Home

Ebook Small Business Administration Business Gateway Segment Architecture Target State

Submitted by puput on Tue, 10/06/2009 - 04:35

In 2006, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requested that all Federal agencies break down agency business lines or “segments” using an enterprise architecture approach called Segment Architecture. Segment architecture is a businessdriven, resultsoriented architecture that is performed for an identified “segment” or portion of an enterprise. Segment architecture defines clear relationships between business goals, business capabilities, and performance improvement to ensure that IT investment is driven to support the mission and deliver business value. It is a bridge between enterpriselevel plans and specific project planning or architecture. Such analysis is conducted by the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) by collaborating with the program offices to enhance the effectiveness of business and IT modernization and transformation initiatives.

Business Gateway (BG) was selected as the Small Business Administration’s (SBA’s) second segment to undergo such an analysis. Business Gateway is the federal EGovernment initiative that provides a onestop resource for compliance information, forms, and government contacts to help the nation’s businesses comply with federal, state, and local laws and regulations. Currently, SBA is the managing partner for this initiative, and Business Gateway has the potential in the future to “graduate” out of its current EGov status to become a fully SBAowned program. The objectives of the segment architecture are to identify capabilities required to support continued growth, to promote performance by identifying improvement opportunities, to produce an actionable roadmap to realize these opportunities, and to help Business Gateway prepare for eventual integration into the SBA.

The process of developing a segment architecture includes documenting the “current state” of business operations by reviewing existing documentation, interviewing stakeholders (both from the program office and the OCIO) and identifying opportunities for improvement. The current state process also included an examination of current systems. Improvement opportunities were identified through interviews, architectural analysis, benchmarking, user feedback, and review of existing documentation. To develop the target state, opportunities were prioritized with the program office stakeholders. The prioritized opportunities and enterprise architecture standards and best practices are incorporated in creating a “target state solution”. The target state incorporates improvements at all architectural layers that would support the implementation of needed business capabilities. This document includes only the current state assessment and the target state architecture. The next step to this process is to develop a 35 year roadmap to be used as a transition guide in accomplishing the target state, which will be provided in a separate document.

This target state lays out the prioritized business opportunities that define the future state vision for Business Gateway. Business Gateway has already implemented several major successful initiatives over the last year, including a site redesign, expansion of content, implementation of new open source technologies, and a shift in its site hosting from an external vendor to be internal to SBA. These initiatives, plus several others planned by the end of calendar year 2007, have allowed Business Gateway to reach a mature and stable state. The major business capability improvement themes identified in the current state assessment are not the result of huge performance gaps or deficiencies. They are the basis for the target state architecture, and as such are evolutionary, building on the strong base that Business Gateway has already developed.

    1. Content Expansion and Content Management: There are several opportunities, some underway already, for Business Gateway to continue to expand its content sources and offerings and formalize its content management and editorial strategy and processes.
    2. Collaboration and Outreach: Developments and innovation in web technologies, combined with rising user expectations for interaction, present opportunities for Business Gateway to take advantage of community and Web 2.0 features, such as blogs, mash ups, and wikis, to build richer content, a greater user base, and more value to users.
    3. Partnerships: There are opportunities to build relationships with other government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels, nonprofit organizations like trade and professional associations and private sector organizations.
    4. Usability and Personalization: Business Gateway has opportunities to continually improve the usability of the site, making content and features more available to users, all in support of the greater mission of reducing the compliance burden on businesses.

The target state goes on to identify the technical capabilities required to realize the future state goals and objectives. The focus in the target state is developing the business and enterprise services that Business Gateway needs to continue to fulfill its mission, and evolve and grow to meet continually changing customer needs and expectations. By laying out needed business capabilities and developing the series of technology models to articulate the architecture needed to support the business objectives, Business Gateway has the information required for the next step, which is laying out the Roadmap to encompass the transition strategy that will allow Business Gateway to reach its target state, fulfilling the business goals and objectives desired.

The bigger challenges for Business Gateway, should it come internal to SBA, are not technologybased, but will be around securing adequate funding, finding the right organizational home within the agency, and incorporating existing SBA processes around enterprise architecture, governance, and capital planning into Business Gateway operations.

Contents

1.0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
2.0 INTRODUCTION

    2.1 SEGMENT ARCHITECTURE OVERVIEW
    2.2 BUSINESS GATEWAY ORGANIZATION
    2.3 KEY BUSINESS DRIVERS FOR BUSINESS GATEWAY
    2.4 STAKEHOLDER INPUT

3.0 BUSINESS GATEWAY TARGET STATE ARCHITECTURE

    3.1 BUSINESS GATEWAY TARGET STATE PERFORMANCE MODEL
    3.2 ANTICIPATED TARGET STATE ATTRIBUTES
    3.3 OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
    3.4 BUSINESS GATEWAY TARGET STATE BUSINESS ARCHITECTURE
    3.5 BUSINESS GATEWAY TARGET STATE COMPONENT MODEL
    3.6 BUSINESS GATEWAY TARGET STATE DATA ARCHITECTURE
    3.7 BUSINESS GATEWAY TARGET STATE TECHNOLOGY ARCHITECTURE
    3.8 ALTERNATIVE ANALYSIS

4.0 APPENDIX A: SBA GOALS AND LONG TERM OBJECTIVES
5.0 APPENDIX B: LIST OF OPPORTUNITIES
6.0 APPENDIX C: ACRONYMS
7.0 APPENDIX D: DOCUMENTS REVIEWED
8.0 APPENDIX E: AGENCY PARTNERSHIP LIST

Download
PDF Ebook Small Business Administration Business Gateway Segment Architecture Target State

»

Posted in :