Business architecture

Business architecture is defined as "a blueprint of the enterprise that provides a common understanding of the organization and is used to align strategic objectives and tactical demands." People who develop and maintain business architecture are known as business architects.

Business architecture is the bridge between the enterprise business model and enterprise strategy on one side, and the business functionality of the enterprise on the other side.

The term "business architecture" is often used to mean an architectural description of an enterprise or a business unit, an architectural model, or the profession itself. The Business Architecture Working Group of the Object Management Group (OMG) (2010) describes it as "a blueprint of the enterprise that provides a common understanding of the organization and is used to align strategic objectives and tactical demands." According to the OMG, a blueprint of this type describes "the structure of the enterprise in terms of its governance structure, business processes, and business information." As such, the profession of business architecture primarily focuses on the motivational, operational, and analysis frameworks that link these aspects of the enterprise together.

The key characteristic of the business architecture is that it represents real world aspects of a business, along with how they interact. It is developed by an interdisciplinary practice area focused on defining and analyzing concerns of what business does, how it does it, how it is organized, and how it realizes value. It is used to design competitive structures and processes, leverage existing strengths, and identify potential investment opportunities that advance the business’s objectives and drive innovation. Products of this business architecture efforts are used to develop plans, make business decisions and guide their implementations.

In practice, business architecture effort is conducted on its own or as part of an enterprise architecture. While an enterprise architecture practice in the past had focused primarily on the technological aspects of change, the practice is quickly evolving to use a rigorous business architecture approach to address the organizational and motivational aspects of change as well. The alignment between business architecture and enterprise architecture is a natural architectural alignment of two related disciplines. Business architecture represents a business in the absence of any IT architecture while enterprise architecture provides an overarching framework for business and IT architecture.

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