In Absprache mit meinem Verlag stelle ich mein Buch als pdf frei zur Verfügung. Bitte senden Sie bei Interesse eine E-Mail mit Ihrem vollständigen Namen an publications (at) generate-value [dot] com – Sie erhalten dann baldmöglichst den Download-Link. Viel Spass beim Lesen.
Mehr Infos zu den Inhalten erhalten Sie unter Infos zum Buch: BPM im Enterprise 2.0 unter Dynamik (de).
More than 10 years ago, when I was at CeBIT in Hanover, we had this great idea of “Mobile Payment”. The case: Pay via your mobile carrier’s bill. The problem: The carriers wanted to earn their fortune with mobile transactions. The consequence: “Mobile Payment” was too expensive and – in addition: Carriers wanted to limit the transactions to micropayment. The banks were still busy with implementing “mature” Online Banking solutions.
Now, in the era of smartphone apps and Near Field Communication (NFC), there are new rules of the game. NFC is expected to become the most widely used system for making payments with smartphones. Apps will allow customers to manage their financial ship everywhere and around the clock. This is the chance for new business models in this field. Nobody will be dependent on mobile carriers or banks. New players will supply this “market niche” with new financial services. Candidates like Google, VISA, Paypal, Apple, FaceCash and to date unknown new service providers (and maybe “facebook”?) will now take the lead.
But, what is the new business case? Just pay your shopping in the supermarket with your Apple, Microsoft, Blackberry or Android phone? Perhaps that’s the case and just leave your physical wallet at home, take your smartphone. But – “by the way” – you will get credits and deductibles from your retailer. You will be noticed to special offers and new products. And you will scan the products barcode of your milk carton with your phone app as soon as milk is running short – this will be the reminder for your next shopping in the supermarket. There are really lots of business cases for Mobile Payment and new service providers in the Bank 2.0 – era.
There are new conditions: Payments will be moved to the new built frontend layer (and app layer respectively) which is controlled by the “app marketplace provider” Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, but not by banks or carrier. Primarily “underbanked” customers*, but also profitable customers will be abondoning the old ways of payments to go for the utility of a combined mobile phone and payment device.
“The bank becomes the back-end manager of risk and the product manufacturer, with the lowest margin of the whole value chain.” (Brett King, http://www.banking4tomorrow.com/2011/09/when-a-telco-becomes-a-better-bank/)
In addition to the technological and customer behavior caused impact of mobile payment, Brett King, the author of Bank 2.0, mentions another two arguments for the breakthrough of mobile payment (Brett King, http://www.banking4tomorrow.com/2011/09/will-the-us-be-the-last-to-go-cashless/):
- “Tighter money laundering requirements”
- “Cost of physical handling versus electronic transactions”
Like Enterprise 2.0 (and Web 2.0 respectively), what is about content and context (see [Domb11]), Bank 2.0 and Mobile Payments respectively are about transactions and context (see also http://www.banking4tomorrow.com/2011/06/google-wallet-is-not-about-payments/).
A good overview of Mobile Payment players is given by G+ (see G+, https://www.gplus.com/_Media/GLG_Goodbye_Wallets2-L_1841.png, this is a link to G+ and not a picture from the author of this article). One contender still missing in this big picture is Apple – but maybe we must wait only a few days (or months?)… Another list of the companies in this field could be seen on FaceCash (see http://www.facecash.com/v
References:
Financial Services and Banking respectively are affected by two major trends. Causes for these trends are internal and external influences: External influences are for example new technological developments and Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0 while internal influences are such as cost pressure on Information Technology departments and organizational restructuring.
In the next days I will go into the Bank 2.0 / Mobile Payment – example…
References:
*) Since these terms are used in different context and have partly different meanings, a clearer differentiation is necessary. The definition and differentiation of these terms goes beyond this article. A good introduction to the term “Bank 2.0″ gives Brett King, author of “Bank 2.0″, see http://www.banking4tomorrow.com/ – The term “New Banking” is described in the blog of Dirk Elsner, http://www.blicklog.com/ .
