The Business Layer of the Essential Meta Model is where elements related to people, processes and places are managed. This tutorial introduces the Business Layer and gives an overview of the main constructs available for modelling Business Architecture.

As with the other layers of the core meta model, the Business Layer is split into the following views:

• Conceptual - where we define the ‘what’.  In business terms this means ‘what’ is the business, and will comprise things from the high level operating model, through the business domains and capabilities to the type of roles that will be required to run the business.  Note that this does not touch on how anything is done, purely what needs to be done.  The ‘what’ is necessary to understand what is important to your business and is separate from how it is done. 
  • For example, you may use telephone sales, but you separate the ‘what’ – sales from the ‘how’ – telephone, to allow you to easily see that there may be more ‘how’s’ to this one capability, i.e. internet sales, face to face sales etc.  These are all processes supporting one conceptual capability.
    
• Logical - The logical area is where we define the ‘how’. In business terms this is the lower level abstraction of ‘how’ the ‘what’ will be achieved and will consist of things such as the processes that will perform the capabilities defined in the conceptual level, as well as the roles that perform the process.
• Physical - The physical is the actual implementation or deployment.  In business terms this provides additional detail such as where the logical processes take place and who - individuals or teams - will perform them.

The major constructs for capturing Business Architecture elements are shown in this diagram. The following definitions describe and provide some examples of each construct.

Conceptual Layer

• Business Objective - A strategic business goal for an enterprise.
  • Example - We will provide the best customer service in our field.
• Business Principle - High level rules that govern the manner in which business capabilities are delivered by the enterprise and provide the context for designing and defining how these capabilities will be realised.
  • Example - Quality will not be sacrificed by cost efficiency.
• Business Domain - This is the top level construct in the Business Architecture.  It provides a means of categorising the business related elements independent of the context in which it is applied. In other words the main groupings of the business, not necessarily the organisational functions. e.g., Invoicing belongs to the Finance domain but may appear in the Sales Order process.
  • Example - Sales and Marketing, Operations, Customer Services, Finance, Fulfilment, HR, IT, Business Control, Trading and Order Management.
• Business Capability- Business Capabilities are used to model the capabilities of a business or enterprise. Capabilities represent what the business does (or needs to do) in order to fulfil its objectives and responsibilities.
  • Examples - Order Approval, Picking, Packing, Delivery, Client Management, Client Invoicing, Trades Matching and Confirmation, Perform Industry Research.

Logical Layer

• Business Role - Business Role is made up of Individual and Group Business Roles. They are used to represent the design of the organisation in terms of the roles that are required and how they are related. Business Roles are groups, departments, teams or job roles within the enterprise representing many levels of granularity as to how the processes are performed. 
  • Individual Role Example - Depot Manager, Packer, Picker, Sorter, Returns Manager, Broker
  • Group Role Example - Courier, Depot Team, Postal Service, Front Office Team, Global HR Team, Local Office
• Business Process - The Business Process represents a specification or design of how a process should be performed.
  • Example - Approve Orders, Pick by Item, Pick by Order, Pack Orders, Dispatch by Courier, Dispatch by Postal Service, Create Allocate Executions and Switch Asset.
    
• Site Category - a type of location where business processes are performed that provides a way of classifying suitable places where processes will take place (during process design).
  • Examples - Factory, Office, Data Centre.

Physical Layer

• Actor- Actor may be either an Individual Actor or a Group Actor.  It may be a specific, named group, team or individual that performs a role to execute a physical process. An actor can perform more than one business role. Note that in the case of an Individual Actor, where the actual name of the individual is not known, a more abstract name can be given (e.g. HQ Office Manager)
  • Individual Actor Examples - London Depot Manager, Newcastle Depot Manager, John Smith
  • Group Actor Examples - London Picking Team, Newcastle Picking Team, London Portfolio Services Team.
• Site - a specific, named physical location where processes or activities take place. A Site can be mapped to one or more Site Categories, i.e. it may be a warehouse and an office, or just a warehouse. Sites can also contain other [sub]sites, enabling to capture of specific locations within a particular site.
  • Example - London Warehouse, Newcastle Warehouse, Warrington Warehouse, City Headquarters, Room 300 in London Head Office
• Physical Process - The Physical process is an instance of a process (defined in the Logical view) performed by a group or individual, playing a particular Role. Two Physical Processes only implement the same Business Process if the steps that they perform are the same. If the steps performed in two Physical Processes are different, then they are mapped to two different Business Processes, each of which defines the steps performed. 
  • Example - London Depot Team::as::Depot Team::Pick by Order Deliver by Courier; Newcastle Depot Team::as::Depot Team::Pick by Item Deliver by Postal Service.