Goal-oriented design of business models and software architectures

E-business initiatives succeed when the business model and the deployed software architecture contribute directly to the firm's business goals. The design of e-business initiatives should elicit and evaluate alternative business models and software architectures in order to find the combination which best achieves the business goals. The elicitation and evaluation of alternatives requires effective communication between stakeholders with different skill sets. In this paper, we introduce an end-to-end process which facilitates stakeholder communication throughout the development process. We leverage goal-modeling and scenario evaluation notations to compare alternative business models and software architectures and to select the alternatives which best satisfy the firm's business goals. We illustrate the process with a case study. The process assists cross functional stakeholders in documenting decisions made throughout the initial design and subsequent evolution of an e-business initiative.