Entgegen meiner ursprünglich Planung, dieses Buch über einen meiner favorisierten Verlage in den Druck zu geben, stelle ich nun meinen Enterprise Architecture – Beitrag “Business Capability Management – Gezielte Ausrichtung der Artefakte einer Unternehmensarchitektur” frei für den persönlichen Gebrauch zur Verfügung.*
Remark for English-speaking readers:
I will take up some topics of this book in the coming months.
Auszug aus der Einleitung:
Aufgrund der turbulenten wirtschaftlichen Entwicklungen der vergangenen Jahre sieht sich das Management von Unternehmen heute mit neuen Herausforderungen konfrontiert. [...]
„Capabilities are one of the later ‚hot topics‘ in Enterprise Architecture Management.“ [Kell09, S. 1] Von dem in diesem Beitrag behandelten Business Capability Management (BCM) erhoffen sich Top Manager, die Gestaltungsobjekte einer Unternehmensarchitektur (Enterprise Architecture, EA) zielorientierter ausrichten zu können. Das geschieht ausgehend von einem abstrahierten Betrachtungswinkel und unabhängig von einer konkreten Implementierung. Dabei wird vor allem der zukünftig gewünschte Zustand von Geschäftsfähigkeiten adressiert (SOLL-Zustand, „future state“) und in der Sprache des Business artikuliert (vgl. [Hopk10], [Rose10, S. 1ff.]).
Download und Quellen des Auszugs:
*) Copyright siehe Impressum des Beitrags (im pdf). Jede kommerzielle Nutzung, jeder Druck, jegliche Vervielfältigung oder Bereitstellung zum Download bedarf der schriftlichen Zustimmung des Autors.
Below are some words concerning the agile management in the “sweet spot” between chaos and order (see [Domb11]) to gain the maximal flexibility coupled to sufficient stability.
A few days ago I stumbled upon an ARIS Expert Paper of IDS Scheer (now Software AG) written by Scheer, with the title “Jazz-Improvisation und Management” (see [Sche07]), that still was under the pile of references that I used for writing my book… In his Expert Paper, Scheer compares jazz compositions with the management of companies. Although the text is a few years old, I like this ‘metapher’, because it reminds me of enterprise collaboration between experts with different key competencies in Enterprise 2.0.
Scheer describes some similarities between jazz compositions and management. Below the core statements are summarized analogously (I’ll try to give a gist of the text, the original expert paper is in German language):
All these facts are “not really” new. In professional literature, there are some similar approaches (see e.g. [Tome02]) and other comparable management concepts that go into the same direction (e.g. see [Clipp99], [Appe10]). But Scheer brings a number of ideas of agile management to the point. He sketches a recipe for a more agile management in a real, turbulent enterprise environment and reflects his ideas by using the jazz picture.
I describe some of these management ideas in my book, for details please have a look into it (see [Domb11]). As Enterprise 2.0 – services are emerging, agile and ad-hoc management with unstructured and emergent processes will become more and more relevant in future. Articles like the one of Scheer will gain more importance again.
But, get your own picture of it. You can download the IDS Scheer expert paper from Scherr (see [Sche07]) or have a look at the relevant passages of my book (see [Domb11]). Do not hesitate to contact me or to write me a comment…
Reference list:
Recently, I have observed that new Enterprise 2.0-terms that contain the word “social” are created almost monthly (see e.g. “Social Business” by IBM, [Kulz11]). Therefore, I have decided to publish my first thoughts on the use of such “social terms” in business environments. Speaking as an experienced consultant, the term “social” is generally associated with more unpleasant and productivity reducing connotations. Even though I’m not a classic “Top-Down-Thinker”, I daily deal with the middle and top management of companies and I am quite familiar with the association CEO’s have if you want to present or introduce “SOCIAL media”, “SOCIAL business” or “SOCIAL computing”. As you can imagine, they will not be happy about pretended “SOCIAL activities” in their companies. And – as you can imagine as well, “the business” quite often struggles to see how so called “SOCIAL activities” can leverage efficiency and therefore generally aim at limiting “SOCIAL activities” to the extent necessary.
Putting business first - Nothing else matters.
