Business Relationship Modelling

business relationship modelling

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Business Relationship Modelling is a technique for planning business processes and systems across organizational boundaries.

This technique predates the BPMI proposal, which we are currently evaluating.

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Modelling Business Relationships for Effective Client-Server and Open Systems Delivery

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[purpose] [business drivers] [strategic questions] [suitability of the technique] [use of the model] [benefits] [description]

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[business relationship management] [business relationship clustering] [enterprise modelling] [modelling]

Purpose of Business Relationship Modelling

Business Relationship Modelling is a methodical approach for the exploration of

organizational structures,
federations,
system networks, …

… in the face of

policy changes,
design problems,
technological opportunities, …

… in order to

plan,
achieve,
support,
design,
decide,
resolve, …

… such issues as

organizational changes,
technical configurations,
technical systems policy,
system requirements, …

Business Relationship Modelling is used to explore the business and technical implications of a proposed federated configuration. It can be used to analyse the market opportunities of a given solution, as well as to identify new business opportunities.

The Business Relationship Model defines the topology of a distributed system, in which many autonomous agents interact commercially and technically to perform one or many decentralized business processes, or to deliver one or many business services.

Business drivers

Strategic Flexibility

outsourcing
inter-firm cooperation
‘Liberation Management’ (Tom Peters)

Organizational Flexibility

decentralization
transient organization

Technological Flexibility

portability
capability
…bility

Strategic questions to address

Business/Market Strategy

what are the key emerging roles?
which roles do we want to play ourselves?
what alliances do we want with other role-players?
what are the business risks of chosen technical strategy?

Information/Communications Technology Strategy

what systems and infrastructure do we need:

to support chosen roles?
to support chosen alliances?

how do we maximize flexibility?
what are the technical risks of chosen business strategy?

Suitability of technique

Business Relationship Modelling is suitable for

business process engineers
planners

of information technology
of communications technology
of quality systems

developers

of distributed/networked applications (including complex Client/Server systems) and infrastructures
of commercial information services (typically object-oriented)

network/market strategists, …

working for or within

large decentralized organizations,
inter-company networks, joint ventures
telecommunications and value-added network (VAN) companies, …

How is the Business Relationship Model used?

When combined with commercial and technical information, the Business Relationship Model enables the production of

a flexible internal structure, consisting of reusable and relocatable business objects - we call this the solution architecture
a business case for each participant
a migration plan for getting from the existing situation to the solution with minimum disruption and risk - for example, how long will it take to reach commercially viable volumes

This involves making three kinds of judgement: design, investment/procurement and migration planning judgements.

Design judgements	Investment/procurement judgements	Migration planning judgements
System specification Distribution of ‘functional’ requirements Specification of ‘non-functional’ requirements Specification of appropriate distribution infrastructure / topology Design for flexibility Integration strategy	Technology benefits & opportunities new ways of putting businesses together new mechanisms for linking information systems new modes of service negotiation, delivery & payment reduced interaction distance	Manageability Decoupling actions
Object/service specification Identity (meaningful description) Viability (value-added)	Business issues of federation heterogeneous financial disciplines / practices lack of hierarchical authority role of market regulators	Accessibility Configuration paths
Design process Dynamic requirements engineering Design without central authority Negotiation of interfaces	Information management issues information as commodity service paradigm	Timing issues Critical mass of demand Reliability of supply

Benefits of technique

Improved judgements

business flexibility
responsiveness to customer requirements
opening of technological options

Clearer links between requirements

business strategy
organizational structure
technical infrastructure

Integration of plans

solution architecture
business case
migration plan

Improved deployment of solutions

open systems
distributed technology

Description of technique

What is a business relationship model?

The business relationship model consists of a network diagram with supporting definitions and other information.

The business relationship diagram is a simple picture showing the chosen area in the middle, with all other departments, companies and agencies around the outside, as a network of business interfaces.

How do we analyse each business relationship?

For each business relationship, we need to understand:

Overall purpose of the relationship.
Specific objectives and success measures of the relationship.

At some stage, we may need to analyse some of these relationships in more detail. This would involve looking at any specific contractual mechanisms, service level agreements, monitoring reporting and exception handling arrangements, shared systems and so on.

How do we analyse the whole network of business relationship?

As a completeness check, each model should include:

any relationships that include a shared database or computer system interface (including EDI)
any relationships governed by contract, service level agreements or similar
any relationships that involve a formal exchange / handover of goods, services, money or information.

Carrying out this exercise from the perspective of each department or division within a large organization, or from the perspective of each player in a complex market venture, often reveals some interesting differences of view.

When we put these models together, we typically identify some interesting holes in the network of relationships.

Acknowledgements / Prior Work

Some of this paper derives from work done in the Enterprise Computing Project, a collaborative effort involving Texas Instruments Software and Architecture Projects Management, grant-aided by the UK's Department of Trade and Industry under their ODSA programme. The Enterprise Computing Project developed a version of Business Relationship Modelling specifically for Open Distributed Processing, under the name Enterprise Modelling Methodology (EMM/ODP). Some of the early publications use this name.

This work has benefited from the participation of John Dobson, David Iggulden, Rob van der Linden and Ian Macdonald. Thanks also to David Sprott.

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