30 Years Ago: Mobile User in Virtual Organisation – Vision or Reality within Some Years

The presentation was given in Scan Mil-Data, Oyre, Norway. 13.9.1996

1. Introduction

As military organisations are becoming more virtual and mobile, the requirements for command and control and communications are presenting new challenges. This short presentation is covering some of the main issues in building communications and information systems for the virtual and mobile military.

The Cycle of military decision making (C2) projected to a battlefield has functions that consist of information flow, data fusion and data management. At mature state, decision making is an information-driven and technology independent system of systems which covers the whole battlefield.

The military C2 -process in Figure 1 and its usage in a real military organisation has some virtual characteristics:

• there is a geographical distance between interacting units,
• information flows and spreads between units as per their area of interest, and
• information is processed and fused through the C2-process.

Figure 1: Military C2 loop derived from Boyd’s OODA -model

The military planning and decision making are somewhat similar to a virtual corporation where the virtual product must be created before the physical one is manufactured and delivered.
Military organisation and its C2-process aims for accurate effect on opposing force at the right time. This is done by creating a virtual situation and testing alternative reactions for optimum impact in the given virtual situation = Wargaming. Information is no longer just an aid for operations but one vital part of a joint effort = Situational Awareness. For some strategic situations, information and its processing capacity are decisive for victory.

2. Virtual Military Organisation

What is virtual? The dictionary defines virtual "being such in essence or effect though not formally recognised or admitted".  So virtual structure is not formally recognised. From the organisational point of view, this can be understood that it is difficult to define the hierarchy of the organisation from the position (physical or task) of the subordinate.

"Virtual Organisation" defined in the military environment would be something like several independent units that form together a virtual body of the organisation. This virtual body can act and transform itself according to environmental demands so it can execute its task in the best possible way. Units, the parts of the virtual body of the organisation, might situate geographically distributed and use information and CIS-services so that physical contact between units is not necessarily continuous.  

The third organisation in Figure 2 possesses dynamics to cope with the changes of the battlefield more swiftly than an adversary. Information is used to clue units together, and leading is done by governance. The military leadership is focused on the units.

Figure 2: Real vs virtual organisation

Military virtual organisation differs from civilian mainly about the size of the independent unit. In a private matrix organisation, the smallest separate unit could be one person. The military unit consists of more personnel in the same physical closeness due to moral integrity, surviving casualties, and 24h operations. 

3. Military Information System Model and Mobility

Military communications and information systems are different from civilian systems in various ways:

• The requirement for the reliability of the IT-infrastructure is not as high as in civilian environment, although expectations are somewhat similar.
• Users are moving, their amount is varying, and their need for information services are time and space defined. In a military environment, time and space are not often predictable. Therefore the only way to prepare for action is to assume that the worst possible cases will take place simultaneously.
• Users use various access methods (radio, cable, async, sync, different protocols, etc.), workstation bases (PC, terminal, WS, operating systems, applications, protocols)
• Users require services in bursts whereas civilian use is more predictable. Depending on the situation, the strive for information may be higher than available transmission capacity  
• Information security tends to restrict systems for separate security domains that have problems to communicate with each other. There is a greater need for gateways for secure connections between security domains.

Figure 3: Model of a military information system

The overall problem of serving a mobile user is having the right information at the right time and fusion level available to the user when needed.

4. Mobile User in a Military Environment

A Mobile user puts high demands for his information services. The CIS services must be available when and where needed. The air interface connecting the mobile user to his services must fulfil controversial needs for:

• radio coverage maintained when mobile, inside buildings, and working in different parts of the organisation
• available access signalling and good quality of transmission
• transmission throughput is capable for at least the following media's: voice, text, data, and still video.

Moreover, a mobile station (a palmtop, laptop, or workstation) should be preferably a small, lightweight and ruggedised personal assistant.

Figure 4: Features of the mobile military user

The mobile user may be called as "a mobile telecommuting or teleworking user". Telecommuting (US) or teleworking (EU) can be defined as "a usage of organisationally dependent applications executed in one or more locations outside of the corporate office space."  

Mobile workstation or personal assistant could be:

1. A portable (laptop) station which can be connected by radio or cable to network
2. A pocket station (palmtop) with integrated PC (personal agent, personal assistant), pen and voice-controlled user interface
3. A Universal Personal Telecommunication (UPT) auxiliary like smartcard that could be installed to any terminal available. The card contains user profile and access to centralised assets.

The mobile personal assistant shall provide the following services (Example Nokia Communicator 1995):

• notebook
• writing tool
• drawing tool
• calendar
• fax
• electronic mail
• access to databases (minimum viewing)
• access to analysing assets
• position and orienteering services.

Access possibilities are variable. Military mobile user demands more parallel access means than a civilian, who is satisfied with one functioning. Usually, both radio and cable connections are essential options for the military. In this situation, separate workstation and communication devices give more flexibility than an integrated solution.

Means for wireless communications:  

• combat network radio (CNR)
• packet radio
• GSM mobile telephone
• DECT (Digital European Cordless Telephone)
• TETRA 25 mobile telephone system
• HiperLAN, cordless local area network

Means for wired connections:

• copper and fibre cabling
• V. -standard modems
• ADSL Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Loop
• HDSL High bit rate Digital Subscriber Loop
• X.25 or LAP-B based links for active error correction
• IP-based connections SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol), PPP (Point to Point Protocol).

5. Remote Access Physically

Problems of communicating and using information systems (IS) in a digital battlefield (possible virtual) are caused by:

• feeble wireless communication path,
• unavailable network services,
• amount of information to be processed or transferred,
• the need for fusion and processing capacity, and 
• the enemy counteraction to IS.