Persuading “the business” about social activities is like a Sisyphus-task. Or to put it more candidly, using the term social in a business environment is from my perspective not the best way to persuade people of promising investments – Although I have to admit that some of the creators of the “social terms” are substantially correct. As described in my book (see [Domb11, p. 20 et seq.]), I’m not the only person, who thinks in this way:
“When some managers hear talk of social technologies, they immediately think of technologies, that facilitate activities like happy hour, fantasy sports league drafts, and office gossip. They hear ‘social,’ in short, and think it means not work-related, or time-wasting, or productivity-draining.” [McAf09, p. 15 et seq.]
Like Andrew McAfee, I prefer the term “collaborative” or other terms like “Enterprise 2.0″ and “Enterprise collaboration”. Terms like these are easier to understand from a management and/or business point of view particularly when you are talking about new collaborative technologies that provide cost savings and efficiency advantages in a competitive market… Although Enterprise 2.0 (“Enterprise collaboration” respectively) is about “transparency” and “involving” the product- and process-knowledge of staff, it does not mean, that “SOCIAL activities” will totally override the authority and responsibility of the management. Rather you need to activate the passion for interaction of your employees to optimize enterprise collaboration.
“If you can get people to help you even though it is not their job description, you are going to get scale that you can never achieve with traditional budgets.” [Francois Gossieaux, see Tucc10]
Even though this citation (from Francois Gossieaux) is from an article about “SOCIAL passion” in enterprise collaboration (see [Tucc10]), I like the message about “passion” (although I do not follow the term “social”, as outlined above). First you need the aforenamed passion for enterprise collaboration to put business first and gain scale effects – the term social is not the crucial aspect, it is only a less perfect “label”… With the passion of your staff, Enterprise 2.0 can get a well-coordinated and effective factor to promote competitiveness through solving problems in a collaborative manner, optimizing transparency of enterprise processes and providing enterprise knowledge.
Well – make careful use of the term “social” in business environments – do not irritate, just persuade your clients of the value added through these new opportunities.
Any thoughts? Please do not hesitate to send me an email – or simply use the comment function…
Reference list:
As my new book will be available in every good bookstores at the end of this week (available via LOGOS now), some notes. You can have a look at it and order it now via LOGOS VERLAG, Link: http://logos-verlag.de/cgi-bin/engbuchmid?isbn=2802&lng=deu&id= – “Potenziale und Herausforderungen des Geschäftsprozessmanagements im Enterprise 2.0 unter Berücksichtigung der Dynamik unternehmerischer Systeme” is the official German title; English “Potentials and Challenges of Business Process Management in Enterprise 2.0, Taking the Dynamics of Corporate Systems into Account”. As the book is written in German language, below some facts about the book in German… Sorry at English-speaking readers – however I will post some excerpts from my book in English in the next months.
Interessehalber habe ich mich seit inzwischen Jahren mit dem Thema Enterprise 2.0 beschäftigt, nicht zuletzt aufgrund meines beruflichen Hintergrunds im IT & E-Business-Umfeld. Das Thema Geschäftsprozessmanagement (Business Process Management, BPM) begleitet mich seit 2007 – und stellt für mich eines der wichtigsten Themen im Kontext der Wirtschaftsinformatik dar. Diese beiden Themen zusammenzuführen und auf aktuelle Geschehnisse, der zunehmenden Dynamik in Unternehmen zu reflektieren, war das Hauptziel des Beitrags. Das Buch hat sowohl einen wissenschaftliche als auch einen praktischen Hintergrund. Die Idee zum Buch entstand während meines – inzwischen zweiten – Studienabschlusses. In seiner ursprl. Fassung wurde mein Beitrag zugleich als Master Thesis an der Universität Duisburg-Essen angenommen (1.0).
