StratOps — Continuous strategic alignment of IT for Sustainable Competitive Advantage
Today’s world is full of constant socio economic, political and other changes, intense competition which further give rise to changing market dynamics. As a result organizations must change their business strategy constantly to have sustainable competitive business advantage. Again organization needs to proactively and continuously scan through latest technological advancements like Microservices, Blockchain, Voice UI, Virtual Reality, Multi-cloud Solution, High Availability Architecture, Artificial Intelligence etc. to exploit them along with the market strategy to make their products and services highly differentiated at an optimal cost.
Again at the heart of success in today’s rapidly changing business environment is high clock speed. While organization needs to rapidly change their product strategy based on changing market dynamics and technology landscape, at the same time its underlying IT architecture and assets need to instantly respond to those changes with an automated mechanism for quickly adding, updating or removing IT assets to continuously align to strategic need of higher differentiation at optimal cost.
Disclosure is an end to end automated process called StratOps which can make that happen using continuous proactive market analysis, get it marry to latest technological advancements to formulate a strategy of higher differentiation at optimal cost. It identifies required changes in IT Architecture & assets and quickly deploying those changes in an automated way and continuously collecting assets and product usage information from internal and external users for further strategic shift resulting a continuous alignment of IT assets and strategy for sustainable competitive business advantage.
StratOps High Level Steps and high level diagram
1. A Real time Strategic View of the IT architecture — It starts with a real time strategic view of each of the IT assets against differentiation versus cost advantage over time to realize the changing strategic value for each of them. This view is used to validate against the strategic shift through continuous strategic and technology analysis to identify required changes and deploying those changes through continuous addition(AutoFilling), modification(AutoCoding), termination(AutoKilling), scaling up/down (AutoScaling) etc.
The Strategic View of the architecture comprises of a list of IT architectural patterns and assets and the same are assessed for cost versus differentiation against the organization strategy to answer three basic questions. 1. Whether the asset needs to be retained or terminated 2. If to be retained, if it needs any additional features for differentiation. 3. If to be retained, if it needs technology modernization
The questions are asked via an AI based automated process using three different knowledge-base or corpus — Strategy Corpus, Technology Corpus Operations Corpus
The Strategy Corpus — The corpus is prepared by results received from a series of strategic analysis. The strategy corpus is used to answer the question, if an architectural pattern or asset is still required against an industry/business process/business function based on organization strategy. If the answer to the earlier question is “No”, the asset is termed for termination in the strategic view. If the answer is “Yes”, that is, the asset or pattern is to be retained. it moves to the next step to check if there is any better way to achieve the business functionality.
It checks the Technology Corpus and The Operations Corpus — to check if there is a better way of achieving the same business functionality against the current operational cost versus differentiation. The technology corpus is prepared with technology information by focussing on cost versus differentiation. The Operation Corpus is prepared with information on operations cost against extent of assets usage. The Technology Corpus and Operations Corpus helps to identify the right technology and approach for targeted cost versus differentiation with the given weightage against the current technology and approach in place. This step defines the target technology and architectural style for the given asset. This gives the input for modernization.
The Strategy Corpus also include information on competitor benchmarking using SWOT analysis, Porter’s Five Forces analysis, 5C analysis etc to identify if any new feature is recommended for the asset or architecture. This gives input for additional features for differentiation.
2. Continuous Proactive Strategic Analysis– The step continuously and proactively gathers data on an organizations competitive market place, perform Predictive Strategic Analysis using AI on top of models like Porter Five Forces Analysis, SWOT Analysis, 5C Analysis etc. and thereby triggers Strategic Shift in business strategy which triggers similar shift in underlying IT strategy and assets.
3. Continuous Proactive Technology Analysis — At this step it continuously and proactively gathers information on the emerging technologies like mobile UI, voice UI, Blockchain, Microservices, Cloud, AI, Integration cloud etc and performs a predictive analysis for the technologies relevant to the organization to realize the changing strategic value of current IT assets and exploit new IT architecture and technologies for them to achieve higher differentiation at optimal cost.
