Phase A: Architecture Vision

To guide future changes in their business and information technology, ArchiSurance has decided to develop an Enterprise Architecture based on the ArchiMate 3.2 Specification and the TOGAF Standard, 10^th Edition.

As part of Phase A of the TOGAF ADM, the main stakeholders in the architecture engagement and their concerns (represented as “drivers” in the ArchiMate language) are identified. The TOGAF Standard defines a Stakeholder Map matrix to represent this. In the ArchiMate language, this can be expressed using the Stakeholder viewpoint:

The Stakeholder viewpoint allows the analyst to model the stakeholders, their concerns, and the assessments (in terms of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) of these concerns. Also, the links to the initial high-level goals that address these concerns and assessments may be described.

Figure 3 shows a part of such a diagram, identifying two stakeholders (the ArchiSurance Board of Directors and its current and potential customers) and their concerns, modeled as drivers. Customer satisfaction is a shared concern of both stakeholders. Stakeholder satisfaction can be refined into more detailed concerns; e.g., profitability.

Figure 3: Fragment of a Stakeholder View

Drivers motivate the development of specific business goals, as shown in Figure 4 for profitability. The two assessments show that profitability of ArchiSurance is suffering from customers defecting to competitors with superior digital experiences or lower premium costs. ArchiSurance plans to raise its profit margin by 5% in the next fiscal year. Goals such as reduction of costs have a positive influence on this outcome. This goal of cost reduction can in turn be partitioned into the reduction of maintenance costs and the reduction of personnel costs.

Figure 4: Business Goals, Assessments, and Expected Outcomes Associated with the Driver Profitability

Based on its business goals, ArchiSurance defines a set of principles to guide its architecture development. The ArchiMate language defines a principle as a realized qualitative statement of intent that must be met by the architecture. Note that the systems here include, for example, organizations and organization units, not only IT systems. Principles, therefore, help realize business goals. The TOGAF Standard also defines a principle as a qualitative statement of intent that should be met by an architecture. A TOGAF principle must have at least a supporting rationale and a measure of importance.

The ArchiMate Principles viewpoint, an example of which is shown in Figure 5, depicts principles, their dependencies, and the goals they realize:

The Principles viewpoint allows the analyst or designer to model the principles that are relevant to the design problem at hand, including the goals that motivate these principles. In addition, relationships between principles, and their goals, can be modeled. For example, principles may influence each other positively or negatively.

The TOGAF Standard defines a Principles catalog to provide an overview of principles.

Figure 5: Principles View (Fragment)

Goals and principles are the basis for concrete requirements, as shown in a Goal Refinement viewpoint:

The Goal Refinement viewpoint allows a designer to model the refinement of high-level goals into more concrete goals, and the refinement of concrete goals into requirements or constraints that describe the properties that are needed to realize the goals. The refinement of goals into sub-goals is modeled using the aggregation relationship. The refinement of goals into requirements is modeled using the realization relationship.

Figure 6 shows an example of such a view for the Rationalization change scenario.

Figure 6: Goal Refinement View for Rationalization Strategy

Longer-Term Vision

In addition to the short-term need for rationalization, ArchiSurance has defined a longer-term Digital Customer Intimacy strategy that combines Big Data and IoT. ArchiSurance intends to use more detailed customer data to improve customer interaction and satisfaction, and to customize insurance premiums based on insights into the customers’ behavior. The company will capture this data with smart, connected devices such as personal fitness trackers, black boxes in vehicles, home automation gateways, fleet management systems, in-store RFID devices, or smart building sensors.

The Strategy viewpoint allows the Business Architect to model an overview of the courses of action chosen or considered by the enterprise, the capabilities and resources supporting them, the envisaged outcomes, and how these contribute to the organization’s goals and drivers.

Figure 7: Strategy View for Digital Customer Intimacy Strategy

Ultimately, this new strategy should of course also contribute to the main drivers of the organization, as outlined in part in Figure 3. The relationships between strategy, capabilities, envisaged outcome, and stakeholder drivers is shown in Figure 7. The Digital Customer Intimacy strategy requires ArchiSurance to develop a number of new capabilities and resources, including digital customer management, data acquisition, and data analysis.

Solution Concept

An important element of the Architecture Vision is a high-level representation of the Target Architecture and how this provides a solution to the needs of the enterprise, to explain the added value of the architecture effort to stakeholders. The TOGAF Solution Concept diagram can be created with the ArchiMate language for this purpose. Figure 8 highlights the most important aspects of the Target Architecture, showing requirements and outcomes derived from both the Rationalization and the Digital Customer Intimacy strategies:

Enterprise-wide Customer Relationship Management (CRM) automation in the front-office, to replace individual CRM systems
Integrated back-office automation will replace the separate back-office applications for the different lines of business
The outcome Detailed Insights in Customer Behavior will be supported by acquiring customer behavior data from external data sources, which will be fed into a solution for automated data analysis, which in turn will deliver customer profiles to the new back-office solution

The business intelligence gained from that will be used in setting insurance premiums for individual customers as part of the claim management capability, and the development of new insurance products. This will also require the development of organizational competencies in data analysis.
Various social media apps in combination with the requisite social media competencies of the organization will realize the envisaged excellent online customer interaction

Figure 8: Solution Concept View