alignment of Business- and IT architecture

When I joined AT&T Network Systems the company took its first step outside the USA by participating in Joint Ventures with local Telecom Equipment Providers abroad. This expansion of the company was supported by a growth and development strategy based on the properties of the Product / Market Combinations (PMC). The model was based on a string of dependencies:




1. Business Architecture: The structure of a company is based on a chain of dependencies, beginning with the Market dictating the Product that is offered.













2. Business Architecture: A particular Product / Market Combination (PMC) dictates the properties of the processes to provide that Product in that particular Market.











3. Business Architecture: The various process types and PMC determine what 'Business types' are appropriate.










These Business types are summarized in a growth-path within a Product/Market Combination that distinguishes 2 phases:

Phase I: “Market Entry”:
Sales Operation,
Sales Operation + Logistics,
Sales Operation + Logistics + Manufacturing/Assembly,
Sales Operation + Logistics + Manufacturing/Assembly + Development Lab.


Phase II: “Globalization / Specialization”:
Full Stream Manufacturing Operation,
Development Lab.,
(Regional/Local) Operational Support Center

In order to provide effective IT support, this growth path was accommodated by an IT architecture approach, based on the use of an  'information exchange bus'. Implementing such a 'bus- / plug and play architecture' must be based on 'company standard messages'  that are exchanged and IT architectures that are discriminated based on 'information ownership'. This resulted in the following IT architecture growth path:




This approach led to the realization of standardization in the IT architecture and the gradually decommisioning of legacy architectures.