Goods Transportation & Logistics Industry Business Reference Architecture
Your guide to building business capability maps, value streams, and strategy maps for the goods transportation & logistics industry.
- A lack of understanding of the business’s landscape and how IT can support the delivery of successful projects.
- A lack of a business- and AI-aligned view of mission, strategy, goals, objectives, processes, projects, and measures of success.
- Presence of silos that miss the big-picture and don’t understand the need for a synergistic approach for successful outcomes.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
Using an industry-specific reference architecture is central, and has many benefits, to organizational priorities. It is critical to understanding, modeling, and communicating the operating environment and the direction of the organization but, more significantly, it enables measurable top-line organizational outcomes and unlocks direct value.
Impact and Result
- Demonstrate the value of IT’s role in supporting your goods transportation & logistics business capabilities while highlighting the importance of proper alignment between organizational and IT strategies.
- Apply level 2 business reference architecture techniques such as strategy maps, value streams, and capability maps to design usable and accurate blueprints of your construction business.
- Assess your initiatives and priorities to determine if you are investing in the right capabilities. Conduct capability assessments to identify opportunities and to prioritize projects.
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Tuesday, May 13, 2025
11:00 AM EDT
Define Your Transportation & Logistics Reference Architecture
Register NowGoods Transportation & Logistics Industry Business Reference Architecture Guide
Your guide to building business capability maps, value streams, and strategy maps for the goods transportation & logistics industry
Analyst Perspective
In the age of disruption, IT must end misalignment and enable value realization.
An industry business reference architecture helps accelerate your strategy design process and enhances your firm’s ability to align people, process, and technology with key business priorities.
The transportation and logistics industry offers a unique cyclical value chain, where companies are forever involved, picking up work at any given point.
Efficiency, precision, and coordination are paramount for transportation and logistics companies. This reference architecture will help uncover these benefits.
A business reference architecture is a powerful tool for enabling communication with business stakeholders and providing the context needed for strategic alignment, allowing for a scalable, profitable future.
Michael Adams
Research Analyst, Transportation and Logistics
Info-Tech Research Group
Executive Summary
| Your Challenge | Common Obstacles | Info-Tech’s Approach |
You need to improve your organization’s understanding of business capabilities and how IT can support the delivery of essential services. You work for an organization that wants to sharpen its alignment and focus on organizational outcomes and value by using automation and cost-effective methods that produce the most reliable and high-quality outcomes. Before executing any strategic initiatives, use this blueprint to understand how the organization creates value. | You don’t have a clear path for capturing the right information, engaging the right people, linking with the needs of the business, and aligning with IT. The business and IT often speak in their own languages without a holistic and integrated view of mission, strategy, goals, objectives, business processes, projects, and measures of success. The business and IT organizations often focus their attention within silos and miss the big picture need for a synergistic approach for successful outcomes. | Build your organization’s capability map by defining the organization’s value stream and validating the technology services industry reference architecture. Use business capabilities to define strategic focus by defining the organization’s key capabilities and developing a prioritized strategy map. Assess key capabilities for planning priorities through a review of business processes, information, application, and technology support of key capabilities. Adopt capability-based strategy planning by ongoing identification and road mapping of capability gaps. |
Info-Tech Insight
Using an industry-specific reference architecture is central, and has many benefits, to organizational priorities. It is critical to understanding, modeling, and communicating the operating environment and the direction of the organization, but more significantly, to enabling measurable top-line organizational outcomes and unlocking direct value.
Industry Overview: Transportation & Logistics
The transportation and logistics industry is evolving rapidly, driven by increasing complexity and rising consumer expectations. Companies are focused on optimizing supply chains, enhancing efficiency, and improving service delivery.
Supply chains are becoming more dynamic, and global demands are shifting. This is leading logistics firms to adopt new technologies to remain competitive.
Emerging technologies are reducing inefficiencies and improving operational visibility. Real-time data insights are streamlining route optimization, inventory management, and last-mile delivery.
Technology advancements, such as AI-powered demand forecasting and IoT-enabled tracking, are becoming more accessible, transforming logistics operations.
Businesses need a comprehensive logistics business reference architecture to integrate digital solutions with traditional transportation business models to maximize financial benefits and enhance collaboration across supply chain stakeholders.
Figure above: Value stream cycle for transportation & logistics companies.
Business value realization
Business value defines the success criteria of an organization as manifested through organizational goals and outcomes, and it is interpreted from four perspectives:
Profit generation: The revenue generated from a business capability with a product that is enabled with modern technologies.
