Enterprise Modeling for the Customer Focused Enterprise

The business environment is changing at an accelerated pace. Consequently, continuous systemic changes within companies are imperative. We are witnessing a shift in the way organizations are designed, structured and organized. Contemporary business systems are becoming more customer focused. They are reorganizing their processes and systems to be more responsive to the ever-changing needs of the customer. This move towards the customer focused enterprise can be facilitated by the use of enterprise modeling methodologies to ensure that the proposed system will operate as planned. Enterprise modeling methodologies can help analysts and decision makers to describe and understand complex enterprise systems. Such methodologies also enable the analysis, design and re-engineering of these complicated systems. A carefully selected enterprise modeling methodology can help improve every stage of this process i.e. from auditing the existing enterprise system to determining its strengths (to be exploited) and weaknesses (to be improved), through to requirement specification, systems analysis, systems development and on to acceptance and implementation of the new enterprise system. This paper examines the concept of the customer focused enterprise. Specifically, it considers how enterprise modeling methodologies and techniques can be used to create a more customer focused enterprise. It draws on methodologies developed during the modeling phase of a European Union funded project called EUROShoE (Extended UseR Oriented Shoe Enterprise). This project aims to redesign the traditional European shoe enterprise to create a customer focused model. There are four major sections in this paper. First, a discussion of the customer focused enterprise is provided. Then an overview of enterprise modeling methodologies is outlined. The requirements for modeling the customer focused enterprise are then identified and discussed. The remainder of the paper focuses on a case study and presents a six stage implementation methodology that was specifically designed to facilitate the modeling of the customer focused enterprise.