Catalogue

Architecture component interaction

Strategy Execution Roadmap and action plan

Table 36: Summary of the Case Studies

7.5.2 BARM Refinement During the executing of the case studies the following issues were raised that resulted in refining the initial BARM meta-model and implementation process. Chapter 5 presents the revised version of BARM. The revisions fall into following areas:

1. Understandability of BARM: During MSA case study there were initial challenges, particularly around communication and establishing architecture awareness. In the first and second phases of the project, the MSA team was catching up with the project output. This complicated the practice in the early stage of the project. Having the architecture knowledge in place would have substantially simplified the project. Therefore in order to raise the awareness I coupled the practice with provision of training and maintained a continual contact with the stakeholders and participants throughout the project life. This is adapted in the BARM implementation process and applied to the subsequent case studies (REC and IHealth4Me). During each project a number of meetings were held for this purpose. Besides the meetings some resources were provided to them to develop their architecture knowledge and hence capabilities. The terminologies were refined and simplified. This resulted in revising some of the terms used in the BARM meta-model. I found that small steps and constant feedback during the project were crucial. The BARM implementation process also is refined accordingly in order to establish learning within the SMEs.

2. The BARM Components: the following refinements to the BARM components have occurred after desk validation and evaluation of BARM:

Refined knowledge/information view to address knowledge gap in SMEs

Value co-creation principles are reflected in the BARM components

Ecosystem concept is considered and the related theories are incorporated in BARM foundation

Service science further is reviewed and applied to the BARM foundation. Service view and service design are refined accordingly

3. The BARM Usability: During MSA case study some issues were raised by the cloud

strategic requirements, simultaneously they must convey these requirements to the cloud provider. To address this point the service view is revised to exactly reflect the capabilities and sub-capabilities. The BARM implementation process and outputs are accordingly revised.

Business Ecosystem Dynamics: In the context of E/BA there is relatively little discussion of business ecosystem. However, during IHealth4Me and REC case studies some issues were raised regarding adapting the business ecosystem dynamic to the BARM practice. Developing and executing a collaborative based business model

require comprehensive analysis of a subsystem of a stakeholder network. This resulted in review of current business ecosystem theories and adopting these theories to the BARM theoretical foundation. As a result, the external element in BARM has been revised.

Figure 62 illustrates BARM evolutionary path through the course of my research:

Figure 62: BARM Evolutionary Path

7.5.3 Lessons learned I have learned four important lessons from the case studies. These lessons will help SMEs to realize value from BA practice, in particular effectively using BARM in enabling their strategic articulation and implementation.

Lesson 1: Architect for learning and awareness

It is necessary for SMEs to build architecture knowledge and capabilities to effectively facilitate their strategy articulation and execution. Building and learning the BA capability should occur as early as possible before starting the practice. This helps stakeholders fully understand the importance of the BARM practice and effectively engage in the whole process.

Analysing the cases revealed that much has to be done to improve the awareness of business architecture across each case company. The term of E/BA was only known to a few people in IHealth4Me. In order to develop applicable business architecture, the notion of architecture had to be explained in a simple way and with a real example and a demonstrated value for the business.

Lesson 2: Obtain Knowledge of Business Domain

Domain knowledge refers to a broad base understanding of a particular business and ecosystem of SME. The business domain knowledge could refer to the way the business works. Ecosystem domain knowledge could refer to policies, regulatory, and industry around setting up the business.

Having a sound knowledge of business and its ecosystem is important for performing an architecture practice. The business domain should be effectively learnt and translated in the architecture practice in which all business requirements of each architecture element be clearly specified. Conversely a lack of domain knowledge would impact on the quality of artefacts and solutions. In fact the importance of knowledge of business domain was raised by a former architect who was interviewed for the BARM desk validation.

“I believe that domain knowledge should be a prerequisite for stating the architecture journey”. Former Enterprise Architect

However obtaining and exploiting this knowledge can be a time consuming process. During implementation of BARM for the case studies as an architect, I had to gain and exploit the domain knowledge to be able to present effective solutions. The companies were active in different industries (Education, Energy, and Health), however this places constrain on the project timeframe. It is important to retain the ability to quickly gain sufficient knowledge of the business and their ecosystem domain.

Lesson 3: Articulate the purpose/value of implementing BARM

While promoting the idea of BARM for SMEs I have been confronted with confused looks and a statement like how can I convince the rest of our team that BARM will give us value

“I would like to see a clear value of your approach in my organisation. I want to see BARM’s return of investment”. Owner of a Small Australian Company

However it is not easy to quantify the benefits of business architecture. It has been claimed that quantifying BA is not the right way to evaluate business architecture practice12. Therefore it is important to focus on the value delivered and articulating that value that

I have developed BARM as a scenario based business architecture reference model. A SME must be architected to meet its specific purpose and requirement. For MSA the specific objective was defined to facilitate cloud based business transformation. The value of BARM in this case is about providing a roadmap to use, configure and manage cloud services that I expect would result in improved business results. Other cases had different purposes (IOT based business model execution and collaborative based business model execution) that must be clarified and resonated with BARM practice. Aligning with business purpose provides a meaningful reason to initiate the BA project and articulate the value of the practice.

