Enterprise Modelling in the Age

Abstract

The digital transformation forces enterprises to change. In addition, the notion of economic exchange, core to the economy, has shifted from following a goods-dominant logic to a service-dominant logic, putting the focus on continuous value co-creation between providers and consumers. These trends drive enterprises to transform continuously. During enterprise transformations, coordination among the stake- holders involved is key. Shared understanding, agreement, and commit- ment, is needed on topics such as: the overall strategy of the enter- prise, the current affairs of the enterprise and its context, as well as the ideal future affairs.Models, and ultimately enterprise modelling lan- guages and frameworks, are generally seen as an effective way to enable such (informed) coordination. To this end, different languages and frame- works have been developed, including ArchiMate. ArchiMate, which has evolved to become a widely accepted industry standard, was developed at a time where the digital transformation was not yet that noticeable. At that the time, the focus was more on consoli- dation and optimisation. As such, it is logical to expect that the existing ArchiMate language may require some “updates” to be ready for digital transformations. The objective of this paper is therefore threefold: (1) posit, based on practical experiences and insights, key challenges which the digital transformation puts on enterprise (architecture) modelling languages, (2) assess to what extent ArchiMate meets these challenges, and (3) provide suggestions on how to possibly improve ArchiMate to better meet these challenges.