Article Sponsored By

by Neal McWhorter

Today, most organizations find that their existing IT investment is both essential to the organization and a major impediment to the organization’s ability to respond to change. The IT cost structure has pushed many organizations to look at outsourcing as a way of controlling the spiraling costs associated with IT organizations. Yet organizations more and more are selling products and services that have an IT service aspect that makes the IT systems an extension of the business product. The existing model of custom-crafted solutions and its supporting requirements-based approach are at the core of the problem. Moving toward a platform-centric approach can allow business design to emerge as a standalone competitive discipline while allowing strategic technology investments to be evaluated using a model similar to those used for industrial facilities. This approach is central to organizations moving beyond their use of technology as a tool for cost reduction and releasing the capability to use technology as a tool for competitive advantage. By separating out business design from technical design, organizations can enhance their ability to compete through business innovation as well as enabling their IT partners to focus on providing the breakthrough technology capabilities upon which new technology-based products and services are based.

Article Sponsored By

by Ronald G. Ross

In this week’s article Ronald G. Ross gives his impressions on the current state of the business rules space - why they are so important and require their own approach to managing them.

The Requirements Networking Group has arranged a 10% discount on registrations for the 12th annual International Business Rules Forum that is being held in Las Vegas (Bellagio) from November 1st to 5th. To find out more on how you can take advantage of this special offer be sure to read the special interview with the Forum Chair and author of the newly released 3rd Edition of Business Rule Concepts.

Article Sponsored By

by Francois Coetzee

Creating business models that are easy to understand are invaluable tools for understanding the inner workings of the organization, its functions, its role players and the business entities it uses, creates and consumes. It is a critical foundation for the system models that describe the supporting software architecture and allows for easy trace-ability and impact assessments of business to system and system to business. Using the simple approach described in this article will allow the business modeller to rapidly create accurate business models.