This Executive Report explains what we mean by a business model, provides a classification of business models relevant to the enterprise architecture (EA) use of business models, and describes some of the key business models and how they relate to EA.

"Business model" is a catch-all phrase that covers models of a wide variety of types, so we start the accompanying Executive Report with a taxonomy of business model types. The report then goes on to give examples of the various types of business models in our taxonomy. Next, the report goes on to examine some of the key changes required in enterprise architecture in recent years as a consequence of changes in business models. Finally, we look at several business model frameworks that the EA team can use to convert or translate business models into architectural descriptions.

Recently I was watching a history of the video game industry and was blown away at how its origins and endpoint -- only a few decades apart -- were utterly unrecognizable to each other. Business/IT is changing just as fast.

This survey, our ninth annual IT budgeting survey, examines general and specific aspects of IT budgeting in 37 organizations.

Imagine you are responsible for a production plant. Let's assume it's a plant that produces a few hundred cars per day. Now you hire a new consultant who promises to reduce your cost by a factor of four. He issues some policies and makes some changes to your production process and, alas, after five months your cost really drops down to half. This was not really what he had promised, but it's still quite impressive, isn't it?

When there is a clear understanding of the purpose and costs of IT services -- and how those services directly support the business -- IT becomes a critical member of the business team. With this in mind, let's dive into the results of Cutter's ninth annual IT budget survey.

In this article, Cutter Fellow Bob Benson ponders two related questions: What does the IT budget contain (are there any surprises)? And, perhaps more to the point, how much of the enterprise IT spend is in the IT budget?

For the past three or four years, mobility has continually ranked near the top of the list of "must have" capabilities when it comes to corporate technology adoption plans. This begs the question: how do organizations view the success of their mobile technology efforts to date? A Cutter Consortium survey (conducted in July–October 2014) that asked 49 organizations about their mobile technology adoption and implementation practices helps shed some light on this question.

Although social media tools like Facebook and Twitter were initially developed for personal communication, businesses quickly became enamored with social media as a mode of expressing their own messages and selling products or services. Numerous companies have one or more social media accounts today, handling everything from product launches to corporate damage control.

Although social media tools like Facebook and Twitter were initially developed for personal communication, businesses quickly became enamored with social media as a mode of expressing their own messages and selling products or services. Numerous companies have one or more social media accounts today, handling everything from product launches to corporate damage control.

Although social media tools like Facebook and Twitter were initially developed for personal communication, businesses quickly became enamored with social media as a mode of expressing their own messages and selling products or services. Numerous companies have one or more social media accounts today, handling everything from product launches to corporate damage control.

Over the past few years, the Internet of Things (IoT) has generated a lot of hype, touting how embedded sensors combined with mobile technologies will lead to a multitude of connected devices and services (all generating a deluge of data), which will open up a gold rush of opportunities in the consumer, business, technology, and industrial worlds. We've also learned that the IoT is not just about sensors and a lot of data and analytics; it also involves the application of new technologies including drones, wearable computers, and smart networks, as well as new practices such as predictive maintenance.

Over the past few years, the Internet of Things (IoT) has generated a lot of hype, touting how embedded sensors combined with mobile technologies will lead to a multitude of connected devices and services (all generating a deluge of data), which will open up a gold rush of opportunities in the consumer, business, technology, and industrial worlds. We've also learned that the IoT is not just about sensors and a lot of data and analytics; it also involves the application of new technologies including drones, wearable computers, and smart networks, as well as new practices such as predictive maintenance.

While Agile is commonly considered a successful methodology to add value to software development, is it possible to adapt Agile to bring better beliefs and practices to other areas of the organization beyond IT? If sales, branding, operations, or other business units were to be transformed for greater agility, what changes would be needed?

Although we see our people as our greatest assets, we don't do a good job of developing them. In many cases we don't use the training budget for training. If we do train, we tend to use inferior delivery mechanisms. We train on the wrong things. We don't evaluate the training. We don't spend our training budget wisely. But it doesn't have to be this way, as we'll point out in this Executive Update.

Forget big data, digital exhaust, data lakes, and all the other trendy terms created to describe big piles of data. Gang-tackling new terms to describe stores of data isn't going to advance the current state of affairs much. While we are at it, throw in the term "chief data officer." I have a simultaneously oscillating aversion and desire for that title, just like a pigeon that skittishly jumps back and forth between pecking at the bird feed and scattering away from the oncoming wreck of a car. Should I grab it or should I flee from it?