Lesson 4: Be flexible and tailor BARM to address the specific problem

As a part of defining adaptable BARM, I followed a flexible approach to pursue a pragmatic path to the circumstances of the individual case and their related context.

Figure 63 depicts particular adaptation of BARM for each case study. The highlighted components represent the focus area of refinement given to each case. Red represents MSA case study in the Cloud context, blue represents IHealthforME in IOT context, and green represents REC case in collaboration context. The specific context for each case study drives refinement of the BARM components. Specific context and its applicability to various BARM architecture components are elaborated in each case.

Figure 63: BARM Adaptability to the Case Studies

Understanding where to focus for each specific company is important to specialize a just-in-time architecture for the target firm and provide quick business value from the practice. This analysis occurs in step 1 and step 2 of BARM where the BARM is shaped and refined to align with the context of the company. However this requires a great deal of knowledge of the business problem and context in order to adjust and tailor the BARM practice for the specific problem.

The MSA case was focused on the realizing of BARM value in cloud based business transformation. In particular I analysed the impact of cloud technology in the business and adapted BARM for the cloud computing context. Apart from developing MSA business architecture, the key was to focus efforts on major cloud based business transformations and to adapt BARM that enables rapid and agile transformation process for strategy and value proposition execution. The provisioning of Cloud and IOT technologies is related to business strategic direction, business services and regulations having certain conditions in location and time. This required particular attention in Business Strategy view, Information/ Knowledge, Business Service View, and Intuitional Environment.

The Business collaboration context in REC case study mainly reflected on Business Strategy, Information/ Knowledge, Business Capability, Organisational, Competitive and Intuitional Environment components.

Lesson 5: Focus on the BARM practice, not the tool

Analysis of widely accepted architecture adoption in large organisations has shown that software tool support could significantly contribute to manage EA implementation. During IOT case study the co-founder of the company made a point that “Would be good to have a BARM metamodel that is implemented in an Enterprise Architecture tool, so it can be tied into BMC, business process models and other business architecture components”.

However, for the purpose of this work, I was concerned that the use of software tools including EA tools would place stress on the complexity and cost of the BA practice. As SMEs may not be able to afford a sophisticated E/BA tool, this work mainly focuses on how through BARM SMEs will change the way they act/think. Therefore in developing and

architecture can be defined using a simple and available tool in the company. This could be done using Microsoft Office (e.g. Visio) tools.

8

8.1 Summary of this Research The initial motivation of this research arose during an Enterprise/Business Architecture (E/BA) project in a small college in which I was involved as a Business Analyst. The project aimed at developing the current structure of the college and also to support its growth-by-merger strategy. However, a major challenge arose when I tried to adopt existing frameworks (e.g. TOGAF). While the E/BA practice appeared to be necessary, the implementation of the current frameworks for the college was a financially large and conceptually complex undertaking.

SMEs are the main driver of economic growth. They exhibit varying scales, scopes and configurations. Strategic development in both business and IT are shown to be challenging for many SMEs due to the lack of resources and knowledge. This has led to my research questions that consider whether and how it is possible to help SMEs strategic development and execution in a dynamic environment and what is the tool for this purpose. The main research question for this thesis is: What is the novel Business Architecture framework that allows Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to co-create sustained value in a dynamic and collaborative business environment?

The research goals, main and sub questions are detailed and described in Section 1.3.

Chapter 2 described the research methodology for this research. This chapter reflected on different research approaches available to the IS research and their relevance to this research. I followed Design Science method and adopted the framework proposed by (Hevner et al. 2004) in order to develop and evaluate simple but holistically comprehensive Business Architecture (BA) to enable SMEs implement entrepreneurial practices that have the capacity to articulate and execute their business strategies to align with the changing environments .

The development of this research from exploring and validating the value of BA in strategic development of SMEs, to identifying the BA requirements, leading to the novel Business Architecture Reference Model (BARM) is discussed. In chapter 3, organisational characteristics of SMEs that influence their strategic management and development are reviewed. I unpacked the SME requirements for BA to enable sustained value creation by first examining the extant work on SME IT architectural frameworks (internal requirements) highlighting their lack of business strategic alignment as a key limitation and second examining the critical characteristics and influence of the dynamic external environment on SME business performance. Then I summed up and validated the purpose and requirements of BA framework as a strategic management tool for SMEs. The findings of this study are presented in three parts to address the research sub-questions. Finally the section is concluded with a summary of the guidelines and insights for SMEs for developing the requisite BA reference model. In chapter 4, knowledge of the problem domain is presented based on E/BA literature and related works, business and enterprise design, and organisational dynamics. Chapter 5 presents the iteratively-defined, -evaluated, and refined Business Architecture

Reference Model (BARM) using the afore-described design science research methodology. In this chapter first I described the conceptual foundation of proposed Business Architecture Reference Model (BARM) based on architecture science and business design and organisation, and strategic management perspectives. Then I outlined the final version of BARM and explained how the discussed disciplines are adopted and used in its architecture components and elements.

