Buildings around us are directly visible and we can examine their unique structure, their style the function they offer (hospital, library, palace, houses, etc). In business these views are even so interesting but not directly visible.
One very new structure to examine in this context is the architecture around P2P organizations or networks.
A normal business architecture - like that of a simple company - consists of a business process that results in tangible products or services offered to a client. Than in order to achieve this, the process must be organized by real people, which is the organization. When one employee is going on holiday someone else will take over his role: business and organization is in that sense not really different: one is visible to the client (the agent delivering the product) the other is not (one medical specialist replaced by another when he is absent).
Than, technology influences the business architecture as we have seen with the arrival of the Internet, or with mobile solutions like PDA's. Infrastructure serves as a foundation to cater for a general platform on which the various functions are served.
In P2P the technical infrastructure defines most of the whole architecture. The business of P2P is quite simple. It offers clients a service: the file that can be downloaded. In order to use the service one should subscribe to it by giving an address, identifying as a user, etc. The business of P2P is not at all unique. The main process is exactly similar to the delivery of a newspaper: a client subscribes to a news agency and receives the content.
Then the implementation of the business process is what makes every company unique. This is done by setting up:
- an organization
- applications
- infrastructure
The infrastructure is supplied by the internet-network. This is one basic feature of the P2P; without internet it probably wouldn't exist. Imagine a transporting structure where packages would be transported to clients... unimaginable.
The (software) application that is used is also simple: computers transport parts of files from one user to the other.
The organization consists of two main entities:
- a legal entity which is about the contract
- a human resource part
The contract is implemented in the application, and therefore hardly visible. But the idea is that to prevent legal claims, the copied files are not directly copied from one user to another, but only parts of files are copied. In this way a file at one location can not be traced to that of another. Legally this means that the copyright is skipped.
The human resource part is also unique: in this case there are (nearly) no employees but the client is also the employee in the traditional sense; he does the work himself in a DIY-way.
This DIY is familiar for internet solutions but also for home-renovation solutions.
Another unique feature of this architecture is that it is completely de-centralized: there is hardly any central command rather than the software application. This means a very safe structure because similar architecture that are centralized have a so-called "Single point of failure," that is somewhere in the center.
P2P may be seen as a fraud, business architecture-wise it is a very unique solution that will be exemplary for new organizational forms in the near future. Organizations could learn from it.
Soon we will learn what happened to it, whether it will be transformed into a new P4P structure or that it will fade or transform to something else...
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Business Architecture of Fraud
Business architecture is about the architecture of the various businesses within one company. Banks for example have designed so-called Chinese walls. These are not walls as you would see in real architecture, but they are virtual walls that separate one business (unit) from the other, in cases where both may not influence each other.
This is the case where the bank is doing business with corporate clients (in serving a possible IPO or stock emission) and the brokerage business where brokers may act on information that is sensitive. If the broker in the bank learns about a possible action with a corporate client it can gain money (in an illegal way).
Business architecture is not visible, but should be made visible.
The best example of fraud-prone-architecture comes from the Madoff case.
Business architecture-wise there are three lessons to draw from that case:
1. The profile of the leader who someone is doing business with. Madoff gained "Respect" as having been the president of the Nasdaq stock-exchange. But think about this. Would you trust your money to an (hedge fund) investor who has been president of Nasdaq? Is that a credible biographic path for an investor? A broker (nasdaq) is something completely different than an investor. Would you imagine Warren Buffet become president of Nasdaq or the NYSE? Having worked for Nasdaq one would know all the mazes in the legal net to start a fraud. (but I agree somehow that this is easy knowing once the damage has been done. Hindsight knowledge...which makes it a weak argument).
2. Optimal was one of the funds of Santander who invested in Madoffs hedge funds. Optimal administrators warned for the design "error" in the hedge fund. On a page 35 (source: El Pais) of the prospectus of the hedge fund, was published the article "possibility of Fraud": it stated that "the nor the funds itself, nor the custodian would operate as a custodian." Who then, one might ask.
Business architecture is something that analyst and (risk) managers should make visible by drawing the business and the organization around it.
3. Finally, the profile of a risk manager. That is one similar to that of a (private) detective. The risk manager should never rest, never stop asking questions and never stop to investigate... and a risk manager is not a loner out there at the attic of your organization. Sometimes we all have to play the role of the detective... Investigate when something smells fishy ("a guaranteed return of 10 percent"...hmmm smells ....)
This is the case where the bank is doing business with corporate clients (in serving a possible IPO or stock emission) and the brokerage business where brokers may act on information that is sensitive. If the broker in the bank learns about a possible action with a corporate client it can gain money (in an illegal way).
Business architecture is not visible, but should be made visible.
The best example of fraud-prone-architecture comes from the Madoff case.
Business architecture-wise there are three lessons to draw from that case:
1. The profile of the leader who someone is doing business with. Madoff gained "Respect" as having been the president of the Nasdaq stock-exchange. But think about this. Would you trust your money to an (hedge fund) investor who has been president of Nasdaq? Is that a credible biographic path for an investor? A broker (nasdaq) is something completely different than an investor. Would you imagine Warren Buffet become president of Nasdaq or the NYSE? Having worked for Nasdaq one would know all the mazes in the legal net to start a fraud. (but I agree somehow that this is easy knowing once the damage has been done. Hindsight knowledge...which makes it a weak argument).
2. Optimal was one of the funds of Santander who invested in Madoffs hedge funds. Optimal administrators warned for the design "error" in the hedge fund. On a page 35 (source: El Pais) of the prospectus of the hedge fund, was published the article "possibility of Fraud": it stated that "the nor the funds itself, nor the custodian would operate as a custodian." Who then, one might ask.
Business architecture is something that analyst and (risk) managers should make visible by drawing the business and the organization around it.
3. Finally, the profile of a risk manager. That is one similar to that of a (private) detective. The risk manager should never rest, never stop asking questions and never stop to investigate... and a risk manager is not a loner out there at the attic of your organization. Sometimes we all have to play the role of the detective... Investigate when something smells fishy ("a guaranteed return of 10 percent"...hmmm smells ....)
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