Briefly, these are the problems to be faced when the mobile user is going to be connected to a static IS-base.  

The Finnish Defence Forces have defined the following physical connection methods that are in use in Finland:

• packet network's x.25 or PAD/serial connection
• ISDN-network's 2B+D services
• Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) -network's pre-ISDN services like DigiNet 64 Kbps link
• POTS -network's V.x -series modem connections (gateway is still in preparatory phase)
• GSM-data transmission (gateway is still in the preliminary stage)
• Other possible methods are in the development phase or research phase:

         o CNR-access
         o TETRA-25 -access
         o DECT-access.
Currently, physical access is mostly done via the Defence Network, and there is only a fixed point - to - point connections.

Figure 5: Physical view of remote access

Physical access in the military environment prefers the following features:

• robustness of access devices,
• usability of connection procedures,
• ease of replication the access method to all network nodes and
• easy management of the access points.

Protocols over the physical layer are challenging as well:

• There is a need for error check and correction => a combination of strong frame level and short cells (LAP-B, HDLC, packet protocol).
• Connectivity and related integrity of connection has some unsolved problems like connected or unconnected (broadcasting) way of sending packets; time limits are often exceeded by slow connections.
• The server might support Telnet and LAT -applications. This is not allowing C/S -applications over remote connections. Answer today is bridging the whole frame level (MAC) to the remote node. This is impossible in a military environment since MAC alone doesn't have enough features for reliability.

6. Access Control and Information Security for Remote or Mobile Users

Managing a mobile user requires massive signalling protocols for:

• network registration,
• user authentication,
• positioning,
• routing calls of both sides: mobile to fixed and fixed to mobile, 
• possible billing,
• integrity and security management: key distribution and changes, and
• manage the use of the capacity of network and servers: Quality of Service.

Information security (authentication, integrity, secrecy) requirements must be met when establishing a gateway for the remote user. COTS devices offer security methods like:

• PPP-link PAP or CHAP authentication, 
• Kerberos services, 
• PAP -password coding with Kerberos to prohibit kidnapping of password going via unsecured and possible tapped connection, and 
• PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) authentication and encryption.

Picture 6: A view for gateway security

7. Summary

Mobility in a military environment requires robust static infrastructure that provides gateways needed for mobile users even under electronic warfare measures. The access for a military mobile user shall be effortless and automated as much as the information security allows. Multiple access connections provide the survivability and best bandwidth for a job. Remote server and application filter offers the user with the additional computer performance which is not available in terminal devices. Information management shall take care of the presentation and location of information whether using push or publish and pull way of sharing data.

Picture 7: Summary of the systems view for the mobile user in a military environment

5 Generation Telephony and Opportunities Opening for Military

What is 5 G mobile telephony technology?

There have been three significant new generations of mobile technology: 2G replaced analogue with digital; 3G began the switch to data-centric networking, and 4G completed that move. 5G continues with high bandwidth mobile networking. Furthermore, 5G provides mobile high and low bandwidth connectivity to the Internet of Things (IoT) and low latency for very high-performance industrial control systems.

5G New Radio (NR) provides seamless connectivity in three frequency areas both licensed and unlicensed (Frequency allocation examples from EU):

• Low bandwidth in 600/700 MHz
• Middle bandwidth in 3.1 – 4.2 GHz
• High bandwidth in 26/28 GHz and later in 38 GHz areas.

5G NR uses OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) multiplexing that combines multiple subchannels within a channel (as LTE and Wi-Fi) and is both robust against interference and efficient in its use of frequencies. The distributed MIMO (multiple-in multiple-out) antenna uses a spatial channel technique that increases bandwidth for multiple devices in the same area. Unlike the LTE, 5G radios minimise the control traffic and always-on signals.

The migration from LTE is slow since the 5 G will require new infrastructure. Therefore the Return-of-Investment becomes a major constraint to the introduction of new services. The 5 G will eventually fulfil the following requirements:

• Peak data rate: Peak data rates can hit 20Gbps downlink and 10Gbps uplink per mobile base station.
• Real-world speeds: User download speeds of 100Mbps and upload speeds of 50Mbps.
• Latency: 4 milliseconds in ideal circumstances, and at 1 millisecond with 10-9 to 10-5 Block Error Rate for Ultra Reliable Low- Latency Communications (URLLC).
• Efficiency: Energy efficient when in use. Drop into a low-energy mode when not in use. Ideally, a radio should be able to switch into a low-energy state within 10 milliseconds when no longer in use.
• Spectral efficiency: improved spectral efficiency over LTE, coming in at 30bits/Hz downlink, and 15 bits/Hz uplink.
• Mobility: With 5G, base stations should support movement from 0 to 310 mph. This means the base station should work across a range of antenna movements — even on a high-speed train.
• Connection density: 5G should be able to support 1 million connected devices (most of them IoT) per square kilometre.

The 5G provides only the last wireless part of the connection. The NR base stations need to be connected to the 5G core through fiberoptic cables and routers (Juniper, for example, delivers 4Tbps per card slot). Computing infrastructure needs to be on edge also, which requires new kind of distributed cloud computing (HPE server with Intel Xeon, Nvidia GPU, 1,5TB memory and 16TB storage).

The 5G base station structure will introduce smaller antennas in slimmer boxes (in each lamp post over the road, apartment routers, etc.) but also large antennas high in towers (low bandwidth in lower frequencies).

How 5G may Affect Society and Business?