The resultant reference model has been both desk-validated and empirically evaluated. In Chapter 6, I presented the BARM desk validation. For this purpose the model was presented to different SME managers and E/BA experts and its fidelity with real world phenomena (interviews) based on (March and Smith 1995) has been investigated and endorsed by

proposed BARM also has potential to be further explored and examined. The main strengths of BARM concluded from the interviews were; first its relative simplicity and understandability by SME mangers, second, its ability to present a transparent big picture of business components and their external and internal fitness, which was endorsed comprehensively by interviewing a panel of experts, SMEs executives/managers, and as well as peer reviews. In chapter 7 the empirical evaluation based on three real case studies was presented. Each case study represents a specific business scenario which was developed based on the company real strategic development requirement. The BARM was specialised

of their real business challenges that were under investigation. The specialised BARM is implemented and evaluated with close collaboration with the executives and senior managers. The firm were engaged and coached in several workshops and meetings through which the business requirements were identified and solutions were developed and presented. We work closely together to define, create, refine and reach closure on solutions and deliverables. The validation for each case study occurred using semi-structured interviews with different stakeholders during, at the end of BARM implementation as well as after a period of time (for post-implementation review). In order to determine the

respondents are selected from IT experts, IT managers, business executives, and managers. eral applicability in SMEs. The result and feedback from

both desk-validation and evaluation steps are used to refine BARM (in collaboration with the respective SME case study participants) to enhance its practical utility. The case studies provide valuable insights and lessons for realizing BARM benefits and value. The lessons and insights on delivering value from BARM in SMEs are summarized in section 7.5.

8.2 Key Theoretical Implications and Publications This research has provided significant contributions to the E/BA body of knowledge in the following areas. These contributions have been published in (Dehbokry and Chew 2013a; Dehbokry and Chew 2013b; Dehbokry and Chew 2015a; Dehbokry and Chew 2015b; Dehbokry and Chew 2015c)

8.2.1 Demonstrates Importance of BA Practice for Development and Execution

SMEs are constantly seeking new ways to manage strategic change by focusing their effort on both strategic development and execution (Taylor and Murphy 2004). The IS and strategic management literature focus on the strategizing development of SMEs (Raymond and Bergeron 2008; Singh et al. 2008a). However a key problem of this line of research is that the concept of strategic development and execution within SMEs is largely ignored (Raymond and Bergeron 2008). The lack of a clearly defined strategic management tool might explain

development and execution. This research provides significant insights into the value and the role of E/BA as a strategic management tool for SMEs to create sustained value. It investigates and discusses the significance of BA practice for SMEs from various perspectives including internal and external environments. In particular, this research investigates their characteristics in management structure, IT resources, strategies and architecture and consequently the underlying BA requirements of SMEs. The results of this research, confirmed by practitioners and SMEs, indicate that there is a strong need in SMEs to utilize BA practice as a strategic tool to create sustained value within dynamic collaborative environments. This research finds that BA practice must provide the SME with the capacity to making strategic decisions regarding the articulating of the business strategies (and its underlying integrated inter-organizational IT architecture), in line with the dynamic market demand and technological changes. Business and technological integration and alignment of the collaboration network, sense-making of the external market and new technological opportunities and threats, and leveraging these opportunities are all important requirements for the SME to survive and thrive as a main participant in the global collaboration network. It also has identified that existing E/BA frameworks and models developed for large organisations have limited applicability in the SME context. The result of this was published and presented in an international conference (Dehbokry and Chew 2013a). Drawing on the specific SME characteristics operating in a collaborative network ecosystem of firms, this research elicits the specific strategic management requirements that need to be satisfied by a BA practice. The research used extensive exploratory literature review and semi-structured interviews to explicate the underlying drivers of SME requirements for business oriented architecture that need to be addressed by the requisite BA practice. It found that, the BA practice must possess the capabilities to guide and assist the SMEs to adapt with the dynamic collaborative ecosystem of firms and sense, leverage and orchestrate the network of resources and ICT capabilities to create sustained value. The tool characteristics in management structure, IT resources, strategies and architecture have been defined. This was published and presented in an international paper as well as a journal (Dehbokry and Chew 2013b; Dehbokry and Chew 2015b).