Cost reduction: The cost reduction when performing business capabilities with a product that is enabled with modern technologies.
Service enablement: The productivity and efficiency gains of internal business operations from products and capabilities enhanced with modern technologies.
Customer and market reach: The improved reach and insights of the business in existing or new markets.
Value, goals, and outcomes cannot be achieved without business capabilities
Break your business goals into strategic and achievable initiatives focused on specific value streams and business capabilities.
Transportation & Logistics Industry Business Capability Map
Business capability map defined
In business architecture, the primary view of an organization is known as a business capability map.
A business capability defines what a business does to enable value creation rather than how. Business capabilities:
- Represent stable business functions.
- Are unique and independent of each other.
- Typically will have a defined business outcome.
A business capability map provides details that help the business architecture practitioner direct attention to a specific area of the business for further assessment.
Glossary of key concepts
A business reference architecture consists of a set of models to provide clarity and actionable insight and value. Typical techniques and terms used in developing these models are:
| Term/Concept | Definition |
| Industry Value Chain | A high-level analysis of how the industry creates value for the consumer as an overall end-to-end process. |
| Business Capability Map | The primary visual representation of the organization’s key capabilities. This model forms the basis of strategic planning discussions. |
| Industry Value Streams | The specific set of activities an industry player undertakes to create and capture value for and from the end consumer. |
| Strategic Objectives | A set of standard strategic objectives that most industry players will feature in their corporate plans. |
| Industry Strategy Map | A visualization of the alignment between the organization’s strategic direction and its key capabilities. |
| Capability Assessments | Based on people, process, information, and technology, a heat-mapping effort that analyzes the strength of each key capability. |
| Capability | An ability that an organization, person, or system possesses. Capabilities are typically expressed in general and high-level terms and typically require a combination of organization, people, processes, and technology to achieve. |
Source: The Open Group, 2009
Tools and templates to compile and communicate your reference architecture work
The Goods Transportation & Logistics Industry Business Reference Architecture Template is a place for you to collect all of the activity outputs and outcomes you’ve completed for use in the next steps.
Download the Goods Transportation & Logistics Industry Business Reference Architecture Template
Info-Tech’s methodology for reference architecture
| 1. Build Your Organization’s Capability Map | 2. Use Business Capabilities to Define Strategic Focus | 3. Assess Key Capabilities for Planning Priorities | 4. Adopt Capability-Based Strategy Planning | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phase Steps | 1.1 Define the Organization’s Value Stream 1.2 Develop a Business Capability Map | 2.1 Define the Organization’s Key Capabilities 2.2 Develop a Strategy Map | 3.1 Review Business Processes 3.2 Assess Information 3.3 Identify Technology Opportunities | 4.1 Consolidate and Prioritize Capability Gaps |
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Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs
| DIY Toolkit | Guided Implementation | Workshop | Consulting |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful." | "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track." | "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place." | "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project." |
Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.
Guided Implementation
What does a typical Guided Implementation (GI) on this topic look like?
| Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 | Phase 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Call #1: Introduce Info-Tech’s industry reference architecture methodology. | Call #2: Define and create value streams. Call #3: Model Level 1 business capability maps. | Call #4: Map value streams to business capabilities. Call #5: Model Level 2 business capability maps. | Call #6: Create a strategy map. Call #7: Introduce Info-Tech's capability assessment framework. | Call #8: Review capability assessment map(s). Call #9: Discuss and review prioritization of key capability gaps and plan next steps. |
A GI is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.
A typical GI is six to nine calls over the course of one to four months.
Phase 1
Build Your Organization’s Capability Map
Phase 1
1.1 Define the Organization’s Value Stream
1.2 Develop a Business Capability Map
Phase 2
2.1 Define the Organization’s Key Capabilities
2.2 Develop a Strategy Map
Phase 3
3.1 Review Business Processes
3.2 Assess Information
3.3 Identify Technology Opportunities
Phase 4
4.1 Consolidate and Prioritize Capability Gaps
This phase will walk you through the following activities:
- Identify and assemble key stakeholders
- Determine how the organization creates value
- Define and validate value streams
- Determine which business capabilities support value streams
- Accelerate the process with an industry reference architecture
- Validate the business capability map
- Establish Level 2 capability decomposition priorities
- Decompose Level 2 capabilities
This phase involves the following participants:
- Enterprise/business architect
- Business analysts
- Business unit leads
- CIO
- Department executive and senior managers
Goods Transportation & Logistics Industry Business Reference Architecture
Step 1.1
Define the organization’s value stream
Activities
1.1.1 Identify and assemble key stakeholders
1.1.2 Determine how the organization creates value
1.1.3 Define and validate value streams
This step involves the following participants:
- Enterprise/business architect
- Business analysts
- Business unit leads
- CIO
- Department executive and senior managers
Outcomes of this step
- Defined and validated value streams specific to your organization.
