Reporting from the Implementation of a BusinessCapability Map as Business-IT Alignment Tool

Gloria BondelDepartment of Informatics

Technical University of MunichMunich, Germany

gloria.bondel@tum.de

Anne FaberDepartment of Informatics

Technical University of MunichMunich, Germanyanne.faber@tum.de

Florian MatthesDepartment of Informatics

Technical University of MunichMunich, Germanymatthes@tum.de

Abstract—The new era of digitization increases the impactof IT on the overall success of organizations. Even though thebusiness generally recognizes the importance of IT, business-ITalignment is still considered a major challenge by IT executives.A widely adapted Enterprise Architecture Management tooladdressing this challenge is the business capability map. However,there are only few approaches specifying the creation of businesscapability maps. This paper presents a case study describingthe initiation of a business capability map at a medium-sized,state-controlled organization following an approach to businesscapability map implementation presented by The Open Group.Based on the case study, we detail each phase of the approachpresenting necessary activities and resulting artifacts. Addition-ally, lessons learned are presented with the major finding beingthat an involvement of the whole business leadership leads toa better business-IT alignment, a common language, and abetter understanding between all business units. Furthermore, abusiness capability map provides a suitable tool for structuringstrategy development.

Index Terms—business capability map, business-IT alignment,enterprise architecture management, strategy management, casestudy, lessons learned

I. INTRODUCTION

Over the last decades, the role of information technology(IT) in organizations has changed from being a simple supportfunction to enabling new business models and disruptingwhole industries [1]. Even though business-IT alignment haslong been recognized to have a positive impact on organi-zational performance [2], [3], it is still considered a majorchallenge by IT executives [4]. Enterprise Architecture Man-agement (EAM) is a widely accepted mechanism to improvebusiness-IT alignment [5]. By modeling relevant organiza-tional elements across the business, application, and infras-tructure layer, EAM enables the steering of an organizationstransformation from the current to a target state [6]. An EAMtool well-known for addressing the challenge of business-ITalignment is the Business capability map [7], [8].

A business capability describes an organizations abilityto perform a certain activity from a functional perspective[8], for example customer relationship management or on-line marketing. If all major business capabilities enablingan organization’s business model are identified and visuallyrepresented, the resulting architectural viewpoint is called abusiness capability map (BCM) [8].

There are many advantages of using a BCM to model thebusiness layer of an enterprise architecture. First, the descrip-tion of IT activities utilizing a BCM instead of using termsrelated to technical deliveries enables business stakeholdersto better understand and appreciate IT outcomes [7]. Further-more, this creates a common basis for communication betweenbusiness and IT [8]–[10]. In addition, a BCM provides a stableview of the business which is more specific than strategicguidelines but less volatile than business processes [11]. Thissupports IT stakeholders, especially enterprise architects, toensure that IT activities are aligned with the business goals [7].Finally, if business capabilities are enriched with additionalinformation, e.g., about their respective strategic relevance,the BCM provides a sound basis for strategic (IT) decisionmaking.

Even though the advantages of BCMs have been reported inliterature and practice, reference processes for implementinga BCM are sparse. The Open Group provides one of the moredetailed descriptions for BCM implementation in an OpenGroup Guide [12]. However, the process is still very high-level and has not been evaluated in literature. Therefore, basedon the process proposed by the Open Group1, the purpose ofthis article is to present a more detailed process for BCMimplementation including valuable artifacts. Furthermore, theprocess is evaluated in a case study at a small or mediumenterprise (SME), and lessons learned are presented. Thisconstitutes an additional contribution, because, to the best ofthe authors’ knowledge, BCMs have only been evaluated inbig organizations so far.

Based on this objective, the research questions guiding thiswork are

RQ1. Which frameworks for the implementation of BCMs inorganizations exist?RQ2. How can a business capability map be implemented inan organization?RQ3. What are resulting artifacts of a business capability mapimplementation?RQ4. What lessons learned arise from applying this processin a SME?