8.2.2 Developing Multi-Disciplinary Business Architecture Reference Model (BARM)

strategic development is the primary contribution of the thesis. This research re-conceptualized business architecture using cross-disciplines from broader organization, management and service sciences to provide a solid theoretical grounding for the proposed BARM. This allows BARM to address the disparate business concerns of and the requirements for capabilities co-evolution with the subject SME In this research I weaved the underlying theories of enterprise/business architecture, value proposition, dynamic capability, and ecosystem into an integrative framework (BARM) for strategic management, which incorporates the practices of business components integration, orchestration, and management both within and outside a SMEcomplementing the concept of dynamic capability, ecosystem perspective, and value proposition I advanced toward a capability oriented business architecture reference model (BARM) that reconfigures and realigns internal and external business components in line with value proposition and customer requirements. This research has drawn upon enterprise/business architecture concepts from Information Systems and integrated them with Strategic Management discipline Resource Based and Dynamic Capability theories. I also tried to reduce the complexity of E/BA practice by developing a simple and yet comprehensive BA reference model that allows SMEs to learn, understand and implement architecture practice using their limited resources and knowledge. It unambiguously maps out the interrelationships between business value proposition and architecture views and enables SMEs to orchestrate the socio-technical resources/capabilities. This was published in the European Conference of Information Systems (ECIS) in 2015 (Dehbokry and Chew 2015c).

8.2.3 Value Proposition Execution The third contribution of this research concerns the role of BARM in executing and changing a firm value proposition. Ross et al posited that the foundation for business execution is in the business operating model defined by the processes and infrastructure (Ross et al. 2006). However designing and executing the business model to achieve internal and external fitness is an under-researched area (Osterwalder et al. 2005; Zott et al. 2011). BARM is designed to fill this gap.

BARM enables SMEs to extend, change and reconfigure their organizational capabilities and resources to execute their value propositions (E.g. see chapter 7, Case Study 1: BARM to facilitate Cloud Based Business Transformation, Case Study 2: Developing Business Architecture for IOT Based Business Model Execution, and Case Study 3: BARM to Establish a Collaborative based Business Model). Changes driven from BARM practice

SMEs to change their business models and collaborate in a powerful new way with the chosen ecosystem. The results from three case studies show that driving their business architecture

. Hence, BARM practice helps SMEs translate the value proposition into concrete interconnected components (of business capabilities, services, and responsibilities), guidelines, and principles. The BARM architecture components in the two levels of hierarchy are mapped and aligned successfully to shape and operationalize the value propositions. This, in the MSA case, led to successful definition of their customer driven cloud based business services, an outcome which was positively acknowledged by a Strategist and an Architect:

“The BARM together with the Business Model Canvas allows a model-driven development of the key business strategy components”.

8.2.4 Architecture of Business beyond Firms Boundaries Firms especially SMEs across industries increasingly open up to co-produce their value propositions with customers and external stakeholders to assure external fitness(Frow et al. 2014; Payne et al. 2008). They build strongly on both external and internal business capabilities (e.g. knowledge and ICT resources and capabilities) to extend their value creation. This has called for a broader perspective on designing a considers interconnected relationships within a business ecosystem (Jacobides and Billinger 2006). Business ecosystem is a relatively new concept in the field of business research. It is a network of organizations that coevolve their capabilities and roles and together create greater value (Moore 1996). IS research has taken the digital business ecosystem into account as they are often enabled by the use of ICT (Nachira 2002; Nachira et al. 2007). However the enterprise/business architecture research is often limited to specific internal business components. Integrative perspective which considers architecting business/enterprise including both (Fjeldstad et al. 2012; Jacobides and Billinger 2006).

BARM is defined from a broader business ecosystem perspective therefore it provides a powerful tool in understanding the dynamic of complex business networks. We adopted insights from business ecosystem (Moore 1996), dynamic capability (Teece 2007), and contingency theories (Donaldson 2001) to overcome the theoretical deficits of prior architecture research. whole. It provides a set of guidelines, processes, and principles for the composition of entities, determining with whom and how the firm choose to engage. Specially, BARM may be used to map inside-out and outside-in business capabilities and services across the

The case of IHealth4Me illustrates the importance and potential benefits of BARM in creating a blueprint for boundaries redesign (see Figure 44: MSA's Business Architecture-Overview). It successfully redrew its boundaries to increase patients and partners It is believed that the designed architecture based on BARM helps to orchestrate internal and external capabilities

. It helps to concurrently use both internal and external partners and customers to establish value co-creation. For example, Scientific Fitness Management (external capability) and Health Management (internal capability) are mapped to R&D and to

customers which allows them to develop and deliver Nutrition and Fitness Management services that reflect the current condition (see section 7.3).

By incorporating institutional environment in the business architecture, BARM also can be beneficial to examine the impact of external factors on the business decision making process. In the MSA case I created a set of legal entities (e.g. Australian Government). They are fully mapped to business components. This has enabled effective decisions in utilizing the cloud technology aligned with the policies and regulations in using the cloud technologies (see section 7.2).

8.3 Implications for Industry There is a low level of understanding of architecture concepts among SMEs (Jacobs et al. 2011). With this research I tried to change this perception among SMEs. Therefore BARM has strong industry implications. Throughout the case studies, interviews, and presentations,

for those who are concerned with influencing the strategic development and execution of SMEy (for both business consultants and SMEs themselves). I can derive industry implications at four levels of analysis that lead to SMEs strategic business development and execution as follow. Figure 64 summarizes the industry implications in this research.

