When first approaching the Enterprise Business Motivation Model, it helps to start with the highest level objects and to see the model as a fairly simple construction.
The EBMM is, first and foremost, a way to describe a complex business that allows interesting insight to be gained. It is a tool, a competitive weapon, to be wielded by any business leader that is interested in moving his or her business from simply being “good” to being truly great.
Understanding about a business does not emerge from a single method or approach. It emerges because the basic information about the business is so well organized that a hundred different methods can be applied, each to refine or improve the business in some key way.
That can only happen if the information is well assembled, in a structure that is complete and scientifically created. The EBMM provides the structure for information about your business that allows a wide array of analysis and improvement methodologies, from process management to enterprise architecture, to provide rapid and valuable returns in your business.
In most large enterprises, the information about a business takes many forms. Some context can be found in well reasoned strategy memos, while other details may be barely described at all, existing only in the traditions and memories of key employees.
The information structure for describing a business must, therefore, cope with information that may exist in many forms, and different levels of detail. The EBMM provides this flexibility, because the various elements of a business can be described and refined independently, producing interesting observations and ideas for enhancement, without the need for every detail to be captured first.
The EBMM itself is not complex. Yet it is more complex than many of the models in use by business consultants. In developing this model, we took the advice of Einstein: Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. That is precisely what the Enterprise Business Motivation Model is, and does. It is a simple model, but not too simple. Interesting and useful illustrations can be created specifically because of this rich balance between simplicity and completeness.
The high level model is illustrated twice below: once in a graphic layout suitable for PowerPoint presentations, and the other in a technical layout suitable for business and enterprise architects. (Note that the technical illustration differentiates core elements by both color (pale green) and the thickness of the borders around each term). (click images to view them full size).
Business Illustration
Technical illustration
The core elements of the EBMM are listed below, along with an informal description of each one. (For more formal descriptions, see the detailed section dedicated to each of the areas).
Influencer – something outside the enterprise that has the potential for impacting, for better or worse, its business fortunes. These are not people. They are situations, like competitive pressures and regulations. Note: analysts are not influencers, but a business trend (potentially started by an influential person, like an analyst) can be.
Assessment – A collection of judgments about the fundamental business model(s) of the enterprise. Strategic planning units (and Business Management consultants) frequently provide these assessments in order to help executives make informed and well-reasoned decisions. A business model assessment evaluates a business model, describes the impact of an influencer, and may provide the impetus for the creation of a driver.
Driver – something inside the business that motivates people to make a change. This can include a person who shares a consistent opinion, but more frequently this would be things like strategies, objectives, and roadmaps. A driver responds to an influencer and either makes changes to the business model itself, or encourages a change in the business that supports the optimum performance of the existing business model.
Business Model – a description of the way that an enterprise hopes to make money. Synonymous with a “business plan,” a business model represents and describes each of the elements needed for a business to provide a valuable product or service to a customer, through the application of resources, the engagement of partners, and the expenditure of capital.
Business Unit Capability – A description of a responsibility of a business unit, as required by the business model. For example, if the accounting group is responsible for paying creditors, then we’d describe a single business unit capability as such: “the accounting business unit requires the capability to pay creditors.” A business unit capability is implemented through one or more business processes and is described only in the context of a business unit.
Business Unit – A group of people that employ tools, processes, and information to perform their responsibilities. Usually organized in a hierarchy (which means that one business unit can include a number of sub-units, and so on). Business units perform business processes.
Business Process – Informally, a business process is a description of the things that people (and sometimes machines) do in order to run the business. A process may include subprocesses, to many levels of depth, and the activities of a process are “governed” by directives.
Directive – The rules that people follow when performing business processes. This includes business policies (at a higher level) and business rules (at a more detailed level).
Note that the technical illustration above shows a couple of concepts that are not core concepts, but which relate directly to more than one core concept. This allows us to describe additional ways in which these core concepts are related.
The concept of a business service is described in the detailed section on business units. The concept of a capability roadmap is described in the section on drivers.