As I mentioned in my 2010 plans, one of my projects this year is writing and advocacy for the OMG’s Business Ecology Initiative (BEI). This morning, we launched the new Business Ecology Initiative blog, and I published the following overview post on Business Ecology, the Business Ecology Initiative and Business Ecology enablers.
As you read the post, you’ll notice several themes common to my on-going writings (soapboxes), which is why getting involved with the BEI is a no-brainer for me. The original post follows.
What is Business Ecology?
Business Ecology is a business-technology imperative focused on streamlining business processes, removing waste from technology portfolios, and adjusting resource consumption, to optimize business operations and foster business innovation.
As the world economy emerges from a painful recession, organizations are confronted with the challenge of retaining bottom-line diligence, while pursuing market sustaining and gaining innovation.
For many organizations, the answer lies in harvesting savings and trapped value from existing processes, resources and capabilities. To accomplish this, organizations are turning to Business Ecology.
Business Ecology is not a one-time fix, but rather a management philosophy concerned with business vitality over time, balancing current conditions, optimization and innovation focus areas, resource allocations, and longer-term business motivations, capabilities and outcomes.
An important enabler of Business Ecology is the use of technology beyond automation. Business Ecology practitioners employ technology to identify, measure, model and drive business change.
Business Ecology adoption and execution requires a cross functional team, comprised of business and information technology professionals. Key team capabilities include business process thinking, business performance measurement and analysis, financial analysis, IT architecture, portfolio management, service delivery and iterative project management.
Successful Business Ecology initiatives adopt the principles and values of Business Technology. The team communicates with each other, sponsors and constituents in a common, business based language. Measurement is defined and reported in business terms. Funding and governance decisions and mechanisms reflect a shared resource, investment portfolio approach.
As Business Ecology teams progress, technology and business savvy is exchanged, fostering a greater understanding of each other’s challenges, skills and tools, which leads to a break in the longstanding, constraining, business and IT divide. A byproduct of successful Business Ecology is business-IT integration.
The Chief Information Officer (CIO), given his/her unique position to view business processes, resource consumption, and technology portfolios across the organization, most often champions Business Ecology adoption and execution. C-level executives, including the CEO, CFO and COO, sponsor Business Ecology initiatives.
What is the Business Ecology Initiative?
OMG, via the Business Ecology Initiative, leads the drive towards Business Ecology.
The Business Ecology Initiative provides education, advocacy and member programs to enable organizations to achieve Business Ecology success, employ Actionable ArchitectureTM, and carve a path to business-IT integration.
Actionable ArchitectureTM brings transparent business methodology to the definition and delivery of common IT infrastructure, platforms and services. Emphasized business attributes include quality, efficiency, compliance, agility, value, effectiveness, ease of use, sustainability and business goal traceability.
Business-IT Integration is the organizational model for business and information technology convergence. This model promotes collaborative strategy, planning, architecture and execution; shared decision-making, business-tech savvy personnel and service delivery at the point of value generation.
What enables Business Ecology?
Techniques: LEAN, Six Sigma, BPM, Value Chain Analysis, Actionable ArchitectureTM , Business Technology, Agile, Modeling, Simulation, Business Measurement, and Sustainability Analysis
Technology: SOA, BPM, Cloud Computing, Event Processing, Analytics, Master Data Management (MDM), and Open Standards
Measurement Models: Business Process Maturity Model (BPMM), Sustainability Assessment Model (SAM)
People: C-level executives, business and information technology professionals, who embrace the philosophy of Business Ecology
[Disclosure: The Business Ecology Initiative is a client of my firm, Elemental Links.]
