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Business process framework (eTOM)

The business process framework is a hierarchical classification scheme with descriptions of the key business processes required to run a service-focused business.

Overview

The Business Process Framework (also known as eTOM) is a comprehensive, industry-agreed, multi-layered view of the key business processes required to run an efficient and agile digital enterprise. It provides a common language for use across departments, systems, partners and suppliers, reducing cost and risk of system implementation, integration and procurement.

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How eTOM is used

eTOM helps organizations understand, design, develop and manage IT and network applications in terms of business process requirements, so that applications will better meet business needs. It sets a vision for business process-driven approaches to managing the enterprise, ensuring integration among all vital enterprise systems concerned with service delivery and support.

The focus of the Business Process Framework is the business processes used by service-oriented enterprises, the linkages between these processes, and the use of information by multiple processes.

eTOM's business-oriented view of the enterprise is useful for planners, managers, strategists and others who need to view the enterprise in business terms, without immediate concern for the  way that these business needs are organized or addressed within the business. eTOM emphasizes aspects such as process structure, process components, process interactivition and the business roles and responsibilities to which these relate.

eTOM is a reference framework for categorizing all the business activities that a service provider will use in a structured manner that allows them to be addressed at various levels of detail. The processes are grouped by domains and vertical category context and are decomposed starting from high level core processes that depict key activities followed by lower level unique task activities.

eTOM serves as the blueprint for process direction and provides a reference point for internal process re-engineering needs, partnerships, alliances, and general working agreements with other enterprises.