4. Marry Strategic Analysis with Technology Analysis for Strategic Shift — The strategic shift is triggered by combining market analysis with technology analysis to formulate a business to IT strategy of higher differentiation at lower cost. It implements both market driven technology innovations and technology driven market decision to formulate an overall business and IT strategy and identifies the impacted LOBs, product features, against their underlying IT assets in a time bound way. This way it continuously measures changing nature of each of architectural blocks contributing differentiation versus cost effectiveness and plan changes accordingly for continuous competitive advantage
5. The Strategic Backlogs: The Strategic Shift further triggers strategic backlogs which further triggers various change requirements at underlying architecture and assets in an automated way. For example a car rental company performs strategic analysis to find the need of new channels like Voice UI to be added to enable larger access to customer. It also finds a new GPS feature to be added to its mobile app and also finds the desktop based booking application is rarely used and recommended for sunset.
6. Instantly respond to Strategic Backlogs: StratOps instantly respond to strategic backlogs by automating the development, modification or deletion of underlying IT assets with the help of techniques called AutoCoding, AutoFilling and AutoKilling.
StratOps uses an AI based searchable asset repository (e.g. image repository which can be containerized quickly) of reusable software assets which can be searched through a multidimensional search based on ask from strategic backlogs against the availability of assets using the criteria like Business (Line Of Business/Functionality etc) , Technology (UI/Middleware/Backend/Runtime/Rule Engine etc), Hosting(Cloud/Cluster/Container) etc. It identifies the asset with maximum possible match to use that as a starting asset for the next steps called AutoCoding, AutoFilling or AutoKilling.
7. AutoCoding: In this step StratOps uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to converts strategic backlogs and related requirements into code snippets for the asset identified in the previous step and adds or modifies the code snippets to the asset to shape it as per the strategic backlogs.
8.AutoFilling/AutoKilling -StratOps introduces the concept of AutoFilling/AutoKilling of architectural blocks using toolchains which helps to automatically deploy or sunset architectural blocks through Build/Test/Deployment automation.
As an example of AutoFilling, for the scenario given above, StratOps identifies three strategic backlogs for the car rental company and triggers StratOps pipeline for this, for the new Voice based UI it perform an AI enabled search to an asset repository against the domain/industry/technology match to find the closest matching toolchain which it selects for further enhancement as per the need. The new natural language processing (NLP) based auto-coding approach reads through the requirements generated by strategic backlogs and generates programming language specific codelets to be added and fine tuned based on the need which may involve small manual inspection or review as well. Finally the toolchain is deployed to the target cloud environment which generates all related architectural components for the Voice UI including cloud based database, Lambda function, Health check and monitoring services which is a kind of portable architectural block. The new channel i.e. Voice UI in this case undergoes continuous testing followed by approval from IT management to be finally to go live.
Similarly the StratOps AutoCoding triggers the other pipeline to add a new feature of GPS to the existing mobile app which undergoes a similar process like Devops to be finally pushed to production. In parallel to this, the StratOps AutoKilling triggers the other pipeline to decommission the rarely used desktop based booking application. Again the process is very similar to find the decommissioning toolchain, modify it as per the need and finally push it to various cloud environments.
9. Continuous Feedback for Strategic Validation: At this step continuous feedback and usage data are captured for various architectural blocks versus cost of development and maintenance to validate strategic component of higher differentiation at optimal cost, the same information is feed into the strategy and technology analysis for next cycle to further align the asset with strategy.
10. Continuous Provenance of Business Strategy to IT Alignment: The StratOps helps to have a ready to see Strategic View of Enterprise Architecture that depicts which architectural blocks and related technologies are contributing differentiation versus, which architectural components are contributing to cost advantages, thereby it offers a Continuous Provenance of Business to IT Alignment.