1http://opengroup.org/

To answer these questions, we conducted a literature reviewfollowed by a case study with a medium sized state-controlledorganization. Prior to the case study, the organization had noBCM implemented. Thus, it provided a particularly interestingunit of analysis for us.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: inSection II, the concept of business capabilities and BCMsare introduced. Additionally, the approach to BCM imple-mentation as presented by The Open Group is described.Section III presents related work in literature covering BCMcreation. Section IV describes the case study design; this isfollowed by a detailed description of the initiation of a BCMwithin the case study’s participating organization (see SectionV). In Section VI we describe lessons learned within theimplementation process. The work ends with a summary anddiscussion of the results as well as a presentation of limitationsand future work in Section VII.

II. FOUNDATIONS

In this chapter, the concepts of business capabilities andbusiness capability maps are examined. Additionally, the BCMimplementation process proposed by the Open Group is pre-sented.

A. Business Capabilities

Nowadays, the concept of business capabilities is a coreelement of business architectures and BCMs are a popularviewpoint for visualizing them [8], [13]. Business capabilitiesas well as BCMs are applied in several EAM use cases,especially for architecture description, architecture analysis,architecture planning, to identify innovation potentials, to steerapplication portfolios, to support strategic planning as well asto create a basis for sourcing decisions [1], [8], [10]–[15].Nevertheless, the application of a BCM can be challenging,since taking a business capability perspective usually leads tobenefits on a very high, organizational level, but business unitleaders instead focus on benefits which are directly assignedto their area of responsibility [7].

An often cited [8], [10], [13], [16] definition of businesscapabilities is provided by the The Open Group ArchitectureFramework (TOGAF) [7], stating that a business capability isa “particular ability that a business may possess or exchange toachieve a specific purpose”. This means, a business capabilityis an abstraction of a business function, which captures whatan organization does, instead of trying to explain how, why orwhere it is done [12].

Well-defined business capabilities fulfill four characteristics.First, business capabilities are stable in the sense that they areindependent of specific processes, organizational structures ortechnologies. Analogously, they describe necessary roles andtherefore abstract from individual resources. Thirdly, businesscapabilities are non-overlapping but at the same time capturethe complete organization. Finally, each business capabilitycan be broken down into more granular capabilities establish-ing a vertical hierarchy between business capabilities [8].

TABLE IEXAMPLE OF BUSINESS CAPABILITIES.

Business CapabilityName DescriptionProductManagement

The ability to design, evaluate, plan and implementnew products.

SalesManagement

The ability to coordinate current sales activitiesacross different sales channels and plan future sales.

A business capability consists at least of a name and aconcise and precise description [12]. In accordance with thenaming convention, a business capability is always namedusing a noun (“what is done”), not a verb (“how it is done”).Also, it is essential to adopt names common to the organizationand understood across business and IT departments. Furtherinformation that could be added is performance metrics, theperson responsible for the business capability, the systems thatsupport the business capability, as well as interfaces to otherbusiness capabilities [10]. Two simple examples of businesscapabilities are illustrated in Table I.

To enable a business capability, the four components roles,processes, information, and tools are combined. To delivera certain business capability, general tasks and skills arenecessary, which are summarized under the term roles. Also,usually different processes are involved in providing a businesscapability. The term information comprises business informa-tion which is exchanged via interfaces between business capa-bilities, e.g., information about customers or products movingthrough a value chain. Finally, tools include IT systems andapplications as well as other resources, e.g., machinery. Thecombination of these four elements is independent of organi-zational silos like product, channel or client categories [17].Finally, it is important to differentiate between the businesscapability itself, which is stable, and the components formingthe business capability, that change regularly [12].

B. Business Capability Maps

If all business capabilities of an organization are defined,they can be organized into a BCM. A BCM is a popular busi-ness architecture viewpoint since it provides a self-contained,visual representation of the set of business functions enablingthe companys business model and reflecting the companysstrategy [8]. An example of a BCM is illustrated in Fig. 1.Furthermore, the capabilities in a BCM are usually groupedinto logical categories or layers and hierarchical dependenciesbetween business capabilities are depicted to a certain degree(e.g., different levels of capabilities containing each other, seeFig. 1, where the business capability Production on level onecan be broken down into the business capabilities Procurementand Plant Management) on level two to support more effectiveanalysis and planning [12].