In the beginning, the 5G operators may focus on:

1. 5G fixed wireless broadband services deliver internet access to homes and businesses without a wired connection to the premises. Network operators deploy base stations in small cell sites near buildings to beam a signal to a receiver on a rooftop or a windowsill that is amplified within the premises. Fixed broadband services are expected to make it less expensive for operators to deliver broadband services to homes and businesses because this approach eliminates the need to roll out fibre optic lines to every residence.
2. 5G cellular services that provide user access to operators' 5G cellular networks. These services will begin to be rolled out in 2019 when the first 5G-enabled mobile phones will be available.

At home and in personal mobile telephony, the change may be the following:

• Television feeds are provided through 5 G so terrestrial, and satellite broadcasting may vanish
• Fixed home Internet accesses may be replaced by the personal mobile access
• Online cloud gaming will introduce more Virtual and Augmented Reality features in a social context
• The home will have a plethora of IoT devices connected and providing a continuous feed of data (besides the platform operator) to owner, maintainer, supplies provider and personal doctor.
• Any place a worker likes (home, café, train, car, tent in the wilderness) becomes a potential workplace.

In business and society, the change may be the following:

• Remote operations will become the norm in healthcare, manufacturing, shipping, trucking, maintenance, flying.
• Smart factories arrange the supply chain differently because of the fully connected value chain.
• Smart cities will rearrange their safety, traffic, infrastructure maintenance, electricity, water and drainage.
• Vehicles on smart roads will communicate with each other and make traffic safer and more efficient.
• Industrial Internet will accelerate the 4th Generation Industry to provide more agile and faster cyber-physical products.
• Any construction or system will have numbers of connected IoT devices to provide better data for operations, robotics and automation.
• Schools may give up the classroom centred education entirely.

What are the Opportunities for Military?

The military are usually late adopters of revolutionary technologies, but if they end up evolving faster with positive experiences from other parts of society, they may experience the following advantages:

Force Generation (acquiring personnel and material, training, warehousing, mobilisation)

• Attaching IoT sensors to all items and persons, connecting them to data collection and analysing will give up-to-date information of readiness, life-cycle and improvements
• Creating AR and VR environments, connecting all units to train large troops and their Command and Control will save a massive amount of time and money
• Integrating simulated, wargamed and live-fire training through connected units provide versatile and faster improvement in practice.
• Keeping the reserves up to basic knowledge level becomes more cost-effective through connected AR and VR environments.

Force Support (Logistics, administration, HR, Finance, Facility management)

• Goodbye the office and HQ buildings and welcome digital workplaces with UHD video presence where ever you go
• Rid of your HR staff and replace them with connected IoT and self-service applications. No attendance recording, physical fitness status, or appraisal data problems. 
• 4th Generation logistics will deliver supplies in JOT way with less loading/unloading and midlevel warehouses. You lose nothing because it is connected.
• No need for surgeons on the battlefield since they can do essential operations remotely.
• No reactive maintenance since wear and tear can be sensed and maintained predictively.

Force Utilisation (Operations)

• Video and immersion virtual reality-based information operations both affecting own forces and adversary’s moral.
• Know your own connected forces better than Sun Tsu ever dreamed possible.
• Commanders presence does not require physical presence.
• Remote-control everything that enemy cannot affect using EW or Cyber means.

What are the Security or Safety Concerns?

There are emerging concerns on the security of an increasing number of connected devices on a single technology. The 5G will provide better protection than LTE using the following features:

• Network slicing means that 5 G operator may establish multiple independent virtual networks to separate users, devices and applications from each other. This will help in limiting the damages to one attacked domain.
• Virtual networks are equipped with Software Defined Networking and Network Functions Virtualisation and compliant with cloud computing security. This will help in creating flexible service domains.
• 5G network subscriptions will be protected by a network authentication application (NAA) within the device for network identification, authentication and encryption. Any secure tamper-resistant entity storing the NAAs must be capable of being audited and certified by a third party. 
• Virtual Radio Access Networks separate the controlling of the 5 G infrastructure and user data from each other. It also makes it safer to run several commercial mobility services over the same 5 G infrastructure.

The safety issues of increased electromagnetic radiation have raised concerns among the population and scientist. There are two sources of added non-ionising radiation in mobile telecommunication:

• Mobile phones radiating 0,1-2 W: There are existing limits for mobile phones specific absorption rate (SAR) in US 1,6 W/kg and EU 2,0 W/kg. The energy is not enough to heat the skin or organ near the phone. The WHO has declared cell phones to Class 2B carcinogens like pickles, coffee, and aloe vera extract. Hands-free applications will take the phone further from users’ body and decrease the possible exposure.
• Base stations radiating 200 W: Lower frequency and more extensive base stations density radiate more effectively since the usage of massive MIMO beaming, 200 W power and higher frequencies than LTE. All base stations will comply with IEEE C95.1 standard for safety in frequencies between 100 kHz to 300 GHz. Persons working around base stations shall not be exposed to more than 50 Wm-2 power density. Any person in public shall not be exposed to more than 10 Wm-2.

Analysing the transformation of a consulting unit

A case study of transformation of a consulting unit creating value in closed market for one organisation

Abstract

This paper describes a transformation of a consulting unit between 2013 and 2015 as it transformed its business model, products, customers, production methods and over half of its personnel. 

The transformation is described using a concept for consulting business architecture that focus on knowledge creation core for consulting.

Results show that the consulting unit was able to execute a major transformation relative to its history by using the tool and managing several parallel incremental changes balanced through business, culture and information management.

Introduction

This paper provides an illustrative case study of a consulting unit in the journey of transformation. The study offers two snapshots, 2013 and 2015, along with that journey. The consulting unit in the case is operating in the closed market (no price competition) providing value to one customer (contract owner) and several clients (free of charge).

This paper aims to show how business architecture approach can be used in analysing the business situation, defining the end state for a transformation and providing key performance indicators throughout the journey.

