Adaptive to Change:


Developing the Skill Set of Tomorrow's Leaders
Page 2


Business architecture is an emerging method addressing how we view and construct an organization. The basic construct of business architecture is a capability-based view of the business. Unlike an organizational chart, a capability does not describe how people are organized. Unlike process models and network diagrams, a capability doesn't describe how the methods of the business are implemented. A capability describes what a business does and the necessary investment and expected level of performance.

Business architecture articulates the entire organization as a network of interacting capabilities. It allows managers to understand the strategic implications of decisions, overcome the information-limiting obstacles of structural conflict and identify key interactions to improve and increase performance. Capability-based architecture provides insight into opportunities to combine, shift or re-align the business to support revolutionary change and innovation in rapidly changing industries such as oil and gas.

For a Fortune 500 logistics provider, we approached the problem of aligning massive change, new technology implementation and integration of new offerings within a mature organization. This problem caused conflict within and impeded the company's ability to reduce costs while simultaneously responding to opportunities in the market. We worked with senior operations leaders and the information technology group to create business architecture views of each line of business. We then created a common model across the business lines showing how value was created and delivered to the logistics provider's customer.

In this eight week engagement, we were able to overcome five years of conflict and turf battles, identify the commonalities and differences among the lines of business, and create a view of the business highlighting the strategic impact of leadership decisions. This capability view was used by company leaders to prioritize change initiatives, focus information technology investments, and realign their operations with strategy.

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Pete Blazek and Dennis Stevens lead Synaptus, a consulting firm that helps executives improve business performance by connecting strategy to execution. For more information, please visit www.synaptus.com.