MGMT7020 Chap.10 Business Architecture and Process Management
Business Architecture and Process Management
Describing how the organisation fits together
Week 7 opens the technology module with business architecture, process management and enterprise architecture.
This chapter explains the common four-layer view of business, information, applications and technology, and how each layer serves the one above.
Process before technology
It compares process management with enterprise architecture, and redesigns a council licensing process from as-is to to-be before choosing any system.
Why this opens the technology module
Architecture gives the rest of the module its map.
Systems development, ERP, data governance and security all make more sense once you can say which business capability a system supports, which information it uses and which technology it runs on.
A conversation answer that places a technology in that stack before judging it shows the alignment thinking the module is built around.
Common errors on this topic
Students often describe enterprise architecture as a technical diagram of servers, which skips the business and information layers that give it purpose.
Another frequent error is proposing a new system before identifying what is wrong with the current process, which risks automating the very delays the project was meant to remove.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Business architecture and capabilities
- 02
Enterprise architecture layers
- 03
Information infrastructure
- 04
Business process management cycle
- 05
As-is and to-be process maps
- 06
Measuring process performance
Worked example · free
Find the waste in a staff onboarding process
- 2Waste: re-keying between HR and IT, approval by email with no tracking, and three separate account set-ups.
- 1To-be: the HR record triggers one onboarding request; manager approval is built into it; accounts are created from that one record.
- 1Measure: days from offer acceptance to working accounts, recorded before and after the change.
Key terms
- Business Architecture
- A description of an organisation's capabilities, value, processes and structure, independent of technology.
- Business Capability
- Something an organisation is able to do, such as issuing a licence, regardless of how it is done.
- To-Be Process
- The redesigned version of a process, describing how the work should flow after change.
- Information Infrastructure
- Shared IT resources that provide a foundation for present and future business applications.
Business Architecture and Process Management FAQ
How is business architecture different from enterprise architecture?
Business architecture describes capabilities, processes and structure without reference to technology. Enterprise architecture extends that description down through information, applications and technology so each system can be traced to the capability it supports.
Why map the current process before automating it?
Automating a process unchanged builds its delays, re-keying and workarounds into the new system. Mapping the as-is process first exposes steps that add no value, so the redesign can remove them.
What measures show that a process has improved?
Common measures are elapsed time from start to finish, the share of cases completed right first time, cost per case and customer satisfaction, each recorded before the change as a baseline.
What are the common layers of an enterprise architecture?
Business, covering capabilities, processes and people; information, the data those processes use; applications, the systems that handle that data; and technology, the infrastructure underneath. Strategy sets direction for the whole stack, and each layer serves the one above it.
Is process improvement a technology project?
Not necessarily. Many gains come from changing process rules, removing hand-offs and duplicate data entry, before any software changes. Technology is then chosen to support the redesigned process rather than to copy the old one.
Who should own a business process?
A process owner in the business, someone accountable for how the process performs end to end. The technology team supports and runs the systems involved, but decisions about how the work should flow belong to the people responsible for the outcome the process delivers.
What is a business capability?
Something an organisation is able to do, such as assessing an application or paying staff, described independently of how it is done. Capabilities stay stable while processes and systems change, which makes them a useful anchor for architecture and investment decisions.
Exam move
Pick one process you use, such as enrolling in a course, and map it as-is in five or six steps. Mark the waste, sketch the to-be flow, and choose one measure. When you analyse a process, name the customer of that process first; measures only make sense from their side.
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