As a basis for better decision making, a BCM can beenriched with additional information to create a heat map[12]. A heat map visually represents different perspectivesby evaluating, e.g., strategic contribution, cost contributionor criticality of each business capability, and highlighting

Fig. 1. Example of a BCM with five business capabilities on level one andtwelve business capabilities level two.

differences using colors. Usually, a stoplight metaphor is used,showing a capability exhibiting the expected characteristic tothe highest extent in green, a capability with a small weaknessin yellow, and a capability with a significant flaw in red. Thisallows for an easy way of highlighting capabilities whichneed more attention and helps to identify opportunities forimprovement.

C. The Open Group Approach to Business Capability MapImplementation

The concept of business capabilities is deeply rooted inThe Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) [7], awell-recognized standard for EAM. The core of TOGAF isthe Architecture Development Method (ADM), an iterativeapproach to architecture development consisting of nine phases(incl. the preliminary phase). Within the ADM, business ca-pabilities play an essential role as input and output of the firsttwo phases. First, in the phase A. Architecture Vision, existingbusiness capabilities are identified as a basis to highlighthow the developed architecture vision can create value forthe business. Afterward, in phase B. Business Architecture,analyzing previously identified business capabilities by map-ping them with additional information is described as oneof the three most important methods for business modeling.Additionally, TOGAF introduces Capability-Based Planningas an ADM Technique. Within this chapter, characteristics anddimensions of business capabilities are outlined and a methodfor visualizing business capability increments is proposed.Nevertheless, the TOGAF standard does neither provide anyguidance on how to identify business capabilities nor on howto create business capability maps.

Addressing this gap, The Open Group additionally pub-lished a guide focusing exclusively on business capabilities

[12]. The guide presents an approach for business capabilitymodeling which consists of three major steps as illustrated inFig. 2.

Fig. 2. Approach for BCM implementation as presented by The Open Group[12].

The first step aims at capturing all business capabilities anorganization possesses using either a top-down or a bottom-up approach. The top-down approach starts by identifying20-30 high-level business capabilities which are subsequentlydecomposed into lower level business capabilities. This ap-proach is very efficient, but to be successful, it is essentialto involve senior executives. On the other hand, the bottom-up approach starts with identifying business capabilities indifferent parts of the business, which are reconciled later on.This approach requires more time and strong governance aswell as senior leadership support to be successful. If possible,it is recommended to combine the top-down with the bottom-up approach. Independently of the approach chosen, goodsources of information for this first step are the organizationalstructure, the business model, and the current strategic, busi-ness, and financial plans of the organization.

The second step comprises two methods for structuringthe business capability model in a meaningful way, namelystratification and leveling. Stratification means classifying andgrouping business capabilities into categories or layers, e.g.,strategic, core and supporting capabilities. The goal of stratifi-cation is to organize business capabilities in a way, that makesit easier for stakeholders to understand the business capabilitymodel. The decomposition of each business capability intocapabilities with more details is called leveling. Leveling aimsat providing different information to different stakeholders,e.g., an overview of top-level capabilities to business leadersas a basis for strategic decision making and lower-level capa-bilities with more detail to architects as a basis for technologydecisions.

Finally, the third step is concerned with enriching thebusiness capability model with additional information to en-able more meaningful decision making. One such method isheat mapping the business capability model itself to visualizespecific information. Another method of applying businesscapability models is mapping them with the organizational

chart or the organizations value streams. A business capabilityto organization’s mapping visualizes capabilities used acrossdifferent organizational units and enables identification ofharmonization and rationalization potentials. Mapping valuestreams to business capabilities highlights which businesscapabilities provide the most value to the business and itscustomers. As a result, this provides a basis for investmentdecisions.

III. RELATED WORK

To identify further approaches to BCM implementation, aliterature research has been conducted. The literature researchconsists of a structured literature review as described in Brockeet al. [18] comprising the databases Scopus2, Web of Science3,and IEEE Xplore4 using different search terms5. Also, a cycleof forwards and backwards search was conducted. Due to thelimited amount of results of this search, additional sourcesfrom academia and practice uncovered during the researchproject are included.

In Beimborn et al. [11], a top-down approach for imple-menting a BCM is introduced. The process always starts withthe five highest-level capabilities being developing productsand services, client interaction, fulfilling customer demands,managing and controlling the enterprise, and collaborativeactivities. These business capabilities are broken down intomore granular capabilities and interactions. As part of theprocess, each business capability should be described usinga name, parent capabilities, child capabilities, incoming links,outgoing links, a description, and KPIs measuring its perfor-mance. However, the approach is described on a very highlevel, not detailing any specific actions or necessary inputs.

A research study presented by Brits et al. [1] provides aconceptual approach to identify and describe business capa-bilities. To identify a business capability, first, all necessaryinput comprising information on business entities, businessrules, business processes and strategic objects needs to becollected. This information is compiled by using severalinformation-gathering techniques, namely reading, writing,observation, interviews, and questionnaires. Afterward, thisinformation is used to model each business capability utilizinga framework consisting of perspectives (i.e., an element ofguidance, business processes, resources, technology, people,and objects) as rows and abstractions (i.e., external environ-mental knowledge, ends, internal environmental knowledge,and means) as columns. The result is a very detailed and notvery intuitive description of each business capability embodiedby its components.

Another approach for business capability identification andanalysis is described in Fleischer et al. [19]. The processconsists of a top-down approach for business capability iden-tification followed by a comparison of available and required

2https://www.scopus.com/3https://login.webofknowledge.com/4http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/5The search terms applied were “Capability Identification” and “Business

Capability Map”.

business capabilities. A business capability is defined as aunit of value within a value chain creating a specific output.Even though the capabilities are split into a set of core and aset of supporting capabilities which are arranged in a logicalorder, they can be interpreted as capabilities on the businessarchitecture layer. However, not all business capabilities of anorganization are described and the process is described on arather high level.

Since the concept of capability-driven development (CDD)is well explored in literature [20], [21], it should also bementioned here. However, capabilities are investigated on alevel of application functionality, meaning that each capabilityaddresses one or more user needs while at the same time beingcontext-aware [21]. A well-investigated approach to capabilityidentification is based on a meta-model presented in [22].Another approach uses a composite algorithm for identifyingcapabilities by combining a synthesis and a decompositionprocess as presented in [23], [24]. However, none of theseapproaches are targeted at defining capabilities on a businessarchitecture layer.

Furthermore, several approaches to creating business capa-bility maps are provided by consulting companies. However,most approaches focus on the benefits of introducing a BCMand pay less attention to a proper definition of businesscapabilities or a thorough description of the creation process.Without any claim to completeness, such consulting companiesare for example Microsoft [25], Detecon [14], IBM [26],Tactical Strategy Group [27], and Sapient Consulting [28].

IV. CASE STUDY DESIGN

A case study represents an appropriate methodology forresearch within the context of information system sciencesince it studies a phenomenon in its natural setting [29], [30].We followed Benbasat et al. [31] guidelines on how to conducta case study research. In Fig. 3, the case study approach isillustrated and mapped to the approach proposed by The OpenGroup.

Unit of analysis. For this case study, we chose a singlecase: an entire medium-sized organization. The case waspurposefully selected, because the organization had a highmotivation implementing a BCM as a tool to support business-IT alignment. Our case is exploratory as we are primarilylooking into a phenomenon, which is unexplored from aresearch point of view [29].

Data collection method. We used several data collectionmethods as described in [31]:

• Archival records. In the initial phase and throughout thecase study, the organization provided different companyrecords, such as the distribution-of-business plan, anorganizational chart, plus information tailored to theircustomers.

• Interviews. Within the case study, overall 18 semi-structured interviews with ten company representativeswere conducted following Weiss [32]. Each in-personinterview lasted between 60 and 90 minutes on theorganization premises. Each interview was documented

during the session using keywords. After each interview,the keywords were thoroughly analyzed and eventuallymissing observations added. The resulting interview re-ports were sent to the respective interview partners toensure completeness and correctness. If additions ormodifications were requested, these have been integratedand the new version of the report was again sent backfor validation. This iterative process was repeated untilthe interview partner did not have any change requestsanymore.

• Direct observation. During four workshops, we madeobservations with a high degree of interaction which weredocumented in form of result reports. The first workshopaimed to create a common understanding of the projectgoal and to collect information about internal proceduresand particularities. The second and third workshop aimedat aligning results obtained in the interviews. In the lastworkshop, the project results were discussed.

Data analysis. After each interview phase, the writtenprotocols of the interviews were analyzed and the observationswere collected and prepared to be presented in the followingworkshops. After each workshop, the outcomes were used asinput for later steps of the approach. All data collected wereanalyzed in the final phase of the case study (Identification ofrecommended actions) and the results were presented to thecompany representatives.

Fig. 3. Case study approach mapped to the approach for BCM implementationas presented by The Open Group [12].

V. BUSINESS CAPABILITY MAP IMPLEMENTATION

We conducted this research in collaboration with a state-controlled organization active in lottery operation. The com-pany’s headquarter is located in Europe with approximately350 employees. The company had no business capabilitymap in use prior to our case study. Due to the sensitivity

of the outcomes of the case study, the approach will beillustrated using the exemplary BCM introduced in Fig. 1. ThisBCM, as well as the analysis results based on the BCM, arepurely illustrative. The approach to BCM implementation asproposed by The Open Group was used as a starting pointfor the approach described in the following. As illustrated inFig. 3, the two phases identification of the problem and theidentification of actions were added, while the identificationof business capabilities and the structuring of the BCM tookplace simultaneously.

The identification of the problem together with the motiva-tion of the case study was added to the approach since the goaland the conditions of the cooperation between the researchgroup and the organization had to be agreed first.

The approach chosen for business capability identificationwas a top-down approach, which was possible due to the in-volvement of all business and the IT leader of the organization.The structuring of the BCM followed the concept of stratifica-tion by categorizing business capabilities into eight first levelbusiness capabilities and visually arrange them from customerfacing to support functions. The first level business capabilitieswere detailed into 34 second level business capabilities.

Finally, the identification of recommended actions wasadded to support the organization in taking concrete actionsbased on the BCM analysis results.

In the following, each process step, together with the actionstaken and the artifacts generated, as illustrated in Fig.4 isdescribed more thoroughly.

A. Problem Identification and Case Study Motivation

The first contact with the case study organization wasestablished in June 2017 during a guest talk of the researchgroup discussing EAM practices. Shortly after the presenta-tion, it was agreed, that the research group will support theorganization in creating a BCM as a starting point for furtherEAM activities.

We designed the case study with regards to the collaborationmode, the timeline, the roles involved, and the expectedoutcomes. These specifications were defined in a series ofgroup discussions with the organization’s head of departmentIT and the head of department strategy.

The collaboration mode consists of several interviews witheach relevant role as well as workshops to align and discussthe initial results collected in the interviews. The timeline wasfixed by determining the dates for the workshops in reasonableintervals (see Fig. 3.) Furthermore, essential roles within theorganization which should be involved in the creation of aBCM were identified as being the managing director and thevice-managing director of the organization as well as all eightdepartment heads. All ten stakeholders representing these roleswere interviewed during the interview phases and invited toeach workshop. The expected results were defined as beinga BCM representing the current business architecture, a heatmap highlighting business capabilities requiring action, as wellas a list of action recommendations to address identified gaps.

Fig. 4. Approach to BCM implementation with actions and artifacts assigned to each process step.

In parallel, a thorough literature review was conducted, bothon case study based research and business capability maps (seeSection III and Section IV). The results were used to formulatethe research questions (see Section I).

B. Kick-Off Workshop

The kick-off workshop was conducted in September 2017and nine out ten invited stakeholders participated. The wholeworkshop lasted for 90 minutes.

The workshop’s aim was to create a basic understandingregarding BCMs and the advantages of using BCMs forarchitecture management within the organization. Also, thecase study design and expected outcomes were presented andfuture action was coordinated.

C. Business Capability Map Creation

The goal of this phase is to capture the business capabilitiescurrently existing in the organization by conducting interviewswith relevant stakeholders. The artifacts resulting from eachinterview are a BCM representing the capabilities of thewhole organization as well as a more thorough descriptionof capabilities.

In preparation of these interviews, the managing director,the vice-managing director, the head of department strategy,and a representative of the research group drafted an initialversion of a BCM for the organization. This draft versionof the BCM was used as a basis in each of the followinginterviews.

Furthermore, a template for describing each business ca-pability was created. The template captures the name of a

business capability, the person responsible, the higher levelcapability it is part of, its description, its desired businessoutcome, its dependencies to other business capabilities aswell as important decisions with regards to its description.The field important decisions is a placeholder for decisionsmade during the workshop, which should be documented witha short rational to enable better traceability.

Given the initial version of the BCM and the template fordescribing business capabilities as input, nine semi-structuredinterviews were conducted with the department heads. Eachinterview lasted between 60 and 90 minutes and was per-formed in person. The interviews were steered in a way, thatidentified business capabilities focused on currently existing(“as-is”) capabilities of the organization.

The result of this phase was a set of nine slide decks6 eachcapturing the BCM from the perspective of one case studyparticipant as well as a set of capability descriptions.

D. Workshop to align the Business Capability Map

Given the nine different BCMs and business capabilitydescriptions resulting from the previous phase, the goal of thisphase was to create a single, agreed-upon BCM representingcurrent (“as-is”) business capabilities of the organization. Theworkshop took place at the beginning of December 2017 andlasted for four hours.

6One slide deck created with each of the eight department heads and oneslide deck created with the managing director and the vice-managing director.

In preparation of the meeting, the research group took theinitial draft BCM used as input to the interviews and visuallyincorporated all proposed changes. Proposed changes were:

• Different names covering the same business capability• Identification of new business capabilities• Removal of initially proposed business capabilities• Identification of new domains• Splitting of business capabilities into more fine-grained

business capabilities within a domain• Splitting of business capabilities into more fine-grained

business capabilities across domainsSome of the proposed changes also led to conflicts, whichwere highlighted in the visualization.

For each domain, the workshop moderator explained theproposed changes and possibly resulting conflicts. The pro-posed changes were discussed by the participants and resultswere captured on a whiteboard. In some cases, decisions onproposed changes in a domain could not be made beforeinvestigating another domain and therefore were postponed.Furthermore, some decisions made later in the process affectedearlier decisions, making an iterative approach necessary.

The result of the process was an agreed upon BCM compris-ing eight business capabilities on level one, which are detailedinto 34 level two business capabilities.

Due to a lack of time, the descriptions of each businesscapability were not discussed during the workshop but adaptedby the research group in accordance with the workshop results.Afterward, the descriptions of business capabilities were dis-tributed to the workshop participants. The participants wereencouraged to provide feedback regarding the descriptionswithin a predefined time frame.

The artifact produced in this step is a BCM visualizing thecurrent organizational business capabilities (see Fig. 4, No. I)and the description of each business capability (see Fig. 4, No.II).

E. Business Capability Map Enrichment

In this phase, the goal was to enrich the BCM withinformation on the strategic relevance and the current statusof each business capability as well as to identify gaps and firstaction recommendations. Nine interviews with ten participantswere conducted between the beginning of December 2017 andthe end of January 2018. Again, the interviews were semi-structured and lasted between 60 and 90 minutes each.

To capture the strategic relevance of a business capability,the BCM was used as an input and each interviewee was askedwhich business capabilities are strategically most important.Indicators of strategic importance were a high influence on theorganization’s success, unique selling propositions, and long-term orientation.

In the next step, the interviewee was requested to makea statement regarding the health of each business capability.This usually leads to the participant pointing out improvementpotentials concerning business capabilities with poor health.By implication, business capabilities not explicitly mentionedas being weak were assumed to be healthy.

After each interview, the results were captured using theBCM as a basis and applying color coding to highlightstrategic relevance, the improvement potential and possiblegaps of each business capability. In this context, a businesscapability with a gap was defined as a strategically importantbusiness capability with low health. Short statements explain-ing strategic relevance, low health and possible actions toimprove health were added. The resulting slide deck was sentto the respective participant for validation and change requestswere incorporated. The result of this phase were nine suchslide decks.

F. Workshop to align Business Capability Map enrichment

The goal of the workshop was to create a shared under-standing of business capabilities in need for more attention inthe future and to collect a set of possible actions that couldaddress identified weaknesses. The workshop was conductedat the end of January 2018, lasted three hours and was attendedby 11 participants.

In preparation of the workshop, the research team con-solidated the BCMs representing the strategic relevance, thehealth, and the identified gaps of the business capabilities asillustrated in Fig. 5. The consolidation involved counting thenumber of times a business capability was categorized as be-ing especially strategically important, as having improvementpotential, and as having gaps. Business capabilities with gapswere colored in yellow. If the count of gaps was equal orgreater than three, the business capabilities were highlightedin red. These business capabilities were identified as in needof more attention in the future.

During the workshop, each business capability with a gapwas examined more closely, starting from the business capa-bility with the most gaps. The moderator presented reasonsfor a high strategic relevance and weaknesses of the businesscapabilities. These statements were discussed by the groupof participants. In some cases, this discussion resulted inparticipants pointing out that a weakness is already addressedby a certain measure, which the other participants were notaware of. Furthermore, the moderator presented the actionsproposed during the previous interview phase to address openweaknesses. The discussion of the proposed actions with thewhole group made it clear, why certain actions cannot be taken(e.g., for legal reasons).

The result of this phase was a common understanding ofwhich business capabilities need more attention in the future.Additionally, a list of possible actions and a list of alreadyintroduced measures addressing identified weaknesses wascompiled.

The resulting artifact of this phase is a heat map highlightingbusiness capabilities with gaps (see Fig. 4, No. III).

G. Prioritization of possible actions

The goal of this phase was to determine a set of recom-mended actions by prioritizing the possible actions identifiedin the previous phase. This prioritization was based on thesevereness of gaps identified in the previous phase followed

Fig. 5. The enriched and consolidated BCM visualizing the strategic relevance, the improvement potential and the gaps of each business capability.

by a discussion with members of the strategy team, includingthe head of strategy.

H. Final Workshop

At the final workshop in March 2018, the results of theBCM analysis were presented. These results included generalfindings derived from the BCM, i.e., which business capabil-ities to focus on in the future. Moreover, the recommendedactions to address identified weaknesses were handed over.

Also, the future use of the BCM in the company wasdiscussed with all participants. It was agreed, that the BCMprovides a more structured way of talking about strategic mea-sures, and therefore will be used in future strategy workshops.

The workshop was attended by 8 participants and lastedfor two hours. The artifact resulting from this phase is a listof recommended actions to address the identified gaps (seeFig. 4, No. IV).

VI. LESSONS LEARNED INITIATING A BCM

In the following, lessons learned for the first six stepsof the BCM implementation are described. For the last twosteps of the implementation process, no lessons learned wereidentified. The lessons learned are derived from observationsof the research group as well as from feedback provided bythe case study organization.

1) Problem Identification and Case Study Motivation: Inthe research group’s experience, BCMs are usually createdin the IT department as part of an enterprise architecturedescription. However, in this case study, the strategy depart-ment took over the organizational responsibility for the BCMimplementation. Furthermore, all business unit heads, as wellas the IT department head, were involved in the BCM creationto an equal amount by participating in two interviews as wellas in all workshops. As detailed in the following lessonslearned, this organizational structure fostered the creation ofa common language between all organizational units, a betteralignment between business and IT, and a more structured wayof strategy planning.

2) Kick-off Workshop: During the kick-off workshop, theorganization’s managing director announced her support ofthe case study. Additionally, the expected effort for eachparticipant was detailed. This could have led to a highermotivation of the stakeholders to contribute to the BCMimplementation.

3) Business Capability Map Creation: At the beginningof the interviews, a first draft of the BCM created with theorganization’s managing director and vice-managing directorwas presented to the stakeholders. While it could be argued,that the use of a draft could inhibit creativity, it also assistedstakeholders unfamiliar with the concept of business capabil-ities. Furthermore, the level of detail of business capabilitiesdescribed by different stakeholders was within an acceptablerange. This might be attributed to the use of the draft as well.

4) Workshop to align BCM: In the second workshop, thestakeholders engaged in a group discussion with the aim ofaligning the BCM. The equal involvement of all participantsduring the workshop and the “live” development of the BCMon the whiteboard lead to a feeling of a “shared ownership”.Thus, the BCM constitutes a common basis for communi-cation, not just between business and IT but also betweendifferent business units.

5) Enrichment of BCM: During the interviews with thegoal of enriching the BCM, the stakeholders should definethe strategic relevance, improvement potential, and gaps ineach business capability. This turned out to be difficult sincea shared understanding of the term “strategic relevance” waslacking. Even after the introduction of control questions7,subjective assessments were highly variable, ranging fromfive up to 17 business capabilities being identified as havingespecially high strategic importance. This issue was addressedby counting the number of times a business capability wascategorized as being especially strategically important. A highnumber indicated that a lot of stakeholders evaluated the

7Which business capability provides a unique selling proposition? Whichbusiness capability influences the organization’s success in the long-term?

business capability as strategically essential and more attentionshould be paid to those capabilities.

Initially, this step was also meant to identify a target BCM,indicating which business capabilities should be added or canbe removed to adapt the organizations business model to thechanging environment. However, it turned out that the businessmodel is quite stable and no changes in the BCM could beidentified. Thus, this endeavor was abandoned in the casestudy.

6) Workshop to align Business Capability Map enrichment:In the workshop, the group of stakeholders discussed theenriched BCMs resulting from the previous phase. By apply-ing heat mapping to visualizing gaps, a structured discourseabout current and planned strategic measures was supported.This lead to an increased understanding of current strategicmeasures and problems across all organizational units.

VII. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

In this paper, we presented a case study conducted ata medium-sized, state-controlled organization aiming at theimplementation of a BCM. The research questions introducedin Section I can be answered as follows:

RQ1. Which frameworks for the implementation of BCMsin organizations exist?There are a hand full of approaches to implementing a BCMthat have been described in literature [1], [11], [19], but theyare often on the wrong level of abstraction, making it difficultto derive concrete actions. However, the approach to BCMimplementation as provided by The Open Group [12] presentsa concise three step approach. In this case study, the The OpenGroup approach is used as a starting point to derive moreconcrete actions for implementing a BCM.

RQ2. How can a business capability map be implementedin an organization?In this research paper, a process consisting of four major steps,each one concluded by a workshop, is presented. For everyprocess step, actions have been derived as illustrated in Fig. 3.

RQ3. What are resulting artifacts of a business capabilitymap implementation?For the BCM implementation process, four artifacts are iden-tified as illustrated in Fig. 4. These artifacts are the BCMvisualizing the current business capabilities of an organization,a description of each current business capability, the enrichedBCM highlighting gaps of business capabilities, and a list ofrecommended actions addressing the identified gaps.

RQ4. What lessons learned arise from applying this processin a SME?All lessons learned from this case study are presented inSection VI. However, a major lesson learned is the observationthat the equal involvement of the whole business leadershipcreated the feeling of a “shared ownership” of the BCMinstead of it being just another artifact produced in IT. Thisleads to a better understanding between business and IT, butalso in between business units, by creating a common languageand a shared understanding of pain points in the organization.Moreover, the head of IT reported that after the end of the case

study, she used the BCM to align a newly created IT strategyto business needs. Also, she used the BCM for visualizingthe impact of the IT strategy to business stakeholders, provingthat the BCM is a suitable tool for strategy alignment andcommunication.

A limitation of the presented work is that only one casestudy has been conducted and evaluated. To avoid threats tothe external validity of the results, other case study confirmingthe results should be conducted in the future.

Nevertheless, we believe the presented results contribute to abetter understanding of the implementation process of a BCM,which can be used as a reference by organizations interestedin using a BCM for their business-IT alignment and strategyplanning.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This work has been sponsored by the German FederalMinistry of Education and Research (BMBF) grant BEEx+01IS17049. This work is further part of the TUM LivingLab Connected Mobility (TUM LLCM) project and has beenfunded by the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, En-ergy and Technology (StMWi) through the Center Digitisa-tion.Bavaria, an initiative of the Bavarian State Government.

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