The prior arts and their shortfalls
Prior Art
Summary
Why not adequate
TOGAF
he Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) is a framework for enterprise architecture that provides an approach for designing, planning, implementing, and governing an enterprise information technology architecture
Does not proactively scan through competitive market dynamics and changing technology landscape for continuous higher differentiation at lower cost and instantly respond to those changes changing organization strategy and instantly aligning underlying IT architecture and related assets to those changes.
BITA Framework
Ref — https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
320785571_Enterprise_Modeling_for_
Business_and_IT_Alignment_-_a_
Framework_and_Recommendations
BITA includes a number of dimensions, of which particularly the strategic, structural, social and cultural are identified in [4]. The strategic dimension refers to the degree to which the business strategy and plans, and the IT strategy and plans, complement each other
BITA talks of various dimensions that can be used to sync IT with business but It does not outline and end to end mechanism on how the continuous alignment betsween business strategy and IT can be achieved in an automated way in a changing market place and technology landscape where strategy needs to be continuously changed and IT architecture need to be changed and adjusted instantly.
StoreyTeller BusDevOps
StoryTeller automates business to IT alignment by analysing business market feedback and then manually model business vision to identify required changes and propagate them through DevOps.
StoteyTeller mainly considers market feedback to plan for legacy redesign features to support evolving business needs, it does not strategically perform the competitive market analysis against changing technological landscape to define required changes in underlying IT architecture/assets and instantly deploy them to quick respond to those changes for higher differentiation at optimal cost. StoryTeller also not focussed on measuring changing strategic value of each of architectural blocks with time against advanced technologies and market dynamics. StoryTeller more focussed on product features out of user feedback while StratOps more focussed aligning IT assets to business strategy in an automated way.
Zachman Framework
it defines which artifacts enterprises need to develop to be able to organize themselves better using various perspectives
It does not include any automated process to check for changing market and technology landscape and validate each of the architectural assets against differentiation versus cost advantage and respond to those changes accordingly for continuous competitive advantage
Risk 3 model
In the Risk3[4] model, the objective of B/I alignment is to manage three separate risks associated with IT projects: technical risk (will the system function as it should?), organizational risk (will individuals within the organization use the system as they should?), and business risk (will the implementation and adoption of the system translate into business value?). Business value is jeopardized unless all three risks are managed successfully.
It does not include any automated process to check for changing market and technology landscape and validate each of the architectural assets against differentiation versus cost advantage and respond to those changes accordingly for continuous competitive advantage.
Startop
StratOp is a strategic system that helps your team clarify where you are, where you’re headed, and how to get there.
StratOp is a strategic planning tool, this helps organizations to do strategic planning and act accordingly while StratOps is an end to end automated process focussed on measuring changing strategic value of each of architectural blocks with time against changing technologies and market dynamics , identifying required changes for those architectural assets and respond to those changes in automated way to achieve sustainable competitive business advantage.
Component Business Model (CBM)
Map business competencies against operational level to identify the specialization roadmap through internal optimization and external networking
Does not provide an end to end automated process focussed on measuring changing strategic value of each of architectural blocks with time against changing technologies and market dynamics , identifying required changes for those architectural assets and respond to those changes in automated way to achieve sustainable competitive business advantage.
DevOps
DevOps is a set of software development practices that combine software development and information technology operations to shorten the systems development life cycle while delivering features, fixes, and updates frequently in close alignment with business objectives.
It does not include any automated process to check for changing market and technology landscape and validate each of the architectural assets against differentiation versus cost advantage and respond to those changes accordingly for continuous competitive advantage
StratOps Novelty
Realizing changing strategic value of each of IT assets for highly differentiated products and services at a lower cost against intensely competitive market dynamics and rapidly changing technology landscape.
Automated, proactive change responsiveness to market dynamics and changing technology landscape for an enterprise strategy of continuous differentiation at lower cost.
Automated, on demand/scheduled development, deployment and removal of IT assets to achieve quick strategic goals for continuous differentiation at a lower cost.
Realtime strategic view of underlying IT architecture and assets against continuous differentiation versus cost.
Continuous, automated business to IT alignment.