Figure 64: BARM Industry Implications

8.3.1 Architecture Mindset and Culture The main implication of this research is that through implementing BARM, SMEs become aware of the necessity of strategic business development and execution and the fact that a structured method like business architecture practice is crucial for this purpose (Ross et al. 2006). The artefacts and deliverables that are created and how they are delivered is of critical importance in BARM practice. However the main power of BARM practice in SME is its competency to drive consensus, bring people together and establish commitment (Richardson et al. 1990). The strategic benefits of building this mindset and awareness are much greater than the deliverable and solving current problems (Bradley et al. 2011b). This mindset enables SMEs to respond to any further changes more effectively (Thompson and Martin 2010).

During BARM implementation I sought to facilitate BA learning within the SMEs which enhances capacity for modifying their mental model when solving strategic management requirements. In fact, become involved in the rigorous process of defining their strategic requirements, business scenario, and development of their business architecture in order to solve their chosen requirements. This is consistent with the Problem Based Learning (PBL) model within organisations

requirements where the focus is on its improvements (Yeo and Marquardt 2010). According to Kolb (Kolb 2014) learning is the process whereby knowledge is created

Driven by an organisation problem, solutions in PBL are normally defined and refined through experience, and this continuous process motivates inquiry and skill in knowledge acquisition (von Bayern et al. 2009; Yeo and Marquardt 2010).

8.3.2 Clarity and Direction For sustainable growth in a highly competitive environment, clarity of direction in adapting to changes (e.g. technology) has become an essential part of strategy development and execution by SMEs (Singh et al. 2008a). As a SME progresses and grows the vision and mindset of the company on learning and adapting architecture competencies will mature and scale for the future (Burton 2014). An E/BA competency enables an ongoing process of discovery for an organisation on how its current situation relates to its future (Bradley et al. 2011a). One specific implication of BARM concerns the business transformation using ICT. BARM is used as a methodology for articulating the SMEs strategy and underlying technology solution requirements. BARM utility in a cloud based business transformation project is demonstrated in the MSA case study (see section 7.2). While many SMEs feel the urge to reap in economies of scale by adapting one integrated cloud technology, BARM provides a structured way toward using and managing cloud based services that meet their strategic business requirements. The main strengths of BARM concluded from the interviews were its ability to present a transparent big picture view of business components and their external and internal

interdependencies. Using BARM would be beneficial to both consultants in offering

8.3.3 Managing limited Resources and Capabilities: The major areas of challenge in SMEs strategic development and execution are related to utilizing available scarce resources and capabilities (Singh et al. 2008b). Resource structuring and business capability orchestration enhance a firproviding support to its competitive strategies (Barney et al. 2011; Sirmon et al. 2011). BARM guides resources and capabilities allocation, mapping and orchestration in line with a (Dehbokry and Chew 2015b). It decouples s business capabilities to three different levels: inside-out, outside-in, and spanning capabilities. This may help to facilitate both reuse and flexibility of reconfiguring the related business services. BARM also helps to determine the extent to which a SME leverages its existing internal and external capabilities and invests in resources that target a performance gap. This would benefit SMEs in assessing the investment decision and managing its limited resources and capabilities (Ross and Westerman 2004). In developing and implementing BARM I focus on key business capabilities that enable competitive advantages for the company. BARM also maps external and internal capabilities and ensures the SME together with its chosen business ecosystem provide orchestrated resources and capabilities to meet customer requirements.

8.3.4 Business Execution: SMEs have to adapt and design an innovative business model to retain a competitive advantage (Cavalcante et al. 2011). However it is equally important to implement and manage the business model (Osterwalder et al. 2005). Over time as the culture within an organisation begins to shift toward a business architecture oriented mindset, sustainable value is derived from BA practice (Giannoulis et al. 2012). This also drives lasting organisational behaviour changes (Thompson and Martin 2010) and may support fundamental design and execution of the business itself. BARM provides some important insight into how to implement and execute a business model. In particular the BARM meta-model could serve as a valuable blueprint for value proposition execution (see Figure 54). IHealth4Me provides an example on how BARM can be used to execute an IOT based business model value proposition.

8.4 Limitations and Future Directions While the proposed BARM has been rigorously developed and constructively validated and evaluated by three case studies, some limitations remain. These limitations to the research are inevitable due to the time constraints. First, the proposed BARM was only applied to three small sized firms that had less than 50 staff. The model was not tested on medium sized (50-200 staff). Additional future case studies are required to ensure the general applicability to SMEs of all sizes (1-200 staff). Second, the proposed BARM was evaluated in three different industries such as education, healthcare, and renewable energy industries. It would be beneficial for generalization purposes to apply the model in other industries such as retail, manufacturing and finance.

