1. Purpose and design principles
Why this business architecture exists.
Purpose
Guiding principles
- Start from business capabilities and outcomes, not technology tables.
- Model end-to-end processes across departmental boundaries.
- Distinguish a business process from an event and from a KPI.
- Assign business ownership and record unresolved definitions.
- Use this blueprint to guide, not prematurely dictate, physical data models.
Capabilities
What the business must be able to do
Processes
How work is performed
Events
Meaningful business occurrences
KPIs & rules
How outcomes are measured
Data design
Models and governed metrics
Boundary: this phase documents the business architecture and candidate relationships. It does not claim that every process, event, KPI definition, or source-system mapping has been validated.
2. Enterprise capability map
Capability areas organise business responsibilities independently of organisational structure. Initial version documented
01
Customer & Market Management
- Leads
- Customer identity
- Market segments
02
Sales & Commercial Management
- Opportunity
- Quote
- Sales order
03
Product & Supply Management
- Product
- Supplier
- Purchase order
04
Manufacturing & Operations
- Production
- Operations
- Further discovery
05
Order Fulfilment
- Allocation
- Shipment
- Delivery
06
Financial Management
- Invoice
- Accounting
- Payment
07
Customer Experience Management
- Case
- Resolution
- Feedback
08
Enterprise Performance Management
- KPI catalogue
- Forecasting
- Performance
09
Data Governance & Analytics
- Ownership
- Data quality
- Semantic layer
10
Risk & Compliance Management
- Controls
- Compliance
- Further discovery
Capability names are an initial classification for the fictional organisation. Manufacturing and Risk & Compliance are explicitly marked for additional discovery rather than assumed to be fully understood.
3. Business process catalogue
Processes describe activities and outcomes; individual systems may support only part of a process.
| Capability / domain | Candidate business processes | Business outcome | Key dependencies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer & Market | Lead capture and qualification; customer onboarding; account maintenance | Understand prospects and maintain consistent customer identities | Marketing, Sales, CRM, customer master data |
| Sales & Commercial | Opportunity management; quote creation and approval; sales order capture; order changes and cancellation | Convert commercial demand into valid customer orders | Customer, Product, pricing, inventory availability, Finance |
| Product & Supply | Product onboarding; supplier onboarding; procurement planning; purchase order management; supplier delivery receipt | Maintain product and supply availability | Product master, suppliers, inventory, warehouse receiving |
| Manufacturing & Operations | Production planning and execution — candidate processes requiring validation | Understand operational throughput and production outcomes | Production data, product, materials, quality |
| Order Fulfilment | Order allocation; pick and pack; shipment planning; dispatch; delivery confirmation; exception management | Fulfil customer commitments and measure delivery performance | Sales orders, inventory, warehouse, 3PL, customer commitments |
| Financial Management | Invoicing; credit and returns processing; revenue recognition; payment application; financial reporting | Produce reliable financial results and reconciliations | Orders, deliveries, invoices, credits, payments, accounting rules |
| Customer Experience | Case intake; case triage; investigation; resolution; complaint and feedback management | Resolve customer issues and identify recurring causes | Customer, orders, shipments, invoices, returns |
| Enterprise Performance | KPI definition and approval; performance reporting; budgeting and forecasting | Enable consistent interpretation of enterprise performance | Approved metric definitions, Finance, all business domains |
| Data Governance & Analytics | Data ownership; glossary management; data-quality monitoring; lineage and access management | Maintain trust, accountability and appropriate data use | Business owners, source systems, data platform |
| Risk & Compliance | Control monitoring and compliance evidence — candidate processes requiring validation | Meet applicable obligations and provide evidence | Legal, finance, operations, security and regional requirements |
4. Business event catalogue
Events are meaningful occurrences that may need to be captured, related and analysed.
| Domain | Candidate business event | Why it matters | Potential data captured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marketing | Campaign launched; lead created or qualified; campaign interaction recorded | Understand lead generation and campaign outcomes | Campaign, lead/contact, interaction time, source and status |
| Sales | Opportunity opened or advanced; quote issued or accepted; order created, changed or cancelled | Trace commercial progression and order commitments | Business identifiers, status, timestamps, customer, product lines and quantities |
| Procurement | Purchase order approved; supplier shipment dispatched; goods received or rejected | Understand supply reliability and inbound availability | Supplier, purchase order, expected/actual dates, received quantity and exceptions |
| Inventory | Stock received, moved, adjusted, reserved or released | Reconstruct stock movement and explain inventory positions | Product, location, quantity, status, timestamp and movement reason |
| Fulfilment | Order allocated; pick/pack completed; shipment dispatched; delivery attempted or confirmed | Measure fulfilment progress and agreed delivery outcomes | Order line, allocation, shipment, quantity, milestone time and delivery result |
| Finance | Invoice issued; credit note posted; payment received or applied; accounting entry recorded | Support financial reporting and reconciliation | Document identifiers, amounts, currency, dates, accounting references and status |
| Customer Experience | Case opened, categorised, escalated, resolved or reopened; feedback submitted | Measure service outcomes and investigate root causes | Case, customer, category, linked transaction, timestamps and resolution status |
Modelling caution: a business event does not automatically become a fact table. Events may be represented as transaction facts, milestones, status history, snapshots or attributes depending on the business question, required grain, source availability and analytical use.
