Business Operating Model

Purpose: The purpose of the Business Operating Model is to visualize how an organization functions and delivers value to its customers. The model presents a ‘one-page-overview’ of the organization and offers a quick way to communicate an organization’s value structure to different types of stakeholders.

Core concerns: The Business Operating Model can be put together in numerous ways including information on Stakeholders, Business Processes, Products, Projects, Channels, Key Performance Indicators and more. This enables you to create a Business Operating Model that reflects your organization’s specific value chain in detail. Below is an example of a Business Operating Model that shows a business’s suppliers, high-level processes, products & services, channels and customer segments:

Relation to other templates: The Business Operating Model is a strategic model that can be supplied with more detailed models such as a Business Capability Model, Requirement Models, Stakeholder Models and the Business Ecosystem Model.

Properties and metadata: The Business Operating Model can for example retain the following information:

  • A description of the diagram
  • Link to the owner of the diagram
  • Link to the one responsible for the accuracy of the diagram
  • Audits (auto generated information regarding its current state and access rights)
  • Associated documents, diagrams and other objects
  • Inherent Risk detailing risk considerations
  • Governance information detailing information about the published diagram and who has been involved in the approval of the diagram
  • Project status: information about budgeted and actual man-hours spent, percentage completed and the latest milestone, result and quality control of a change process.

In the picture below you can see the Business Operating Model’s properties dialogue window, where the information can be viewed and edited:

Strategy Viewpoint : Archimate

Concerns: Strategy development
Purpose: Designing, deciding
Scope: Strategy

The strategy viewpoint allows the business architect to model a high-level, strategic overview of the strategies (courses of action) of the enterprise, the capabilities and resources supporting those, and the envisaged outcomes.

Capability Map Viewpoint : Archimate

Concerns: Architecture strategy and tactics, motivation
Purpose: Designing, deciding
Scope: Strategy

The capability map viewpoint allows the business architect to create a structured overview of the capabilities of the enterprise. A capability map typically shows two or three levels of capabilities across the entire enterprise. It can, for example, be used as a heat map to identify areas of investment. In some cases, a capability map may also show specific outcomes delivered by these capabilities.

Outcome Realization Viewpoint : Archimate

Concerns: Business-oriented results
Purpose: Designing, deciding
Scope: Strategy

The outcome realization viewpoint is used to show how the highest-level, business-oriented results are produced by the capabilities and underlying core elements.

Resource Map Viewpoint : Archimate

Concerns: Architecture strategy and tactics, motivation
Purpose: Designing, deciding
Scope: Strategy

The resource map viewpoint allows the business architect to create a structured overview of the resources of the enterprise. A resource map typically shows two or three levels of resources across the entire enterprise. It can, for example, be used as a heat map to identify areas of investment. In some cases, a resource map may also show relationships between resources and the capabilities they are assigned to.