Discovering Service Opportunities through Capability Modeling

By definition, service processes include consumer and producer interactions and input to co-produce the service. They differ from traditional enterprise processes in that the latter are often focused only on internal activities. Given this distinction, an enterprise wishing to ascertain what services they ought to offer will be required to analyze their resources with a different lens than the one provided by traditional process frameworks. Such a lens which facilitates making that determination focuses on the company´s capabilities that represent its proficiencies deemed to be of long-standing value. Conceptually, IBM´s Component Business Modeling (CBM) model can provide this capabilities-oriented lens. In practice, however, in order to make it a viable option a rigorous set of rules are needed to ensure that the CBM model is complete and that it can potentially evolve so as to be governed by a business architecture organization. This paper offers concrete ways on how three of the aspects of business architecture, Enterprise Process Frameworks, business process models, and activities as defined by Component Business Modeling (CBM) can be combined to produce a capability framework able to support services identification. The paper provides rules that guide rigorous establishment of the required composite elements so that the resulting capability framework is consistent. The paper also describes how the Enterprise can perform investment analysis to prioritize spending across its portfolio of emerging potential service opportunities vis-à-vis its traditional projects. The context is an organization that is maturing its use of other models such as process frameworks and business process models in support of Business Process Management (BPM) and would like to uncover service opportunities.