Nun denken einige Leser vielleicht an typische “Web 2.0″-Themen, zum Beispiel, wie Unternehmen facebook, twitter und Co. nutzen können. Meiner Ansicht nach gibt es genug zu diesem Thema. Tatsächlich befasse ich mich auf knapp 190 Seiten damit, wie “gelebte” Prozesse, die von Dynamik geprägt sind, in Unternehmen unterstützt werden könn(t)en. Weitläufig manifestiert sich bei vielen der Eindruck, BPM hätte ausschliesslich mit Standardisierungen zu tun. Dass das nicht so ist, wird klar, wenn man einen Blick in meine Veröffentlichung wirft…
Für alle “Interessierten” habe ich bereits das Buchcover, die Einleitung und das Inhaltsverzeichnis und alle Quellenangaben in Absprache mit meinem Verlag ungeschützt veröffentlicht, Sie können die Datei (pdf) unter der Infoseite dieser Website zum Buch herunterladen: http://www.generate-value.com/book-bpm-in-enterprise-2-0/
Das Buch sollten Sie also auch in jeder “guten” Buchhandlung ab Ende der Woche erhalten oder bestellen können – auch AMAZON hat bereits eine Seite: http://www.amazon.de/Potenziale-Herausforderungen-Gesch%C3%A4ftsprozessmanagements-Ber%C3%BCcksichtigung-unternehmerischer/dp/3832528024.
Nun gibt es noch zu sagen, dass ich in etwa 10 Tagen 3 Bücher gratis versende, und zwar an die ersten drei Leser dieses Beitrags, die Ihre Adresse unter dem Betreff “E2.0 + BPM” an publications (at) generate-value (dot) com senden* – Update vom 12.4.: Alle Exemplare sind bereits vergeben. Die hier ausgeschriebenen “Freiexemplare” gehen nach Zürich (Markus Pfeisinger – INM AG), Pfaffenhofen (Björn Welchering – Metasonic AG) und Offenbach (José Ayala Villareal – Capgemini). Bitte bestellen Sie weitere Exemplare über den Logos Verlag, Berlin – Diese sind derzeit sofort lieferbar…
Weitere Infos folgen in den kommenden Wochen… Auch werden auf dieser Seite zusätzliches Material und Informationen zum Buch veröffentlicht.
Related Links:
*) Gültig ausschliesslich für die ersten drei Interessenten im deutschsprachigen Raum (D/A/CH), die bis 21.4.2011 eine Mail unter dem genannten Betreff an die genannte E-Mail-Adresse senden. Alle Exemplare bereits vergeben.
As I wrote some lines about cloud and outsourcing lately and had some interesting discussions “about the cloud”, I will deepen this interesting topic.
The cloud is coming (it’s not as dark as it sounds – we expect a rather sunny future…) – The cloud is on everybody’s mouth by now and there are really some promising scenarios. Also the ‘big fish’ (like SAP, HP, IBM, Google and Microsoft) are rising campaigns about this issue. But most of the people I’ve talked to have some very different views about what “cloud computing” is.
It is very important to have a common sense about what a cloud is to talk about cloud aspects – if you want to work on this topic. A really good basis can be the definition of the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce), by Mell and Grace (see [MeGr09]).
However, NIST points out following aspects:
Details can be read in the document of the authors. Mell and Grace point out, that their definition might change over time and make two notes:
- “Note 1: Cloud computing is still an evolving paradigm. Its definitions, use cases, underlying technologies, issues, risks, and benefits will be refined in a spirited debate by the public and private sectors. These definitions, attributes, and characteristics will evolve and change over time.
- Note 2: The cloud computing industry represents a large ecosystem of many models, vendors, and market niches. This definition attempts to encompass all of the various cloud approaches.” [MeGr09]
Therefore it is no surprise that the NIST characteristics are adapted and modified (by affected) in some blog posts, e.g. by Chou (see [Chou11]). But Chou thinks in another way about the delivery methods: He differs only private and public cloud. In addition, he sets here and there a different focus of the cloud characteristics.
After all, Chou builds a “5-3-2 principle” on the solid definition of NIST from Mell and Grace (5-3-4 with them) including 5 characteristics, 3 delivery methods and 2 deployment models (see [Chou11]).
