“And it improved the effectiveness of decision-making”, quipped my friend. He was talking about how a few event-based notifications improved the speed of data-driven decisions. The program monitors patterns and deviations in various business metrics (such as lead times and stock-levels), and proactively informs the concerned party.

“We have seen it before”, I mentioned. The whole premise of business events and business activity monitoring in 2000s were built on this concept.

“With newer and better capabilities in technology, we re-invent parts of the car, or even change its field of engineering!” Business activity monitoring was part of application integration and...

When computers were born data was on the “peripherals”! We programmed arithmetic and logic into computers, and we had inputs and outputs for data. Applications and services implemented logic in maintainable and programmable units – functions, modules, and libraries. These applications produced data as a result of executing the logic and functions, which were stored into disks, transferred over networks, and displayed on screens. Later, we developed technologies to extract data from storage or while in motion, transferred, transformed, persisted, and analysed. We designed data warehouses, data marts and efficient modelling techniques to efficiently store and analyse these data. Business...

During the lockdown due to pandemic, I discovered Gunhild Carling in YouTube. She, an amazing multi-talented musician, posts her jazz sessions with her family and friends. Some posts are from her archives, and some live sessions. She has a strong presence online with around a thousand videos in YouTube. She has found a way to engage her audience in the digital world. And she is not the only one. There are many YouTubers who are excellent musicians, engaging the audience through creative covers, serious music lessons, detailed critiques, gear reviews and humorous takes. Entertainment and show business seem to quickly...

Jane wakes up in the morning. It is 6:00 AM in the X8A32@M291K. Today the work for Section 28 must finish. She has been improving the render quality of Section 28 for 16 weeks now. She expects a reward once the section is complete. A decent increase in her experience points, eighteen points on her savings, and a power-up on her health insurance. That should help her to acquire the entitlement to a few old videos. She is an avid collector of legacy media and technology. Then, she can take some time-off, logout of the metaverse, and go on holiday....

The Gap

Data is the new gold or oil. Data can be stored in a reservoir and has the potential to generate value. Such are the analogies on data and its uses. The value of data is real, but the realisation is hard. Oftentimes, the attempts to monetise data end up in spending more money with little tangible results. In fact, the answer might be there in those analogies, if we are willing to extend those a bit more.

Data is produced through transactions - buying and selling goods, performing services, or documenting facts. Transactions store data for reasons...

I picked up my Kindle during this holiday. Browsing through the Kindle library for unread and partly read books, I downloaded a few that I must read. And then it just dawned on me. My Kindle library is just some images of books I own, or I have the right to read. I download it only when I need to read, to consume. What if I could own other things in the similar way? What if I could digital own things and consume on demand, and possibly store the rights back digitally, for future consumption or resell or trade?

A...

In 2013, BMW and Toyota announced a joint architecture and platform for sports car. It led to two different vehicles - BMW Z4 and Toyota Supra. Essentially, the same vehicle under the hood, they remain authentic to their brand identities. Earlier, manufacturers and coalitions built platforms and shared across different models and brands. These platforms were developed over years, as long-term investments to support a wide variety of products. However, the technology, market and customer demands are changing faster these days. Advancements in material science are plateauing, and the architectures are converging. The companies then collaborate at a platform level...

In 2022, we are quite familiar with the concept and convenience of marketplaces. Marketplaces help us to discover a wide range of products from multiple merchants. We read reviews, look at merchant ratings, compare prices, plan when and how to receive the shipments, and make payments through different modes. The sellers are businesses and buyers are both individuals and businesses. Typically, sellers absorb the cost of running the marketplaces. This is the pattern, which is common across all the marketplaces, whether it is B2B or B2C.

There is another important aspect of marketplaces. Marketplaces are not primarily concerned about inventory,...

Traditional retail businesses are supply driven. Every retail business deal with the domain of supply chain. It makes sense when the constraints are at the supply side. Constraints in production, distribution and inventory. When we optimise the constraints in supply chain, the constraints move to the demand side. The need then arises to track, analyse and improve the demands.

If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it. And if you do not track it, you cannot measure it.

Let us take a brick and mortar retail business scenario. It is a classical supply driven business model. Of...

TOGAF describes Enterprise Architecture as a process, something to do. It optimises the legacy of processes into an integrated environment, to support the delivery of the business strategy. It then recommends how to practice enterprise architecture, using the TOGAF framework.

There are many other definitions exist, each in increasing complexity and vagueness. Almost all of these definitions tell you what to do and how.

In the book Enterprise Architecture As A Strategy, the authors define it as a thought process.

Our use of the term refers to the high-level logic for business processes and IT capabilities. IT unit will...