The concept for the business architecture analyses is explained in a separate paper titled “An Architecture for Consulting Business”. Therefore, this paper goes directly to the case study and its results. The analysis approaches the transformation from six different viewpoints:

1. Business environment and forces of competition
2. Business model
3. Cultures within unit
4. Maturity of Collaboration
5. Maturity of Processes
6. Content management.

The views of one and two provide the underlying business context. The views of three and four expose the cultural aspects. Finally, the views of five and six analyse the process and information management. In a reflection of the TOGAF 9 framework, the cultural elements are additional whereas the technical views (data, applications, infrastructure) are not included in this case study.

Change in Environment and Competition

The consulting unit was enjoying a very forgiving business environment until 2013. There was a close and trusted relationship between the unit and the contract owner, who was in a senior position to order the clients to use the consulting services. During 2012 the situation changed as the contract owner altered and the new sponsor altered the rules of engagement. He required the consulting unit to provide services to each client as per need basis without authorial guidance and opened the environment for other units to compete in providing consulting. The change illustrated in Figure 1 meant that the bargaining power of clients increased. Other embedded consults became possible in the market, and there was a possibility to introduce substitutes for existing services. The business environment changed suddenly from the uncertainty of forgiving to the certainty of a competitive market.

Figure 1: Business environment and competition change in 2013

Before 2013, the unit had its consultants divided into fixed contracted tasks and similar functional groups. Each group was trying to get client commitment in their narrow areas of expertise. The business improvement was based on additional tasks that allowed the unit to hire people and create more revenue. As the mother company was making its profit based on a fixed percentage of total revenue, additional tasks were promoted heavily by management. This ended up with functionally separated consulting groups, low performing contracted tasks and aggressively growing additional tasks. When hierarchical support vanished, the old fixed groups found their clients not calling them anymore and they were struggling to create a new need for their legacy expertise.

Change in Business Model for Consulting Services

Once the change in the environment and market was understood, the consulting unit started the transformation. The first challenge was to gain the trust of the client with higher level consulting service delivered fast to meet the need and provided in a tailored manner to better fit the situation. As illustrated in Figure 2, the consulting unit decided to transform from classical consulting business model to a more flexible and scalable model.

Figure 2: Transformation of the model for consulting business

The Classical model is based on the principles of hiring talented and experiences people and providing them to clients as expertise or manpower. The optimisation of effort in this model means trying to provide as many consultants as long as possible. The client did not have much to say on the quality of talent or number of consultants engaged. During 2013, the unit had to close eight siloes of total fifteen fixed tasks.

The more flexible and scalable business model was determined to be the end state for the consulting unit. The flexibility was based on a structured process for knowledge creation including all in-house consultants. Furthermore, the unit seeks also the broader base of knowledge from a network of experts and experience. In the new model, each challenge is addressed together with a client in close co-operation applying the generic solution model but sustaining the confidentiality of the client. Value to the client is created more with knowledge transfer and providing solutions rather than embedding single experts. Furthermore, a unit established also a chain to provide information as a service through digital channels. The model builds on the strengths of different competencies, with multinational experiences to solve challenges in the more complex environment the client was facing.

Change in Organisational Culture

Since the organisational culture often nullifies all attempts to change the organisation, the analyses also included a simple chart based on the observation that humans form tribes within official organisations. These tribes tend to draw similarly feeling and motivated people together. Based on the first survey within the management and lead consultants, the starting situation included several subtribes that varied between levels one to three depending on their engagement with the client. The plan was to get the culture of the unit towards the partnership as a whole as pictured in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Situation and plan to change the organisational culture

In average the groups in the unit were defined as separate. Members of this subculture are passively antagonist. They cross their arms in judgement but never gain interest enough to make a difference. Their approach is apathetic since they have seen everything before failing. This culture does not recognise urgency or accountability. Some of the groups were observed to be personal. They think that knowledge is power thus they hoard it. They outthink and outwork their competitors on an individual basis. These people are drawn together since they best others and win being the smartest and most successful.

Since neither of the above subcultures do support well the aimed new business model, the goal for culture development was set to be at the level of partnership. This subculture has a tribal pride and always an adversary to enforce their pride — bigger the adversary, stronger the tribe culture.

Change in Collaboration Between Consultants

As part of the culture, the collaboration between talented people is one of the essential elements in consulting. Collaboration takes place both between consultants and with clients. Collaboration accelerates the knowledge creation as socialisation, externalisation and combination require collaboration between people and sources of information. The situation on 2013 appeared mostly at base level as illustrated in Figure 4: 

• The types of information in repositories mainly were administrative and structured. There were also unstructured documents but mainly divided into task or individual level folders.
• The scope of collaboration was to have contact between individual people. Asking advice from a colleague was not preferred act since it exposed the client relationship to “competitors” and revealed a “gap in individual knowledge”.
• The communities were ad-hoc based on hoarding the information rather than sharing it.
• The persistence of information was not acknowledged since it was managed at the individual level and individuals did not reveal their repositories to others. On the contrary, there was a fear that sharing their information its unreliability or outdatedness would be shown.
• The integration points for collaboration were non-existent since there was no process to create knowledge and deliverables to clients, no one assessed their validity, but the advice was delivered mainly based on individual efforts.
• The connectivity was between non-connected to point-to-point. The density of collaboration did not create value to the unit, groups but only to individuals.

Figure 4: The situation and plan to improve collaboration within consultants

The plan was to improve the collaboration to the level of knowledge repositories, which would create a significant advantage for flexible consulting. 