“The 5-3-2 principle is a simple, structured, and disciplined way of conversing cloud computing. 5 characteristics, 3 delivery methods, and 2 deployment models explain the key aspects of cloud computing.” [Chou11]
Consequently, you can hear anywhere other “key characteristics” of clouds – another example: An expert I’ve talked to last Friday told me, form his point of view, cloud is only cloud if there are “near real-time updates” by the provider “without warning”, the software could not be installed on local or corporate machines respectively and access to the cloud applications is exclusively possible with a web browser. Following this definition, the term “cloud computing” is more restricted, not all “so called” clouds are clouds from this point of view…
Interested? So follow me on twitter (@BorisDombrowski) or facebook (www.facebook.com/BorisDombrowski) or visit this blog again. I will seize this topic again…
Reference list:
Last friday I had an interesting discussion about “outsourcing” and I therefore decided to pick up this business-relevant topic in my blogsphere…
Fear of outsourcing your IT? Fear of terms like “Cloud Computing”, “SaaS” or “ASP”… Behind these buzzwords is nothing special, but proven and mature technology. The truth is in any case the fact that outsourcing is not just about IT, but also about the organization (personnel included) and its processes. If you have problems with your IT and your Business/IT-Alignment, don’t hope to fix them with outsourcing – it’s no charm.
But what are the advantages? Below I will mention only some:
And, the most important fact: In many cases, highly specialized providers understand more about safety, security and risks than yourselves. Beyond, they’re ISO-certified, have principles like “Safe Harbor” adopted and so on. If needed, your data will be encrypted – the employees defined by you are the only ones who have access to the information. The greater threat comes from the core of the company itself – of employees, media, lack of maintaining infrastructure, software, security flaws, etc. If Google’s, (sales)force.com’s, Amazon’s or Microsoft’s Cloud Services had safety or security deficiencies, these companies would surely have to give up their business soon…
But what need do you have? IaaS, PaaS, SaaS – ASP – Private, Hybrid or Public Cloud? Know your requirements: First of all, have a look at your processes. If you have determined which technologies support your core competencies, you can outsource those processes (services respectively) that are commodity. Define outsourcing-potentials by measuring attributes like strategic relevance, value, risk and criticality. There are a lot methods and best practices to find out about the technologies and processes that allow competitive differentiation of your company.
In the end, by outsourcing and cloud computing “only” competitive advantages can be achieved. According to the mentioned potential, it’s worth thinking about the topic. Do you need help to find the right provider, to set up the right contract or to evaluate your processes? Do not hesitate to contact me. Do not take the risk to “backsource” after months…
Current related articles are in following professional journals (extract):
As I am about to finish my book, I would like to point out a specific aspect of it, „The Strength of Weak Ties“ from Granovetter…
On the basis of a non-representative social networks-study (N=296) of Milgram in 1967 (“The small world problem”, see [Milg67, pp. 61 et seq.]), Milgram and Travers claimed that any two persons are linked to one another through a chain with “somewhat greater than five” (see [TrMi69, pp. 441 et seq.]). The results of this study, often cited and known as “6 degrees of separation”, have been confirmed several times. For example, in 2007 it was figured out in another study, that the average path length in messenger networks is 6.6 (see [LeHo07, p. 23]).
But how can we use our ties in volatile environment with increasingly less structured “problem solving processes” in an effective way? Granovetter points out that in addition to close ties, loose connections are of relevance. Granovetter has analyzed this in “The Strength of Weak Ties (SWT)” in 1973 (see [Gran73, pp. 1360 et seq.]). Loose connections are important: they serve as “good bridges” (see above) between established networks to establish contact. Such “good bridges” are of particular value for the management of internal or cross-company processes in case specific expertise or the inclusion of different actors is required to solve problems. In other words, “network-short cuts” are needed to detect and aggregate the required process knowledge.
In this context, we come to Enterprise 2.0 and in particular to the importance of social networks in enterprises. Through the usage of loose ties, problem-relevant expertise can be more easily and quickly detected and relevant knowledge is more transparent. As a result, problem solving can be facilitated and knowledge-intensive, dynamic processes can be speeded up. Thus, the effective usage of loose ties and “good bridges” respectively can also be key to set a company apart from its competitors.
Andrew McAfee, the “father” of the term “Enterprise 2.0”, also often refers to Granovetter, for example in his book “Enterprise 2.0 – New collaborative tools for your organization’s toughest challenges”.