Business/Enterprise Architecture science and practice are a very broad domain with potential value for organisations of all sizes (Tamm et al. 2011). In this section I outline some ideas for applications and possible future research that are drawn from the research.

8.4.1 BARM for Organisational Innovation A significant area of further research that could be promising is the role of BARM in a innovation. SMEs are focused on driving innovation and business competitiveness and E/BA practice may play a key role for that purpose (Burton 2014). The proposed reference model may be used to identify and leverage potential sources of innovation, which may be localized at the various environmental elements identified in the model, aligning them with customer requirements.

From an innovation perspective BARM should enable organisations in the following areas illustrated in Figure 65.

Figure 65: BARM Theoretical Implication- Innovation

Value proposition; this aspect has implication on the firm innovation process by the fact that the new product or services need to address customer requirements and provide value to them (Teece 2010).

Sensing and seizing; drawing on dynamic capability theory this aspect implies an architecture capacity to sense and seize the opportunities that are provided through collaboration in the business ecosystem (Teece 2007). BARM may contribute to sensing opportunities by facilitating the decision making process that helps to highlight what is critical.

Capability management and orchestration; this aspect of business architecture allows us to integrate and manage a new capability into current business components. This is based on the fact that the innovation is necessary but not sufficient for the firm success.

it is important to try to turn innovation into a strategy and a process. Innovation is about much more than new products. It is about reinventing business processes and building

entirely new markets that meet untapped customer demand. Sam Pamisano, (former) CEO of IBM, 13

Further research can be conducted in examining the open business architecture impact on fostering strategic capabilities and nurtured innovation through more open architecture

8.4.2 Business Architecture for Business Growth Another significant research direction could be investigating the business growth. Business growth is about thinking through where to put the resources, realizing those opportunities and then defending and /or moving on (Penrose 1995). E/BA is a practice to manage change by emphasising the state transition concept of the change from current state to a future state perspective (Burton 2008a). Regarding enabling organisational growth, BARM systematizes the orchestration of internal and external business capabilities, therefore it may be used to understand the firm opportunities for internal and external growth. In particular I suggest that further research is needed to investigate the BARM role on resource/capability configuration to achieve and shape organisational growth.

8.4.3 Enterprise Ontologies and Engineering Adaption in Business Architecture

(Gruber 1995) as an explicit specification of a conceptualization. It emphasizes conceptualization as an intentional semantic structure which encodes the implicit rules constraining the structure of a piece of reality (Guarino et al. 1995). Therefore ontological modelling has its root in philosophy where it

(Gruber 1995). Ontologies are increasingly used in enterprise engineering in order to develop and implement an explicit account of a shared understanding in enterprises and businesses (Fox and Grüninger 1997; Osterwalder 2004). Furthermore, enterprise ontology is a conceptualised representation of an enterprise and describes the nature and structure of the business enterprise (Fox and Grüninger 1997).

The effort to define ontologies in business has taken two different forms. The first form is, the ontologies that describe the concepts related to the nature and structure of the business enterprise. The second form is, the transaction related ontologies that are used in e-business and aimed at specifying information in electronic business transactions in order to improve and automate these transactions (Fensel et al. 2001).

Enterprise engineering is a new approach to create, describe and improve the systems through which the enterprise operates (Kosanke et al. 1999). It assumes that human and technical components of those systems should be viewed in an integrated way that combines concepts and methods from social and technical disciplines (Dietz and Hoogervorst 2008). Engineering implies completeness and precision in identifying components and their interactions, analyzing the actual or potential behavior of systems, and identifying specific system

modifications that might generate better performance. Enterprise Engineering provides

(Dietz et al. 2013).

In this research I adapted principles of enterprise engineering to identify internal and external business components. However further research is required to study the role of Enterprise Engineering, particularly System Thinking in business architecture practice. One important area that may be considered is modeling and analyzing social aspect of an enterprise and their impact in its architecture development.

9

Hervás, R., Bravo, J. and Fontecha, J., 2010. A Context Model based on Ontological Languages: a Proposal for Information Visualization. J. UCS, 16(12), pp.1539-1555.

Henkel, M., Stratigaki, C., Stirna, J., Loucopoulos, P., Zorgios, Y. and Migiakis, A., 2016, June. Extending Capabilities with Context Awareness. In International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (pp. 40-51). Springer International Publishing.

Saat, J., Franke, U., Lagerstrom, R. and Ekstedt, M., 2010, October. Enterprise architecture meta models for IT/business alignment situations. In Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference (EDOC), 2010 14th IEEE International (pp. 14-23). IEEE.

Research Papers Please find below list of conference papers and journal papers that have that have been published as part of the ongoing process of research communication during the development of this thesis.

Journal Paper:

1- Dehbokry, S. G., and Chew, E. K. 2015b. "Developing Business Architecture for Smes: A Strategic Tool for Capability Orchestration and Managing Dynamisms," Journal of Innovation Management in Small and Medium Enterprises (2015)

Conference Papers:

2- Dehbokry, S. G., and Chew, E. 2013a. "Developing Enterprise Business Architecture for Smes: A Strategic Tool for Resource Orchestration and Managing Dynamisms," in: International Business Information Management Conference.

