Business architecture

The main task of IT is to support and optimize business processes. The IT strategy should therefore be derived from the corporate strategy, as the reasons for heterogeneous IT landscapes in various enterprise areas often lie in evolved structures and process flows that result from mergers and acquisitions of companies. If harmonization of the processes and systems is absent, not only are expected synergy effects lost, but additional costs are also incurred in the long term due to redundant development, lack of standardization, and lack of interoperability.

For a detailed analysis, it is vital to know how the processes run in the company units and why they differ. The key to harmonizing IT systems ultimately lies in harmonization of the process landscape.

An integrated approach is required according to which information about IT systems and IT technologies must be recorded, analyzed, and optimized in combination with information about supported business processes. The relevant business processes are recorded via ARIS Architect by business process management staff, for example. 

The core business processes of a company (level 0) are represented in the form of value-added chains in a value-added chain diagram. The individual core business processes, in turn, can have value-added chain diagrams assigned to them which specify them in more detail (levels 0-3). To be able to plan and implement a later harmonization of supporting IT systems across various enterprise areas, a company-wide harmonization of the processes must already take place on this level as well.

In general, process chains, such as EPC, EPC as row display, are used from level 4 and lower for a more detailed and area-specific examination of process flows. Further information is available in the ARIS Method Manual.

Within the scope of harmonization, the processes (value-added chains) on level 3 are described additionally by function allocation diagrams assigned to the objects. They contain further information that is of importance for IT architecture management:

Objects of the Cluster/Data model type are used to describe the business objects that are processed in the processes and exchanged between systems. They are provided as a master data hierarchy to process management and IT architecture management.

System functions (capabilities) are the link between business processes and IT systems. Using these objects, a system is described with regard to its supported features. System functions result from technical requirements that are based on business processes. Thus, it is possible to document which IT system functions a business function requires. The system functions can be arranged in hierarchies, and dependencies can be documented. Their structure is based on the structure of the business objects (see chapter Information architecture). They can be grouped and managed in libraries (Service architecture diagram model type) and structured according to their use. More details on this topic are available in the ARIS Method Manual (chapter IT City Planning). This master data is used by both process management and IT architecture management and can thus serve as the basis for analyzing subsequent system consolidations and replacements (see chapter System functions, requirements, project and portfolio management).

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