Monday 17 October 2011

Design or Evolution

Most large corporate organisations are what they are. They evolve through: change acquisition merger and the purchase of customer portfolios. Business architecture seeks to change this by putting in place intelligent design; defining an end state based on an assessment of strategy and gaps from the "As Is".

If we step back a moment this is a bit like Darwinism versus Intelligent design; evolution seems to have worked well for biology in creating organisms that are highly adapted to the environment; most highly efficient and effective until a change brings extinction of a species.

So if evolution is good enough for life on earth why doesn't this work in business or does it?

The issue is that the larger corporate bodies are sheltered some what from environmental change due to their size and brand dominance and it only when a major change event that the "water level" is lowered and the "rocks" start to appear to "hole the hull".

The issue is also that over many years change was a bit steady and the survival pressures and survival of the fittest didn't hit too many larger companies. Until of course when major events like the banking crisis meant to extend the analogy here "an asteroid hit the planet" in late 2008 and caused a mass extinction.

SMEs seem to work better or more easily in a evolutionary environment but when you get bigger a future must be crafted and planned not just allocated to survival of the fittest and  business evolution based on Darwinism.

In business, intelligent design seems a much more sensible approach than sitting back and allowing fate to govern your future. So why do so many big companies just morph and evolve and effectively unknowingly "hope for the best"? -Answer- Do some business Architecture!

1 comment:

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