Change in Processes of Consulting

Processes allow the organisation to align the way every consultant to deliver the value and execute the business. Maturity is cumulative, which means that achieving integrated level there needs to be also aligned and local stages captured. Based on observations, the 2013 situation of process maturity in consulting unit was defined by a variety of personal methods without any unit level measures, and improvement was individualised except the administrative processes, which were following best practices and were established unit wide as described in Figure 5.

Figure 5: Situation and change in process maturity

The plan was to take the main business processes to aligned level and sustain the admin processes while making them leaner.

Change in Content management

Content management provides a base for knowledge creation and consulting business is mainly about creating new or applicable knowledge to the client. The three dimensions of content management showed that 2013 the consulting unit was in Figure 6 situation where:

• Competencies of people were not improved but ad-hoc, security was used to prevent feared sharing, and there was no performance measuring in place for content quality.
• The content was managed by individual people using their methods. Since there was no shared repository, folders were full of duplicates and mixture of deliverables and working files.
• The technology was supporting document management with network storage for group work, but mainly information was stored in workstation hard disks without backup. The email was used to share documents between consultants and client deliverables were done mostly by hard copies.

Figure 6: Situation and change in content management

The plan was to take the unit to enterprise level in content management so flexible use of knowledge resources would be supported.

An Architecture for Consulting Business

Introduction

Consulting is profoundly knowledge creation driven business that depends heavily on relationships between institutes and people.  The challenges that consulting at best helps to solve are more and messier  as business becomes networked, international, and products more cyber-physical . Therefore, the transformation of the consulting business should address the social challenges through the consulting value chain. Consequently, this paper provides more social and knowledge creation oriented business architecture model that illustrates the evolution of business. The aim is to provide a dynamic architecture model for an enterprise architect to analyse any consulting business and improve the success in business transformation. 

To narrow the approach, the paper focuses on a case of embedded consulting unit operating in the closed market (value, but no price competition) (Osterwalder & Pigneur). Furthermore, the approach is also emphasising the knowledge creation (Nonaka&Takeuchi)  so technology layers are not included. The paper focuses mainly on five features of the consulting business from the business and knowledge creation approach as illustrated in Figure 1:

1. Business environment and forces of competition
2. Business model
3. Cultures within unit
4. Maturity of Collaboration
5. Maturity of Processes
6. Content management

Figure 1: Architecture layers of this study

The framework follows the TOGAF 9.1 model but focuses on business rather than technology. Addition to TOGAF, the framework provides maturity or stage model for each layer, which helps to analyse better the roadmap this far and further towards the future.
Furthermore, the used framework introduces environment, significant stakeholders and forces of effect in the value chain. The motivation, organisation and function of TOGAF model are substituted with more granular layers of business model, organisational culture, collaboration, and business processes. The approach helps to analyse the evolutionary path of the socio-technical system and define options for its future. The information and content management model simplifies the TOGAF data architecture. Furthermore, the study does not include levels of data, application or infrastructure technology.

Business Environment and Competition

Since business is an open, purposeful system , the environment and the relationships between stakeholders affect the business model. Ackoff defines possible relationships as exploitation, cooperation, competition and conflict. The study focuses merely on competition and cooperation. The high-level business model in Figure 2 illustrating the environment and competition in the environment of business follows Porters  value chain with primary activities providing value to customers and supporting activities in helping business units or supply chains structure. The Porter’s  model for competitive strategy defines the competitive powers within the business environment. The competition model explains five forces driving the competition in the market environment:

1. The rivalry between existing enterprises in the same market that either feels pressure or sees the opportunity to improve the position.
2. Potential entrants may change the competition with new capacity or differentiated value. There may be barriers to entry like economies of scale, product differentiation, switching costs, access to the distribution channel, and government policy.
3. The threat of substitute products performing the original function thus creating different value to customers
4. Bargaining power of customers when they buy large volumes, products are standard or undifferentiated or have the full information of the market.
5. Bargaining power of suppliers when they are dominant, there are no substitutes available, the supplier is focusing in other markets, supplier’s product is a crucial element for the value proposition.

Since the Porter model for competition does not illustrate the degree of certainty or maturity, a model from Gattorna  helps to model the degree of certainty of the market. The two dimensions of competition and certainty define a quadrant showing:

1. Stable market when competition is low, and certainty is high.
2. Forgiving market when competition is low, but the market is on the move (probably decline).
3. Competitive market when competition is high, but rules have matured, and expectations are quite confident.
4. Turbulent market when competition is high, but the possibility of changes is high which makes the market more uncertain.

Figure 2: Environment and Competition in Consulting Business

Business Model

The business model (Osterwalder and Pigneur) explains how value is proposed to customer segments, delivered via channels and ensuring continuation through customer relationship. The value is created with critical activities using resources from in-house and main partners. Financial dimension includes revenue streams, cost structure, and value chain relationships as illustrated in Figure 3.

Figure 3: a generic value creation model

The customer segments define the different groups of people or organisations a business unit aims to reach and serve. The segments may be differentiated by:

• Mass-market which focuses on one large group of customers with broadly similar needs and problems.
• A niche market has specific and specialised customer segments. Each segment needs tailored proposition, distribution and customer relationship.
• In a segmented market, several groups of customer provide business with slightly different needs and problems. The same business unit may provide value to each segment from the same line of production if channel and customer relationship tailor the proposal according to each segment.
• The diversified market is a model where one business unit proposes value to two or more separate customer segments.
• Open or closed market defines whether there is competition in the market, or it is a monopoly or controlled by market authority.

