9. Business Patterns
DE + IA (INFO 243) - 14 February 2007
Bob Glushko
Plan for Today's Class
- What is a pattern?
- Why businesses follow patterns
- The Model Matrix
- Business Model Patterns
- Federal Enterprise Architecture
Patterns
- A Pattern is a model that is sufficiently general, adaptable, and worthy of imitation that it can be reused
- It must be general so that...
- It must be adaptable because ...
- It must be worthy because ...
Why Businesses Follow Patterns
- At the most abstract level all businesses (or "enterprises," so that we can include governmental, educational, military, and non-profit "businesses") follow the same pattern
- Businesses share common external influences, especially those in the same industry
- They also share common internal influences and goals
- Some resistance to using patterns arises from the need for a business to differentiate itself from competitors, but few companies have the market dominance or true innovations to divert from patterns in significant ways
Modeling to Identify Patterns
- Models are also valuable design tools for identifying recurring patterns in both structures
and processes
- Often these patterns are visible in the model but invisible in the concrete, real-world objects
and functions that the model describes
- Once patterns are identified they assist in analysis by simplifying structures and processes
as they replace low-level specific descriptions with more abstract ones
Patterns and Reuse
- In addition to improving designs (by replacing an ad hoc approach with a successful one) - patterns promote reuse
- Reuse has the immediate benefit of reduced implementation and maintenance costs
- Reuse has the longer term benefit of encouraging and reinforcing consistency
and standardization
- Reuse at more abstract levels enables interoperability between systems that follow patterns that differ at more concrete levels
Model and Pattern Granularity
- Business model or organizational patterns: marketplace, auction, supply chain, build to order, drop shipment, vendor managed inventory, etc.
- Business process patterns: procurement, payment, shipment, reconciliation, etc.
- Business information patterns: catalog, purchase order, invoice, etc. and the
components they contain for party, time, location, measurement, etc.
The Model Matrix: Examples
The Abstraction Hierarchy for B2B Processes
Business Models
- A business model is the story of what a business does and how it makes money doing it
- Who are the customers?
- What do the customers value?
- How does the business deliver this value to customers at a price they will pay and at a sustainable cost?
- So the generic business model pattern has two parts:
- Making something or preparing to deliver something that customers value
- Finding the customer, transacting to create the sale or relationship, delivering the value
Types of Business Model Patterns
- Classifications for measuring economic activity (e.g., NAICS)
- Frameworks for understanding the adoption and impact of IT, migration to "self-service" or "web-based services"
- Frameworks for understanding the financial performance of different kinds of economic activity
Apte & Mason: "Disaggregation" of "Information-Intensive Services"
- Business models / occupations can be characterized by their intensity on three dimensions:
- Information actions that involve symbolic manipulation
- Interpersonal actions that involve dealing with customers and other people
- Physical actions that involve manipulation of physical objects
Apte & Mason -- Before Disaggregation
Apte & Mason -- After Disaggregation
Apte & Mason: To Disaggregate, or Not To...
MIT "Business Model Archetypes"
- Extensive research on business model and business processes has been conducted by Tom Malone and others at MIT Sloan School
- An innovative part of this research program is empirical study of what businesses actually do and the relative performance or effectiveness of different business models
- A fundamental challenge was how to classify business activity to support this kind of analysis
- What is the business model -- what types of rights are being sold?
- What kind of asset is involved?
Four Types of Business Models
- Creators -- design what they sell
- Distributors -- buys something from a creator and then sells it
- "Landlords" -- sells the right to use, but not own some asset
- Brokers -- match potential sellers and buyers
Four Types of Assets
- Physical -- durable and nondurable goods
- Financial -- cash, stocks, bonds, insurance
- Intangible -- intellectual property, knowledge, goodwill, brand image
- Human -- time and labor
Business Models X Assets: The Archtypes
What Business Models Are Most Profitable
The Federal Enterprise Architecture -- Motivation
The Federal Enterprise Architecture -- Goals
FEA Business Reference Model
FEA BRM -- Services for Citizens Business Area
"Disaster Management" LOB
- Disaster Monitoring and Prediction
- Disaster Preparedness/Planning
- Disaster Repair and Restore
- Emergency Response
FEA Example -- Civilian Nuclear Waste Disposal
BRM Fragment in Education
- From http://www.proformacorp.com/Products/education.asp
Readings for 21 February
- Chapter 4 of Document Engineering [Textbook, 102-118]
- "E-Government Architecture in Ireland" Sean McGrath and Fergal Murray, XML 2004 Conference
- "It All Began With Drayer" Christopher Koch,
CIO (August 2002)
- "The Digital Transformation: Technology and Beyond" Donald J. Bowersox, David J. Closs, and Ralph W. Drayer, Supply Chain Management Review (January/February 2005)
- Supply-Chain Operations Reference Model, Supply-Chain Council
