The document discusses the critical role of a well-defined business operating model in achieving organizational success and efficiency, with a focus on integrating business processes and technology. Top-performing companies leverage a strategic core foundation, which involves enterprise architecture and effective IT engagement, to enhance profitability and streamline operations. It emphasizes that without proper standardization and integration of processes, organizations may fail to extract maximum value from their IT investments.

1. THE HONEST TRUTH
ABOUT GETTING
VALUE FROM IT
Rob Eddowes | Enterprise Architect
www.robeddowes.com.au | mail@robeddowes.com.au | 0417 963 269 | ……………..
October 2013 copyright Rob Eddowes

2. The Business Truth…
They all have a causal relationship, and they are all
linked together
Customer
Success
• Products and
Services
October 2013 copyright Rob Eddowes
Business
Process
• How it gets
done
Business
Results
• Revenue
Growth
• Profit
• Sustainability
of the business
model

3. The Business Operating Model
Inside every company is a core set of business processes
that execute thousands of daily transactions that keep a
company in business
Top performing companies define how they will do
business by creating an operating model
It’s a commitment of how the business will operate
If you want to make IT a strategic asset you have to
define an operating model
October 2013 copyright Rob Eddowes

4. The Business Operating Model
Top performing companies drive the choice of operating
model by how they want to profit and grow
Top performing companies design the business processes
critical to their current and future operations using
enterprise business architecture
Top-performing companies embed technology into their
core business processes so they can reliably execute the
critical operations of their company, and continuously
optimise and pull costs out of their core processes
October 2013 copyright Rob Eddowes

5. Shaping Strategic Opportunities
The operating model shapes the strategic opportunities
a business can respond to, preparing for future strategic
initiatives, without knowing what they are yet
The business operating model requires that executive
management make two decisions about a firm’s ongoing
operations
1. How much to standardise business processes
Performing the same processes the same way, creates efficiencies within and across business units
2. How much to integrate business processes
Sharing data within and between business units, linking the efforts of business units
October 2013 copyright Rob Eddowes

6. The IT Truth…
Top-performing companies create a low cost, highquality strategic core foundation which makes a firm
both more efficient and more agile than its competitors
If you want value from IT, you have to stop thinking of IT
as a set of solutions and start thinking about business
process integration and standardisation
October 2013 copyright Rob Eddowes

7. Strategic Core Foundation
A strong strategic core foundation includes an operating
model, enterprise architecture, and an IT engagement
model
It provides an enterprise
wide approach, a clear
vision of how IT will
support business
operations, and a concrete
implementation of the
business strategy
October 2013 copyright Rob Eddowes
Ross, Jeanne W.; Weill, Peter; Robertson, David . Enterprise Architecture As Strategy:
Creating a Foundation for Business Execution. Harvard Business Review Press.

8. Strategic Core Foundation Benefits
Top performing companies with a strong strategic core
foundation experience
• Higher profitability
• Faster time to market
• More value from their IT investments
• Better access to shared customer data
• Lower risk of mission-critical system failures
• Higher senior management satisfaction with
technology
• Lower IT costs
October 2013 copyright Rob Eddowes
Ross, Jeanne W.; Weill, Peter; Robertson, David . Enterprise Architecture As Strategy:
Creating a Foundation for Business Execution. Harvard Business Review Press.

9. Business strategy
Operations
management
Value chains
Supply chains
Strategy maps
Value streams
Business model
Business capability
models
Operating model
Business blueprints
Capability model
Views and
perspectives
Process model
Supporting
technology
Architect Skills
Business investment
governance
Tools
Focus
Enterprise Architecture is a
Powerful Management Tool
Business advisors
Trusted advisors
SME’s for linking
business needs to
IT capabilities and
services
Business analysis
Continuous
improvement
Stakeholder
scenarios
Establishing a strategic core foundation is a joint
responsibility of business and IT executives
October 2013 copyright Rob Eddowes

10. Enterprise Business Architecture
Enterprise Architecture nirvana – a 5 year Roadmap?
Enterprise Architecture Maturity Model: Stage 4 Business Modularity

11. Enterprise Architecture and the
Enterprise Modelling Framework
Enterprise Architecture nirvana – a 5 year Roadmap?
Enterprise Architecture Maturity Model: Stage 4 Business Modularity