3- Dehbokry, S. G., and Chew, E. K. 2013b. "The Strategic Requirements for an Enterprise Business Architecture Framework by Smes," Lecture Notes on Information Theory Vol (2:1).

Dehbokry, S. G., and Chew, E. K. 2015a. "Business Architecture Reference Model for Smes: A Case of Cloud-Enabled Business Transformation," in: 26th IBIMA Conference. International Business Information Management Association (IBIMA).

Dehbokry, S. G., and Chew, E. K. 2015c. "Toward a Multi-Disciplinary Business Architec-Ture Reference Model for Smes," in: 23th European Conference on Information System (ECIS 2015). Munster, Germany

-

Business Architecture

For Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

Seyran Dehbokry

1- DESCRIPTION ........................................................................................................................................ 252

2- PROJECT OBJECTIVES ....................................................................................................................... 252

3- PROJECT SCOPE AND BUSINESS DESIGN PLAN REPRESENTED BY BA FRAMEWORK .. 253

4- PROJECT TEAM ..................................................................................................................................... 254

5- PROJECT METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................ 254

6- PROJECT FLOWCHART ...................................................................................................................... 255

7- PROJECT STEPS .................................................................................................................................... 256

5- PROJECT TIMELINE ............................................................................................................................ 258

6- EVALUATION AND VALUE ASSESSMENTS ...................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.

I. Description

The proposed Business Architecture represents design plan of enterprise that provides common understanding of the organisations and is used to align strategic objectives to tactical and operational demands. Business Architecture (BA) as a strategic management tool, helps organizations, mainly SMEs, to identify, lay out and integrate internal and external resources and capabilities. It guides a company to facilitate ICT decision making process, manage, structure internal resources and capabilities (mainly IT) and leverage external and shared resources and capabilities.

The BA framework in this project is formalized based on generic SMEs requirements and constraints (Identified in the research) as well as strategic management theories and current architecture

requirements and challenges which will be identified in the first phase of this project and provide following:

Principles Strategies Architecture Framework Business operating maps (resources and capability map, Process map, Knowledge map and

strategy map) Transformation plan for Business/IT alignment A process for collectively identifying opportunities for improvement and implementation

plans as appropriate In this collaboration with managers from various business units (project stakeholders) in a manner that allows those with the most benefit to the business be identified.

II. Project Objectives

In this project I aim to develop Business Architecture applicable for small and medium enterprises to help their business to be more effective by, first providing a common understanding of the organization, second identifying the right resources and finally combining and managing these resources effectively. Successful implementation of this project will result in accomplishing the following objectives.

To enable SMEs to create sustained value while adapting within its dynamic environment. This would be achieved by gaining following goals:

To define business, market and collaboration networks strategies and objectives, as well as context for transforming business objective into its operation and collaboration network environments

To enable SME to structure, manage and reconfigure business capabilities and resources (mainly ICTs) align with changing environments. Also to sense environment

resources and capabilities) To provide a clearer perspective and roadmap on how ICT can deliver specific business

solutions across business units or environments

III. Project Scope and business design plan represented by BA framework

ss architecture and design plan:

Figure 66: Aspect of Business Represented by EBA Framework

IV. Project Team

to the project, and content experts. They will closely work together to define, create, refine and reach closure on solutions and deliverables. The project team has following structure:

V. Project Methodology

Using the principles of agile methodology this project will be implemented based on iterative and incremental approach. Using this approach I aim to reach quick results, engage SME senior managers and stakeholders in the project development, respond to changes over following the plan and improve and adjust both the artefacts (project output) and process used, in the next releases.

The releases will be defined and prioritized based on the company business model, requirements and highest business value expected from its outputs. Completing each release provide artefacts and solutions that presents a design of the business.

The following diagram pro

Content Expert Team

....

VI. Project Flowchart

Analysing As Is business and assess company

Choose and approve baseline architecture viewpoint

Perform gap analysis

Assess SMEs business model, needs, objectives

Define business scenario

Analysis the business using the scenario

Architect business (Strategy, Capability, information and value stream mapping

Identifying and prioritizing business requirements

requirements ApprovalRe-define the requirements

No

Validate architect model for completeness fidelity

Re-architect ApprovalNo

Define transformation plan for business and IT li

Define governance role and program

m gap a

ess mod

itizing b

t A

usiness s

ness usi

tegy, C

del for c

Approv

on plan

ance rol

1 hour meeting

2 hours workshop

1 hour meeting

2 hours workshop

1 hour meeting

Project Evaluation ct Evalu1 hour meeting

VII. Project Steps

This project follows bellow main phases:

Identifying SMEs business, requirements, strategies and objectives into IT technology decisions and resource and capability management

Defining business scenarios and discussion of how BA helps the company to address solutions to these issues