5. Enterprise KPI map
Candidate measures and ownership direction from discovery — definitions remain subject to business approval.
| Business outcome | Candidate KPI | Proposed owner | Definition / decision still required |
|---|---|---|---|
| Financial performance | Gross Revenue, Returned Revenue, Net Revenue | Finance | Scope, timing, treatment of credits, returns, discounts and adjustments |
| Profitability | Gross Margin and Gross Margin % | Finance | Approved cost components, numerator, denominator and reporting grain |
| Customer commitment | OTIF | Cross-functional; Supply Chain operational input | Promised date, completeness rule, unit of evaluation and split shipment handling |
| Delivery performance | On-Time Delivery % | Supply Chain | Promised-date source, delivery event and treatment of failed attempts |
| Inventory | Inventory Value / Availability | Finance and Supply Chain involvement | Valuation method, eligible stock statuses and point-in-time rules |
| Supplier performance | Supplier On-Time Delivery % | Procurement / Supply Chain | Supplier commitment, receipt date and partial receipt treatment |
| Marketing effectiveness | Campaign-Attributed Revenue | Marketing | Attribution model, attribution window and duplicate-credit handling |
| Customer retention | Customer Retention Rate | To be confirmed | Eligible population, cohort, period, definition and accountable owner |
| Customer service | Case Volume; Average Resolution Time | Customer Service | Case inclusion, reopened cases, business hours and start/end events |
This is a KPI map, not an approved KPI dictionary. Formula details should be agreed with the accountable business owners before implementation in dbt or the semantic layer.
6. Core business entities and relationships
A conceptual view of the entities that connect the major business processes.
Customer
Account / buying relationship
Sales order
Order header and lines
Fulfilment allocation
Order-line quantities allocated
Shipment / delivery
One line may split across shipments
Invoice / payment
Financial events and applications
Shared reference entities
Relationship cautions
7. Traceability to architecture
How discovery outcomes shape business architecture and downstream data design.
| Discovery finding | Business architecture response | Downstream design implication |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue and margin definitions differ | Identify KPI purpose, owner, scope and approval process | Governed metric definitions, lineage and reconciliation |
| Order fulfilment crosses departments | Map lifecycle processes and milestones end to end | Separate order, allocation, shipment, delivery and invoice grains |
| Inventory and supplier performance are connected | Connect procurement, receiving, stock and fulfilment processes | Inventory movement/snapshot facts and supplier-delivery models |
| Customer cases often originate upstream | Define case categories and cross-process relationships | Case fact linked to customer and relevant transactions where available |
| Metric ownership is unclear | Document accountable business owners and governance | Semantic metrics, data tests, documentation and change control |
8. Assumptions and open decisions
Explicitly separate what is understood from what still needs validation.
Validate
Assumptions to validate
- NetSuite, legacy SAP, Shopify, HubSpot, Manhattan WMS and 3PL systems represent illustrative source landscape.
- Cross-system identifiers and timestamps are available to some extent but may need mapping or quality remediation.
- Finance and operational reporting require different, clearly named measures in some cases.
- Business events and process relationships can be represented with sufficient source detail for the first release.
Decide
Open decisions
- Approve the definitions and owners of priority KPIs.
- Confirm authoritative sources for customer, product, order, shipment and financial entities.
- Validate manufacturing, risk, compliance and regional requirements.
- Confirm event timestamps, lifecycle status history and relationship cardinalities.
- Agree the first-release processes and acceptance criteria with business stakeholders.
These items are intentionally open in the portfolio case study. The architecture should not invent accounting rules or source-system capabilities that have not been established.
9. Exit criteria and transition to Step 4
From business blueprint to enterprise data and dimensional modelling.
Step 3 deliverables
- Initial enterprise capability map
- Business process catalogue
- Business event catalogue
- Enterprise KPI map and ownership direction
- Core business entities and relationships
- Traceability from findings to modelling implications
Step 4 — Enterprise Data & Dimensional Modelling
The next phase will translate priority business processes and questions into modelled facts and dimensions, beginning with explicit grain, conformed dimensions, source mapping and relationship rules.
Exit position: the business blueprint is documented for the fictional scenario. Formal KPI approval, complete source validation and final scope sign-off remain outstanding and should be shown as such.