The value proposition describes the bundle of products and services that create value for an individual customer segment. Values may be quantitative (price, the speed of service) or qualitative (design, customer experience) and are differentiated by their:

• Newness which will satisfy the entirely new set of needs that occurred recently to customers.
• A performance which will improve the perception of value because with same price there will be more benefits
• Customisation which will address the specific needs of a customer. This includes mass customisation and customer co-creation.
• “Getting the job done” will help the customer to achieve her tactical goals.
• The design will provide a product that stands out from others because of its looks, package, features, or interface.
• Brand/Status provides value by merely using and displaying the brand
• The price where the lower price will differentiate the product from regular market prices. Free offers can be used either for claiming market shares or with a different revenue model.
• Cost reduction when helping the customer to reduce their costs and therefore improve their revenue.
• Risk reduction is appreciated if the proposition is lessening the risk in further use of a product (availability guarantee, service guarantee, insurance, service-level guarantee). 
• Accessibility is a value when products are delivered to customers with no previous availability.
• Convenience/Usability is substantial value if services are easier to use, convenient to acquire or better replaced when broken.

Channels describe how business unit communicates with and reaches its customers to deliver the value proposition. Channels may be direct or indirect and also owned or partnered. Channel is building following the phases of:

• Awareness addresses the challenge in raising the knowledge among the customers of the available value proposition. 
• The evaluation aims to help the customer in assessing our value proposition 
• Purchase aims to support the customer in buying/ordering our products or services
• Delivery takes our products or services to the customer in need
• After sales support the customer in post-purchase situations.

Customer relationships describe the types of relationships unit establishes with each customer segment. Customer relationships may be driven by customer acquisition, customer retention or boosting sales. It is measured by the overall customer experience. Customer relationships may be established through:

• Personal assistance provides human interaction through the process of value proposition and delivery (point of sale, call centres).
• Dedicated personal assistance provides a dedicated account manager to an individual client and possibly develops over time to most profound and intimate relationship (key account manager, own doctor, local store personnel, barber).
• Self-service provides all necessary means for customers to help themselves.
• Automated service is more sophisticated self-service with automated processes and individualised support (AI drove service centre, service robot).
• Communities like user community provide peer support when using similar product/service (user groups, sports groups, patient groups).
• Co-creation invites customers to participate in the design, production and improvement of products (reviews of the product, immaterial content production, hackathons).

Revenue streams represent the cash flow a unit generates from each customer segment. There are two types of streams: 1. transactions revenues from one-time customer payments, and 2. Recurring revenues from ongoing payments either to continuously deliver value or provide post-purchase support. Revenue streams can be generated from:

• Asset sale means selling ownership of a product.
• The usage fee is generated using a service.
• Subscription fee comes from selling continuous access to a service.
• Lending/Renting/Leasing revenue comes from temporarily granting some the exclusive right to use an asset for a fixed period in return for a fee.
• Licensing creates revenue when the customer is permitted to use protected intellectual property in exchange for licensing fee.
• Brokerage fee is collected from intermediation services performed on behalf of two or more parties.
• Advertising creates revenue when unit market/advertise a product, service or brand.

Key resources describe the most important assets required to make the business work. These resources allow the unit to create, offer and deliver a value proposition, reach markets, maintain relationships and earn revenues. Resources may be owned, leased or acquired from main partners. The primary resources may be:

• Physical assets such as manufacturing facilities, machines, distribution networks, or point-of-sales systems. 
• Intellectual assets such as brands, proprietary knowledge, patents, copyrights, partnerships or customer information.
• Human assets as competent people that can work together, for example, creating innovations or new knowledge.
• Financial assets as cash, lines of credit, or stock options.

Key activities describe the most important things the unit must do to operate successfully. These activities may be:

• Production relates to design, making and delivering a product
• Problem-solving relates to advising, training, knowledge transfer or just fixing customers problem. Activities include knowledge management and continuous training.
• Platform/Network may be built on networks, social channels, software, or brands. Activities include platform management, service provisioning and platform promotion.

Key partnerships describe the network of suppliers and partners that make to business model work. There may be four types of partnerships:

1. The strategic alliance between non-competitors
2. Coopetition which is a strategic alliance between competitors
3. Joint ventures to develop new business
4. Buyer-supplier relationships to assure reliable supplies.

The partnerships are mostly motivated by:

• Optimisation and economy of scale when it is not cost-efficient for a unit to own all key resources or perform every activity by itself. Outsourcing enables the supply chain to specialise and gain economy of scale.
• Reduction of risk and uncertainty especially when developing and bringing new technology in a competitive market or sharing the R&D costs of a high-value product.
• Acquisition of resources and activities is typical in modern value chains where products are complex and require significant development investments.

Cost structure describes all costs incurred in operating the business. The cost structure may be driven by the following approaches:

• The cost-driven approach seeks to create and maintain the leanest possible cost structure using low price proposition, automation, and outsourcing.
• The value-driven approach seeks to maximise the customer value with the premium proposition, personalised services and risk minimising post-purchase.

Cost structures may be characterised by:

• Fixed costs include costs that remain the same despite the volume: example salaries, rents, physical machines and facilities.
• Variable costs are those that proportionally vary with the volume of goods produced.
• Economies of scale advantages may be gained from the suppliers as unit’s output expands
• Economies of scope advantages may be gained when same activities are used to support different segments.

Value chain relationships describe the types of relationships unit establishes with each supplier or partner. Vendor relationships is measured by the overall revenue of the value chain and driven according to Gattorna  by:

• Continuous replenishment fulfils predictable demand and focus is on retention of the customer relationship.
• Lean fulfils constant but loosely related demand and focus is on gaining efficiency. 
• Agile supply chain fulfils unplanned or unforeseen demand, so supply chain reacts with the swift response and higher cost-to-serve. The focus is on the service-cost equation.
• Fully flexible chain responds opportunistically and manages the yield. The focus is on providing creative solutions for a premium price.