Defining architecture design plan aim to guide the company to develop ability so that SME can; first make decisions around ICT investment, second structure, manage and reconfigure internal and external resources

Establishing governance process (Creating mechanism) to ensure the abilities are built will act upon new requirements from new market and environment

Assessing and validating the presented artefacts and capabilities

The activities for defined phases include:

Phase Activity Deliverable Artefacts

A: Preliminary Analyzing Business (As is) and Assess SME maturity

-- --

Assess opportunities to leverage BA

Perform gap analysis

B: Assess SME Requirements and Select Architecture Viewpoints

SME Objective Setting Defined EBA plan

Business Scenarios

Restatement of/ or reference to business principles, business goals, business drivers

Business Scenarios (Business driven, Market driven, collaborative network driven( sense making seize and reconfigure network resources, manage shared resources/ services)

Tailored EBA framework ( EBA viewpoints and mapping)

Identify business requirements, Stakeholder and concerns

Objective and requirements prioritization

Define an appropriate business scenarios and analyze the business using the scenario as a guideline to define baseline EBA view points

Define and mapping business architecture viewpoints

Define EBA principles

Final approval

C: Architect Business

( Develop Target Business Architecture)

Strategy mapping Business Architecture

Collaboration/ Market/ Business Strategies

Market/ Innovation/ Collaboration/ Production Capabilities Mapping

Business/Collaboration knowledge mapping

SME value stream mapping Business Rules

Capability mapping

Information/knowledge mapping

Value stream mapping

Validate architecture model for completeness and internal consistency and accuracy ( to support SME principles, objectives, requirements and constraints)

Final approval

D: Define transformation plan for Business/IT alignment

Define Data Architecture requirements Transformation plan for Business/IT alignment

Data Architecture Requirement IT requirements specification IT deployment plan Define and prioritize IT service

requirements

Define IT deployment plan

E: Governance Identify and define governance roles and program

Governance plan

Table 37: Overview of Project Phase and Steps

VIII. Project Timeline

This project will be completed in two weeks by following specified steps in Table 38.

which the business requirements will be identified and solutions will be presented. Each workshop will run maximum for two hours.

Iteration Phases

Steps Duration

s manager engagement

Values/ Outcomes

01 Phase A: Preliminary

Analyzing As Is business and assess SME maturity

1 day

1 hour meeting with

SME owner/ Senior manager

Determine the architecture capability of the SME

Assess Opportunities to leverage EBA

Perform gap analysis

02

Phase B: Assess SME Requirements and Select Architecture Viewpoints

SME Objective Setting

2days

2 hours workshop with selected group of stakeholders

Specify and prioritize current business requirements and

Defining business scenarios and develop high level of aspirational vision of the capabilities and business value to be delivered as a result of proposed EBA

Identify business requirements, Stakeholder and concerns

Objective and requirements prioritization

Define an appropriate business scenarios and analyze the business using the scenario as a guideline to define baseline EBA view points

Define and mapping business architecture viewpoints

Define EBA principles

Final approval 1 hour meeting

To sense the opportunities

Phase C: Architect Business

Define Market/ ecosystem and business Strategy

2 days

2 hours workshop with selected group of stakeholder

Information availability Improved and common understanding of market, ecosystem and external knowledge acquisition Reveal opportunities to learn, scan and ultimately co-

Ecosystem/ Market knowledge mapping

Innovation Capability mapping

s evolution and interact with the ecosystem participants and new markets Improve ecosystem communications and information sharing

Mapping strategies, knowledge and innovation capabilities and validate architecture model

1 day

Final approval 1 hour meeting

To seize the opportunities

Phase C: Architect Business

Redefine business strategies

2 days

2 hours workshop with selected group of stakeholders

Selecting resource and capabilities architecture Align business and objectives and capability (IT) Facilitate ICT decision making process Improve organization communications and information sharing

Mapping capabilities (production, ecosystem management and market management)

Value stream design

Knowledge and information mapping

1 day

Mapping strategies, knowledge and capabilities(Innovation) and validate architecture model

Final approval 1 hour meeting

To leverage and reconfigure the opportunities

Phase C: Architect Business

Re-define strategies

2 day

2 hours workshop with selected group of stakeholders

Integrating internal and external resources and capabilities (knowledge, capability and processes) Managing knowledge Managing capabilities and resources Commercialization of leveraged knowledge and technologies

Mapping internal and external(shared) capabilities, resources and competencies

Mapping strategies, knowledge and capabilities(Innovation, production, market, and ecosystem management) and validate architecture model

1days

1 hour meeting

Final approval

2 Phase D: Transformation plan for IT and

Define Data Architecture requirements 1 day

1 hour meeting

Define business driven ICT requirements Reduce potential IT service costs

business alignment

Define and prioritize IT service requirements

Define IT deployment plan

Final approval

Governance Phase E: Governance

Identify and define governance roles and program

1 day 2 hours workshop

Define governance roles and activities

Table 38: Project timeline