“A tidy summary of SWT’s conclusion is that strong ties are unlikely to bridges between networks, while weak ties are good bridges. Bridges help solve problems, gather information, and import unfamiliar ideas. They enable work to be accomplished more quickly and more effectively. The ideal network for a knowledge worker probably consists of a core of strong ties and a large periphery of weak ones.” [McAf09, pp. 83 et seq.]
For additional information, see the forthcoming book “Potenziale und Herausforderungen des Geschäftsprozessmanagements im Enterprise 2.0 unter Berücksichtigung der Dynamik unternehmerischer Systeme” (see [Domb11]) and the research sources in the reference list – or just come up to me.
Reference list:
“Of the next billion people who come online, the vast majority of them are going to do so for the first time through a mobile device.” – Jimmy Wales in SAP Spectrum, [Manr10, p. 17]
Where does this road lead?
“If you had asked most bankers five years ago when they thought that mobile banking would become mainstream, they would likely have told you “not in my lifetime”. Yet, in the last five years, that is exactly what has happened and now banks everywhere are talking about mobile banking.” [King10, p. 228]
Even though banks everywhere are talking about mobile banking tools, Mobile E-Banking is still in its infancy, especially in Switzerland (see [Frey11, p. 24] and below). Even innovations or prime examples such as mint.com (see [Intu11]) or Swissquote (see [Swiss11]) cannot hide this fact. Is it fear of reputational damage, e.g. fear of hitting the headlines in Social Networks (see [Frey11, p. 24]) that slows development down?
At the same time, the number of always connected mobile users is growing steadily. Most of the used new devices (millions of iPads, Galaxy Tabs, iPhones, Nexus, etc.) allow an intuitive user guidance – easy-to-use Apps are available. Provider and retailer sell mobile devices with data flatrates. Consequentially, the SMS Banking (~ “Mobile Banking 1.0″) area is over –
Nevertheless, fact is that bank customers want to have access to “Bank 2.0″ wherever they are. In the evening, you rather grab your smartphone or tab that’s always online than turn your PC or Mac on. And who would like to make the detour to go to the bank branch?
“Bankers need to start treating mobile as a serious competitive advantage.” [King10, p. 228]
King, an acknowledged strategic advisor to the financial services sector and author of “Bank 2.0″, is absolutely right. In fact, a couple of companies are already working on solutions and aim at leveraging the competitive advantage of a soon introduction of new “Mobile Banking 2.0″ applications (and “Apps” respectively). Thus, the above-mentioned companies like mint.com, IBM and Swissquote are just examples.
However, while in some countries at least mobile money transfer and basic mobile banking features are “day-to-day business” some countries are more reluctant to introduce new technical tools. The latter particularly applies for Switzerland, one of the main financial places worldwide. Technical support is in Switzerland quite often reduced to mere SMS (~ “Mobile Banking 1.0″) services – without making use of the now market-ready options of new mobile technologies. And the potentials go even beyond “classic” Retail Banking.
Based on my own experience as a bank advisor, I must however say that Swiss banks exercise caution and monitor developments that might affect security, business risk etc. very closely particularly due to the (compared to other jurisdictions) very strict banking secrecy and data protection rule that Swiss law provides. This explains, at least to a certain extent, the reluctance of Swiss banks towards mobile money transactions and the introduction of new “Mobile Banking 2.0″ technologies in general.
In turn, it is exactly the tension between the opportunities that new technology provides and the challenges that makes Switzerland a very interesting place for bank advisors. Beyond, intuitive applications on new devices will give an impulse for “a real” Mobile Banking 2.0 (see [Alt+10, p. 44]).
Readers of this post who are interested in this subject can find some “incitations” in the reference list. If you need more information on the topic, please do not hesitate to contact me…
Reference list:
Related articles:
What are Business Capabilites?