The architect uses the above business canvas to define existing model for consulting business and collects the future intentions indicating the needs for transformation. Furthermore, the architect analysis the stage of consulting using the types described in the following subsection.

Variations in Consulting Business Models

For specific consulting business the model uses Sniukas’s  approach for reinvented consulting business. He defines six specific business types for consulting pictured in Figure 4: 1. Classical, 2. Brokering, 3. Information, 4. Solutions, 5. Objective driven, and 6. Flexible. 

Classical consultation business is based on two principles: 
1) Hiring talented and experiences people;
2) Charging clients the usage per time of this talent, expertise, or workforce.
The classical model optimises the sale of as many consultants per time as possible. The client does not have too much choice for talent or number of consultants engaged.

Brokering top talent is a business where the consulting company does not hire consultants but provides access for clients to available freelance competence. Clients choose from the available consultants their preference. As clients become more expert in using the consultants, more value is provided. Consultants are not in pressure of selling new projects, so they can concentrate on providing successful projects. Lower overhead cost translates to lower fees, trusted talent, and focused contribution.

Figure 4: Variations of approach in contemporary consulting business

Providing information and analysis of top experts is a model where consultants are not meeting with a client but provide standard reports, analysis, trends and other knowledge goods to the client per-content basis. Consultant work is researching and publishing. Publishing happens via portals, blogs, or other digital means. Besides off-the-shelf reports, there may also be customised reports provided to a type of challenge. New products and clients can be created quickly with flexible consultant teams, who are working together for quality knowledge.

Providing solutions means that there is a structured, repeatable and standardised process in solving the challenges that clients are facing. There might be tool and method development for quantitative research to enable the quick delivery of results. Licensing these tools to clients may also be a stream for revenue.

Objective driven consulting changes the pricing policy in the business. Only 1/3 of charge is based on fixed prices and rest is dynamic based on successful delivery. The risk of consultation is divided between provider and client. This motivates consultants to innovate and seek more creative solutions for clients’ challenges.

Flexible and scalable business model for consulting is somewhat a combination of the previous. There is a structured process for knowledge creation within in-house consultants, but there is also a more extensive network of experts and experience available for solving challenges. Each challenge is addressed together with a client by assigning a tailored team and consulting service. The solution is found in close cooperation sustaining the confidentiality of the client. Value is created more with knowledge transfer and solutions rather than manning projects. Generic information as a service is also a part of the service portfolio. The model attempts to integrate trusted people with broader competency and expertise into the same team, so both logical and social needs are met.

Organisational Culture

After assessing the business model in the previous sector, analysing the social structure and relationships within an organisation and through the value chain becomes the next challenge. The Logan et al.  model of tribal subcultures defines simple stages and paths for cultural analyses and roads for improvement. The cultural categorising is based on a concept that human beings form tribes, i.e., teams within an official organisation. These tribes tend to draw similarly feeling and motivated people together, and there is a pattern of stages defined in improving the maturity of the culture illustrated in Figure 5.

Figure 5: Five different subcultures that can be found in an average organisation

Members of the 1st tribal subculture are despairingly hostile. They band together to get through a perceived world of violence and unfairness. Their shared feeling may laud as “Life Sucks”. About 2% of professionals in the US operate here at any given point.

Members of the 2nd tribal subculture are passively antagonist. They cross their arms in judgement but never engage enough to make a difference. Their feeling is apathy since they have seen so many failed attempts. The culture does not recognise urgency or accountability. Their slogan reverence as “My Life Sucks”. About 25% of organisations in the USA have pockets of people belonging to this subculture.

Members of third tribal subculture think that knowledge is power. Therefore, they want to possess and hoard it. They outthink and outwork their competitors on an individual basis. These people are drawn together since they beat others and win being the smartest and most successful. About 49 % of workplaces in the US belongs to this “I am great, and you are not” stage.

Members of fourth tribal subculture think that “We are great, and they are not”. There is a tribal pride and always an adversary to reflect their greatness — bigger the adversary, more powerful the tribe culture. About 22% of workplaces in the US are in this stage. The most usual way to create a successful organisation is to create enough teams with this subculture together and then show them adversary worth the fight.

Members of fifth tribal subculture have a feeling that “Life is great”. These teams are going to make history because they have a cause bigger than themselves or anyone else. Most successful organisations do not stay in this stage but alter between 4 and 5. Less than 2% of organisations in the US have evidence of this stage.

Culture can effectively deny many intended, logical changes of the future business model. Therefore, the architect needs to define the area of cultural stages the consulting unit resides. Longer the value chain for knowledge creation is, the less successful consultants at cultural stages of first and second are. More complex the challenge and more stakeholders are included, further, between levels four and five, the consulting team needs to be. 

Degree of Collaboration

After the coarse analysis of culture explained above, the architect needs to focus on the core feature in Nonaka and Takeuchi  model of organisational knowledge creation - collaboration and cooperation. Collaboration and cooperation between talented people are essential in knowledge-intensive consulting, whether collaboration happens between consultants or with clients. Collaboration accelerates knowledge creation as socialisation, externalisation and combination require cooperation between people and sources of information. The study uses the Synapticity collaboration maturity model illustrated in Figure 6 because of its simplicity with four stages but the richness in six dimensions.

Figure 6: A simple maturity model for collaboration within an enterprise

The four stages create a roadmap for maturity in collaboration:

1. Base level describes point-to-point individual level collaboration
2. Tools oriented describes more function-oriented collaboration
3. Knowledge repositories introduce cross-domain collaboration
4. Collaboration and interaction introduce wider society, tribal collaboration.

