In stark contrast to typical product evaluations, we start out with a practical use case, which forms the backbone for the entire evaluation. We strongly believe that for knowledge workers (business analysts, domain experts, etc.) the benefit is much higher than with an IT-centric evaluation approach.

To be able to assess the strengths and weaknesses of Dynamic Enterprise Management Software (DEMS), we need a use case that has the following characteristics:

• It represents a business process that any organization regardless of industry must implement, albeit with more or less significant industry-specific variations.

• It is a business process that incorporates automatable as well as human activities (tasks) and may involve case management.

• Business policies and business rules play important roles.

• Compliance with external regulations and requirements adds complexity to the process in that they may differ between countries (e.g. Bank Secrecy Act, USA Patriot Act, Swiss Banking Act, etc.).

• It requires interaction with external entities (customers or business partners).

• It requires interaction with existing enterprise systems (e.g. ERP software).

• It is subject to frequent change.

The customer onboarding value stream¹ is one of the many value streams that represent all of these characteristics. This value stream is initiated when an organization sets up an account to acquire a new customer or business partner. Consistent onboarding is particularly important for organizations with large numbers of commercial customers or high net-worth individuals, as they require a fairly controlled process for creating a new customer account.

Given that the onboarding value stream varies greatly between different industries, we narrow our focus to the financial industry. There, the customer onboarding value stream presents an excellent opportunity to lead a new customer toward a mutually beneficial and long-lasting relationship. In a highly competitive environment, financial institutions must find new and effective approaches to manage the onboarding process in a way that lets them optimize lifetime value, utilize opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling, inspire customer loyalty and improve ROI.

Each organization implements a highly individual customer onboarding value stream. Some of the major reasons are:

• The current state of organizational culture, work habits, etc., both internal and external to the organization (customers, business partners), varying proficiency levels of external users, and differing acceptance levels of service offerings (e.g. customer self-service).

• The state of current use of technologies, such as document capturing technologies, electronic forms technologies, electronic signature technologies, etc.

• The mix of existing software systems, such as Business Process Management (BPM), Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Electronic Forms Management, Document Output Management, etc.

• Differing legal requirements between countries (e.g. electronic signatures, compliance standards, etc.).

No standardized customer onboarding value stream will ever exist. However, we can use a simplified and generalized version of the onboarding value stream as basis for a profound product evaluation without impairing the final outcome.

We will identify a set of evaluation criteria that help determine to what extent a certain product supports Dynamic Enterprise Life Cycle Management, and to what extent it is suitable for use by knowledge workers (i.e. non-IT experts). The focus is clearly on business architecture, while technical architecture plays a more subordinate role.