12. Business and Technology Alignment
Enterprise architecture gives an organisation ‘big picture’
confidence and control over how all the pieces fit
together to deliver the whole.
The business architecture
is the coordinating
centre-piece of the
business transformation
initiative
October 2013 copyright Rob Eddowes

13. Delivering Strategic Opportunities
ERP’s do not automatically create a strategic core
foundation, executive management must champion the
business operating model and endorse the core business
processes and drive into delivery
Many ERP projects are driven by business unit managers
focused on tactical initiatives with direct benefit and
often do not include end-to-end core business processes
ERP’s do not provide business process standardisation
and integration out of the box
October 2013 copyright Rob Eddowes

14. Delivering Strategic Opportunities
The average company spends over two thirds of its IT
budget just running and maintaining its existing systems,
often, its the sustaining and maintaining part of the
budget that leads executive management to claim they
are not getting good value from IT
Reducing these costs requires a change to the IT project
methodology which continues to include solution
architecture driven by the business units specific needs
This is a leftover from the business silo culture where IT
developed vertical (silo) solutions by project

15. Delivering Strategic Opportunities
Solution architecture should address the primary
challenges of building a technology platform that is
robust, scalable, integrated, agile, interoperable and is
designed for future growth – digital, cloud, big data…
Solution architecture is enterprise wide (horizontal) and
designs technology capabilities driven by company needs
Business Operating Model
Application
Capability
B2B
Capability
Security
Capability
Integration
Capability

16. Delivering Strategic Opportunities
Enterprise architecture specifies the principles and
standards (building codes) to design and build a
powerful technology platform not the project portfolio
A business operating model provides the opportunity to
embed technology into business processes using IT
services (a solution to a process) from the technology
capabilities, these can be offered from a service
catalogue and can include price, SLA…
Bringing technology platform design and product
selection under the control of IT management

17. The IT Engagement Model
A good engagement model ensures that business and IT
projects achieve both business unit and company-wide
strategic objectives
It allows you to build the strategic core foundation one
project at a time, by spending smarter rather than more,
companies can use ongoing projects to steadily build
their foundation for execution.
As the strategic core foundation gets built, IT costs
decrease and business efficiencies increase, paying
dividends on the original investment
October 2013 copyright Rob Eddowes

18. The IT Engagement Model
Companywide IT governance: decision rights and
accountability framework to encourage desirable
behaviour in the use of IT
Project management: formalised project methodology,
with clear deliverables and regular checkpoints
Linking mechanisms: processes and decision-making
bodies that align incentives and connect the project-level
activities to the overall IT governance
Ross, Jeanne W.; Weill, Peter; Robertson, David . Enterprise Architecture As Strategy:
Creating a Foundation for Business Execution. Harvard Business Review Press.
October 2013 copyright Rob Eddowes

19. The IT Engagement Model
In large companies, the IT engagement model contains
six key stakeholder groups: the executive management,
business unit management, and project management,
each of which exists on both the IT and business sides of
the company
Based on the vision of how the company will operate,
(the operating model), business and IT leaders define
key architectural requirements of the strategic core
foundation found in the enterprise architecture
October 2013 copyright Rob Eddowes

20. The IT Engagement Model
Then, as business unit managers identify business
initiatives, the IT engagement model specifies how each
project benefits from, and contributes to, the strategic
core foundation
The IT engagement model ensures business and IT
projects achieve both business unit and company-wide
objectives
The IT engagement model influences project decisions so
that individual solutions are guided by the enterprise
architecture
October 2013 copyright Rob Eddowes

21. The IT Engagement Model
The engagement model provides for alignment between
the IT objectives and business objectives of projects, and
coordinates the IT and business process decisions made
at multiple organisational levels (company-wide,
business unit, project)
To do so, the model establishes linkages between seniorlevel IT decisions, such as project prioritisation and
company-wide process design, and project level
implementation decisions.
October 2013 copyright Rob Eddowes

22. Frankly, if IT isn’t helping you operate
your business, the way you want to
operate your business,
you are wasting money!
You need to be IT savvy!
Think a little, change a lot
October 2013 copyright Rob Eddowes

23. For further discussion,
please contact me.
Rob Eddowes | Enterprise Architect
www.robeddowes.com.au | mail@robeddowes.com.au | 0417 963 269 | ……………..
October 2013 copyright Rob Eddowes