We begin with a characterization of service challenges and a conceptualization of a complex service enterprise as a collection of organizations and sub-organizations. Each organization is in turn in an internal cycle of adaptation characterized by BioS - Business value achieved through an Information infrastructure enabled Operations to deliver on Service Strategy. The overview of this conceptualization is illustrated in the 2 Figures. The car manufacturing enterprise is used to quickly introduce and illustrate important concepts such as agility, innovation, resilience, effectiveness, sense and respond, vertical and horizontal alignment. In addition we characterize influences on a complex Business-IT system: Service delivery challenges due to Routine and non-Routine services , Multiple stakeholders , Chaos due to change, variation, and service layers , Vertical BioS alignment as well as horizontal customer-provider alignment , Trends and the Strategic role of IT , Changing the business versus running the business , and Underlying Enterprise Architectures (EA) and Related Methods We conclude with the Scope and parts of the Adaptive Complex Enterprise (ACE) framework.
TopIntroduction
Figure 2.
Adaptive Complex Enterprise conceptualization and the underlying infrastructure of Interacting Agents.
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How can we characterize service enterprises and their challenges?
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What are the challenges of externally-driven services organizations?
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How can we characterize and address the differences from more traditional industrial-age organizations?
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How can we conceptualize a more adaptive performance-driven service enterprise?
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What are the parts of the underlying framework for improvement?
The car manufacturing enterprise is used to quickly introduce and illustrate important concepts such as agility, innovation, resilience, effectiveness, sense and respond, vertical and horizontal alignment. In addition we characterize influences on a complex Business-IT system:
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Service delivery challenges due to Routine and non-Routine services
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Multiple stakeholders
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Chaos due to change, variation, and service layers
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Vertical BioS alignment as well as horizontal customer-provider alignment
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Trends and the Strategic role of IT
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Changing the business versus running the business
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Underlying Enterprise Architectures (EA) and Related Methods
We conclude with the Scope and parts of the Adaptive Complex Enterprise (ACE) framework.
TopThe Service Delivery Challenge
According to the definition accepted by the U.S. Government (Hill 1977): “A service is a change in the condition of a person, or a good belonging to some economic entity, brought about as the result of the activity of some other economic entity, with the approval of the first person or economic entity.”
Due to external conditions service requirements between organizations evolve rapidly. Strategically speaking, typical service-oriented organizationsa thus no longer have the luxury of long disjoint planning-followed-by-execution cycles. They must sustainb themselves using sense-and-respond strategies and quickly adapt to provide value towards externally-driven goalsc(Haeckel 1999). Further, such organizations can also no longer be viewed independent of their enabling IT systems (Kapoor et al. 2005). To illustrate these points, we use the automotive enterprise - including car racing, manufacturers and suppliers - to introduce underlying business concepts and vocabulary. These concepts will be used to develop an integrated Business-IT framework for improvement.
Sense-and-Response and Agility: You are at the Indy 500 race car competition. Now imagine trying to win the race with the team or a system – hydraulic, airflow, or fuel –performing at sub-optimal levels. Success will not happen! To win, the driver and the pit crew have to sense-and-respondd to the weather and road conditions in real-time, during each lap of the race itself! The driver and the pit crew must work simultaneously and also ‘as one’ making strategy decisions while assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the competition. Working against time, each member uses precise instrumentation and information to provide expert services and coordinate with others to squeeze every drop of performancee.