Author: alan

Strategy, Architecture & Problem-Solving

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Finding a balance between the needs of the organisation and the needs of the customer

Some companies are immature in their approach to customer relationship management (CRM), but at the heart is a desire to get something for free. And that’s wrong. The scenario You look around a shop, you pick something up, take it to the checkout, wait in a queue. You notice that the queue is moving slowly,…
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Business Architecture and Service Design

How Might We Apply Service Design to the Enterprise?

I simplistically take the view that Service Design is the concepts and methods of Design Thinking applied to making services work better for their customers. It’s a definition that works in the circles I most commonly move in, i.e. directors, programme directors, etc. It allows me to set the stage in which service design and…
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Enterprise Architecture and Business Architecture as Peers

The Maturing of Business Architecture

In Black Sheep or Shepherd, I introduced the idea that Business Architecture isn’t aligned with Enterprise Architecture as well as we may expect from looking at traditional structures for Enterprise Architecture. I’ve had several conversations about that topic since, all raised by the person I was talking with, rather than me asking them. And we’re…
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The Washroom Principle - Revised

The Washroom Principle – The Easiest Way to Evaluate a Company

There are plenty of methods for conducting due diligence, whether for partners, customers, suppliers or mergers. They’re lengthy and they’re expensive. There are times for adopting principles of formal Business Architecture, such as capability matching in M&A situations. But no matter what the deliverables indicate, there’s a useful and quick check to perform as a…
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Capability Components

Pardon, which sector? – Xtech and Why I’m Fed Up with Tech part 3

I’ve written previously about the issues with xtech that arise from applying -tech to the end of a sector such as healthtech, fintech, etc. And I introduced (and revoked) the idea of a -value suffix. Earlier this week, a conversation earlier made me think more about this and I want to explore the concepts of…
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Capability Vision 0_04

Using Archimate for Business Motivation Model and MSP – Part 6: Capabilities and Org Units

Taking the model defined so far and introducing the concept of capability changes and the effect on the organisation units. Recap In the first article, I introduced the standards and the tools that are in scope of this series of articles. To recap, the chosen tools/standards/methods are: Archimate – The open source enterprise architecture modelling…
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high-heeled-shoes

High-heels, guitars and cultural expectations

Expectations can run deeper than you may at first think, especially if those expectations are based on decades of cultural information/misinformation. This may affect attitudes towards quality or acceptance of new ideas, including industry innovations. If we’re aiming to make changes in an organisation, we should look out for the deep-rooted expectations of what’s acceptable.…
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ecommerce

The Value Affix – Xtech and Why I’m Fed Up with Tech part 2

I wrote in the previous article that we don’t need a separate xtech for any given sector x. Abstracting further, the focus should be on the customer, not the technology. We see healthtech, fintech and insuretech which indicate the use of new technologies to improve existing or introduce new business models. But technology is just…
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taco

The Taco of Business Architecture – What’s the Purpose of Business Architecture?

As a profession, Business Architects are in danger of becoming defined by just one of the products that they create. Unfortunately, it reduces the value that the profession can provide to organisations and limits expectations of prospects and clients. What went wrong? Imagine a fine-dining chef who makes tacos once at the request of a…
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server

xTech – Part 1 – Why I’m fed up with tech

xtech for Sector x Fintech is challenging the Finance sector Insurtech is challenging the Insurance sector Healthtech is challenging the Health sector Will we see Techtech challenging the Tech sector? And since new technology is developed every month and every year, would we be looking at a Techtechtech sector in a decade? It’s seems ludicrous…
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