Build Your Organization’s Capability Map
Step 1.1. > Step 1.2
1.1.1 Identify and assemble key stakeholders
1-3 hours
Build an accurate depiction of the business.
- It is important to make sure the right stakeholders participate in this exercise. The exercise of identifying capabilities for an organization is very introspective and requires deep analysis.
- Consider:
- Who are the decision-makers and key influencers?
- Who will impact the business capability work? Who has a vested interest in the success or failure of the outcome?
- Who has the skills and competencies necessary to help you be successful?
- Avoid:
- Don’t focus on the organizational structure and hierarchy. Often stakeholder groups don’t fit the traditional structure.
- Don’t ignore subject matter experts on either the business or IT side. You will need to consider both.
Download the Goods Transportation & Logistics Industry Business Reference Architecture Template
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Define the organization’s value streams
Value streams connect business goals to the organization’s value realization activities. They enable an organization to create and capture value in the marketplace by engaging in a set of interconnected activities. Those activities are dependent on the specific industry segment an organization operates in. Value streams can extend beyond the organization into the supporting ecosystem, whereas business processes are contained within and the organization has complete control over them.
There are two types of value streams:
- Core value streams.
- Support value streams.
Core value streams are mostly externally facing: they deliver value to either an external or internal customer and they tie to the customer perspective of the strategy map.
Support value streams are internally facing and provide the foundational support for an organization to operate.
An effective method for ensuring all value streams have been considered is to understand there can be different end-value receivers. Info-Tech recommends identifying and organizing the value streams with customers and partners as end-value receivers.
Step 1.1.3 – Define the organization’s value stream
| Value Streams | Customer Acquisition | Order Management | Transportation Management | Processing Operations | Fulfillment |
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NOTE: Illustrative example derived from empirical research.
Determine how the organization creates value
Begin the process by identifying and locating the business mission and vision statements.
Corporate Websites
Business Strategy Documents
Business Executives
Business Mission
Business Vision
What Is Business Context?
"The business context encompasses an understanding of the factors impacting the business from various perspectives, including how decisions are made and what the business is ultimately trying to achieve. The business context is used by IT to identify key implications for the execution of its strategic initiatives."
Source: Business Wire, 2018
1.1.2 Determine how the organization creates value
1-3 hours
The first step to delivering value is defining how it will happen.
- Use the organization’s industry segment to start a discussion on how value is created for customers. Working back from the moment value is realized by the customer, consider the sequential steps required to deliver value in your industry segment.
- Consider:
- Who are your customers?
- What tasks are your customers looking to accomplish?
- How does your organization’s set of products and services help them accomplish that?
- What are the benefits the organization delivers to them?
- Don’t boil the ocean. Focus on your industry segment and how you deliver value to your partners and customers specifically.
Download the Goods Transportation & Logistics Industry Business Reference Architecture Template
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Upcoming
Webinar
Tuesday, May 13, 2025
11:00 AM EDT
Define Your Transportation & Logistics Reference Architecture
Register Now
Steve
Schmidt
Senior Managing Partner
Michael
Adams
Research Analyst
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst
Get the help you need in this 4-phase advisory process. You'll receive 9 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
Guided Implementation 1: Build Your Organization’s Capability Map
- Call 1: Introduce Info-Tech’s industry reference architecture methodology.
- Call 2: Define and create value streams.
Guided Implementation 2: Use Business Capabilities to Define Strategic Focus
- Call 1: Model Level 1 business capability maps.
- Call 2: Map value streams to business capabilities.
Guided Implementation 3: Assess Key Capabilities for Planning Priorities
- Call 1: Model Level 2 business capability maps.
- Call 2: Create a strategy map.
Guided Implementation 4: Adopt Capability-Based Strategy Planning
- Call 1: Introduce Info-Tech's capability assessment framework.
- Call 2: Review capability assessment map(s).
- Call 3: Discuss and review prioritization of key capability gaps and plan next steps.
Contributors
- David Engel, Global Head of IT, Worldnet International
- Vincent Tung, Global Head of Quality & Compliance, Worldnet International
- 1 anonymous contributor, Purolator
