Modeling digital enterprise ecosystems with archimate: A mobility provision case study

Abstract

Currently there is a shift from product centered enterprises to product-service centered enterprises which rely on a network of customers, suppliers and partners called enterprise ecosystems. This trend also affects the underlying IT architecture which has to integrate and provide software components (e.g. services) as well as hardware components (e.g. sensors) leading to a digital enterprise ecosystem. This digital ecosystem is complex so that modeling approaches which aim on simplifying complexity are eligible for their design and management. In the paper at hand, we show that existing enterprise modeling approaches are inappropriate for modeling digital enterprise ecosystems comprehensively. By using a case-based analysis we sketch extension points for a digital enterprise ecosystem modeling method based on ArchiMate.