Each stage is defined by six dimensions or features:

• Information Types: Is the conveyed information unstructured, structured, referential, rich, or media based?
• Scope: How many people and how they are affected by collaboration? One-to-one interaction, roles based, task-based or self-defined communities.
• Communities: How collaboration is changing the culture? Hoarding information, we have all the information, small sharing groups or dynamic community of collaboration that shape per each interest.
• Information Persistence: How relevant the communicated information is? Life cycle, consumption means, exposure to different users.
• Integration Points: How much collaboration is interacting with other means of sharing information and ideas? Is security mature enough to stand integration? How are standards used in creating integration links?
• Connectivity or Density: Improves from non-connected to full connectivity and multiple connections.  Density increases as hubs and outliers are bringing value to society and knowledge creation process. 

The above model provides architect an assessing tool that helps to define how the consulting unit reached the current situation in the maturity of collaboration and possible guidance on how it may be improved.

Processes of Consulting Business from the Knowledge creation approach

Processes or chain of functions allows an organisation to align the way to create value for the customer.  The ThinkingProcess  provides three dimensional model for process, performance and improvement maturity and follows the stages of classic CMMI-model : 1. Ad hoc, 2. Local, 3. Aligned, 4. Integrated and 5. Optimised. The maturity model for processes illustrated in Figure 7 is cumulative, which means that achieving the upper stage, the organisation needs to master also the features of previous stages.

Figure 7: Model for consulting process maturity

The process dimension matures as processes are defined, followed, extended, and they start to provide direct feedback for continuous improvement. The performance dimension matures as measuring and feedback is improving and creating closer loops of iteration. The feedback loops include both operational and strategic key performance indicators. The improvement dimension matures as development becomes more controlled and value-driven approach starts getting rid of waste gradually through the whole value chain.

The tool provides architect not only a maturity model for business functions but also a view for the value stream improvement and performance. The approach ensures that business architect considers establishing a continuous improvement rather than guides towards project aimed change.

Information and Content Management

Finally, the content management provides a base for knowledge creation in consulting. Cameron , in Figure 8, defines content management through systems, processes and people. He does not follow the CMMI maturity model but introduces stages of maturity through social connections and extends the path of maturity with development by optimisation and innovation.

Figure 8: The dimension and stages of content management in consulting business

The people dimension includes human itself but also support, competence, training, relationship to risk and reward and performance management. There is also an organisational culture aspect, but it is assessed better in previous culture oriented models.

The processes in this model focus only on information or content management functions. They have different forms as standards, guidelines, policies, records, and workflows. The content management processes are analysed based on their: 

• Relevance: why information is relevant, 
• Retention: what information needs to be recorded and what destroyed
• Timing and throughput: when information needs to be acted upon
• Responsibility and contribution: who manages information effectively.

The systems include hardware, software and applications which are used create, store and manage information. The technical part of content management is measured by:

• Retention: where information needs to be kept
• Timing and throughput: when and whether information can be processed
• Responsibility and contribution: who is managing information and when
• Ubiquity: where and when information is being accessed
• Analysis and meaning: how to help interpret, create and manage information.

Conclusion

The business of consulting becomes more messier as it evolves towards networked, international and cyber-physical. Since the TOGAF model does not directly address the ways to describe the evolutionary nature of consulting business, this paper creates an applied architecture model for assessing the past and future roadmap for consulting business.

The model for consulting business explains how to analyse the environment and five interconnected layers of business architecture. The model answers the questions of: 

• Where the business has evolved to current situation and 
• What opportunities or challenges it faces when developing towards the future?

The model addresses specially the knowledge creation and social aspects of consulting business, which are substantial in consulting business.

The model is only presented in this paper. Other publications test the model and proof its feasibility. The focus of this model is in knowledge creation and business architecture. Therefore, all technical structures are left out from architecture considerations.

Prepare Your Encryption for the Era of Quantum Computing

Encryption and Computing Performance

Legacy computing uses binary digits and, even with doubling the computing performance every 18 months, it is believed to take 70 years to break AES256 encryption with a standard approach to computing.

Quantum computing uses quantum bits, which enable the computer to perform multiple calculations simultaneously. Thus, the probability of having AES256 enciphered much faster the primitives using Shor's factorisation quantum algorithm than with standard computers. It is believed that Quantum computing is still 20 years ahead, but governments may gain the ability earlier, even within three years’ time.

Threat cases

“If someone were to record that communication now, in three years’ time a quantum computer comes along, then they can decrypt that communication and make money from the credit card details.” 

“The flaw of the Public Key Method is that the message and the private key travel together, so if you have enough processing power you can work out the key and compromise the data.”

“Instead of relying on prime-factor based methods for encrypting data, post-quantum encryption uses techniques that have been described as quantum-resistant”.

Mitigation

• Gain understanding what encryption methods your units are using. Be at least sure that all used encryption complies with SHA 2 requirements.
• If possible, extend the key length of current public key encryption.
• From now on, start acquiring encryption devices that support automation upgrade of encryption algorithms.
• Use Secret key algorithm (symmetric algorithm) that uses the same key for both encryption and decryption. That key is distributed other ways, sometimes out-of-band, so if the key remains secret and there is no access to both plain and encrypted text.
• Start testing new algorithms like:
• Grover’s Algorithm may stand against Quantum speed of unstructured searching and provide an amplitude amplification to existing algorithms.
• Lattice-based cryptography solutions

References

1. https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Prepare-now-for-quantum-computers-QKD-and-post-quantum-encryption?src=5798104&asrc=EM_ERU_101142323&utm_content=eru-rd2-rcpF&utm_medium=EM&utm_source=ERU&utm_campaign=20181001_ERU%20Transmission%20for%2010/01/2018%20(UserUniverse:%202637481)

2. https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/tip/How-lattice-based-cryptography-will-improve-encryption