The Management of Business Capabilities attracts the attention of Business, IT and EAM representatives. It not only represents one of the cornerstones of Business Informatics (and Information Systems respectively) but it is also considered a key topic of Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM). As outlined by Wolfgang Keller,
„Capabilities are one of the later ‚hot topics‘ in Enterprise Architecture Management.“ [Kell09, p. 1]
Beimhorn et al. describe the term “Capabilities” as follows:
„Capabilities represent firm-internal encapsulable services, i.e. units of business functionality. In contrast, a workflow or procedure is the end-to-end group of activities that describes how a capability is performed, while a business process is the interconnection resp. a composition of capabilities to fulfill a market demand.“ [Bei+05, p. 5]
Balasubramanian et al. provide the following definition:
„A business capability is a distinctive attribute of a business unit that creates value for its customers. Capabilities are measured by the value generated for the organization (…). Thus, capabilities differentiate an organization from others and directly affect its performance. ” [Bal+00, p. 41]
As you can see, there are a lot different views on this topic and a “plethora” of definitions. From my point of view, Business Capabilities are a promising instrument that promotes the sustainable alignment of the artifacts of the Enterprise Architecture to the corporate strategy. Capabilities allow a business-focused perspective – abstract from technologies, applications and infrastructure. This is an encouraging way to reduce complexity and to support management decisions. Another aspect is the constancy:
„While processes are modified, technology changes, and people reorganize, a business capability remains constant.” [SyCl09]
Beside, this instrument helps companies and groups to achieve transparency in their IT landscape.
As investments are more and more questioned and budgets get increasingly scarce, the business value of Capabilities will increase in future. A good introduction is given by Wolfgang Keller (see [Kell09]). Currently, I am working on a further publication on this topic. You will hear on this website about this publication (expected Summer 2011, http://www.generate-value.com/publications/).
Reference list:
“The key is applying technology more precisely”, says Tom Davenport in the new McKinsey Quarterly (see [Dave11]). In his new article, the author explains the different requirements to support less and more knowledge intensive processes in companies. For this purpose he used the classification which he has already presented in 2005 in “Thinking for a living” (see [Dave05, p. 27]). Different processes need different approaches. Davenport provides some good points in his contributions.
Of particular relevance for companies are processes that are not standardized and through which significant competitive advantages can be achieved. Knowledge plays an important role in this process type. Davenport uses the term “Collaboration model” to describe the processes, that are highly reliant on deep expertise across functions (see [Dave05, p. 27], [Dave11]) and in which the collaboration of distributed experts is of high relevance. But how can new developments like Web 2.0- and Enterprise 2.0-technologies respectively bring added value in the context of knowledge-intensive, dynamic, unstructured processes to overcome the limitations of standardization? The forthcoming book “Potenziale und Herausforderungen des Geschäftsprozessmanagements im Enterprise 2.0 unter der Berücksichtigung der Dynamik unternehmerischer Systeme” (see [Domb11]) will place particular emphasis on processes that cannot be adequately supported by “traditional” technologies.
Resource list:
Dynamic, unstructured processes vs adaptive, ad hoc workflows
The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) defined a workflow as follows:
„The automation of a business process, in whole or part, during which documents, information or tasks are passed from one participant to another for action, according to a set of procedural rules.“ (see [Alle00, p. 15]).
Automation and execution in an operational environment are constituent features of workflows (see also [Holl95, p. 6]). As the procedure of the activities of dynamic, unstructured processes can not be determined in advance, these features do not exist in dynamic, unstructured processes. Terms such as “ad hoc workflow” (see eg [Gada08, p. 56 et seq.]) or “adaptive workflow ” (see [Kam+98, p. 1 et seq.]) seem to provide to some extent a “contradiction in terms”. Accordingly, the author of this blog prefers the term “dynamic, unstructured process” (see [Domb11]).
More on this topic can be read in my forthcoming book “Potenziale und Herausforderungen des Geschäftsprozessmanagements im Enterprise 2.0 unter der Berücksichtigung der Dynamik unternehmerischer Systeme” (see [Domb11], http://www.generate-value.com/publications/).
Reference list:
At this website, reviews of my publications as well as additional information regarding science and practice of Business Informatics and Information Systems will be available soon. In particular, the following topics will be discussed: Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM), Business Process Management (BPM), Enterprise 2.0 (E2.0), E-Finance, E-Business, Consulting and Project Management. My publications are to a large extent in German language. Accordingly, some of my posts will also be in German language.
For additional information regarding my work and know-how, please use the following links:
