| | March 201519CIOReviewan organization, it can then become the reference point for everything. Use of a capability model enables projects to get started much faster. It permits to identify all aspects that need to be addressed, provides a platform for management to roadmap business and IT investments, identifies business risks that need to be managed, provides organizational components to design solutions, outlines change impacts internally and on the ecosystem -- and the list goes on. The insurance industry uses such capability models in various ways. As time goes by, organization will find new opportunities for using them, creating a common language for all levels of the organization.Capability models introduce greater efficiency and effectiveness either on single projects or at the corporate level. They provide an ROI in the short and long term. But as you include them in your project approaches and your management processes, they will become an extension of your assets, plus knowledge that you will be able to rely on. They provide a much needed bridge between business and IT. They are used for all type of work from creating strategies to defining the business requirements to build or buy systems. Capability models are the communication backbone which ties organizations together into an overall business architecture framework. As other writers on this subject have put it in the past, capability models are the Rosetta Stone through which the alignment of business and IT can happen. As the Rosetta Stone course teaches the art of communication in other languages, capability models are the language of organizations.Business frameworks have become a best practice to model processes, technology and organization. Frameworks help visualize the landscape of the current and future states of organizations. Whether they are called capability maps or business architecture frameworks, they are industry reference models that can be used to plan, analyze, develop, manage and maintain.With everything that is happening in the insurance industry and with the never-ending announcements of new technologies and competitors, companies need to define their business directions and how they can differentiate themselves. This is where business frameworks become an asset.What is an enterprise business architecture framework? It is a representation of an organization's business composition. It describes the functions at various levels of details, including information structures and the natural dependencies found between functions. Frameworks are used as a map to describe various aspects of organizations. They are the Lego blocks of an industry.Those Lego blocks can then be enhanced and layered with what is specific to each organization. For example, companies may add some of the following perspectives to industry business frameworks to better describe themselves:o Enterprise ecosystemso Organizational structureso Roles and accountabilitieso Processes and procedureso Geographical mapo Risk assessment heat mapWhether to use an existing business framework or create one is an important question to answer. There are only a handful of comprehensive business frameworks available on the market for the insurance industry. The most known ones are ACORD and Panorama 360. Yet, available industry business frameworks can serve as accelerators for organizations. For management consulting organizations or technology vendors, an existing framework can provide credibility and structure to their offerings.The true benefits from using industry business frameworks are speed, quality and cost reduction. This is true for defining strategies, planning projects or investments, analyzing situations, developing processes, defining technology requirements and managing organizations. Frameworks can be used for various situations such as Enterprise or business architecture, BPM or process improvement, Software evaluation, Data warehouse architecture, System integration, Operational risk management, Mergers and acquisitions, New employee training among other. Business frameworks can significantly leverage single projects or organizations. They provide a return on investment in the short and in the long term. They become an asset base for knowledge.Business frameworks have become a best practice to model processes, technology and organization
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