The Business Operating Model (BOM)

What is a Business Operating Model

It gives a view of the business from a team, function and processes perspective

Teams/Functions	Sales	Management	Operations	Reconciliations
Front office	Capture trade
Ops			Clear & settle	Reconcile accounts
Marketing	Special offers
Administration		Expenses

Table 1 Example Business Operating Model

The x axis (left to right) made up of the value chain and business functions

Each business will have core business functions e.g. accounts, sales, and management. The BOM orders functions, from left to right, starting with the most valuable.

The y axis (down up) teams

Lists the teams within the business. E.g. operations, off shore support

Processes (the bit in the middle)

The business processes are then positioned according to what functional category the process falls into and which team executes the process.

How is the BOM valuable to a Business Analyst?

As a business analyst your primary responsibility is to analyse and find solutions to problems in the business domain. The business operating model will give you an excellent view of the business from a functional perspective – the business processes and who carries out those processes e.g. the tax calculating process is carried out by the accounting department.

When it comes to designing an IT system for a business, it makes it easier to see which processes, teams and functions are impacted by the change.

For example, building a new trade booking system. The BOM below makes it easy to see which parts of the operating model are impacted.

Teams/Functions	Sales	Management	Operations	Reconciliations
Front office	Capture trade
Ops			Clear & settle	Reconcile accounts
Marketing	Special offers
Administration		Expenses

In this example we can quickly see that the front office and ops functions are impacted and that there will be changes to the capture trade, clear & settle and reconcile accounts processes.

Another advantage of the BOM is that it makes it very easy to see what is in scope and whats not in scope for the change. Using the example above, the marketing and admin functions are not impacted. The special offers and expenses processes are not impacted either