Towards the Development of an Adaptive Enterprise Service System Model

The continuous adaptation of modern enterprises is largely dependent on their underlying adaptive enterprise architecture capability. However, the establishment of an adaptive enterprise architecture capability requires defining the enterprise context before actually commissioning any enterprise architecture or adaptation work. This paper presents the adaptive enterprise service system (AESS) model based on the “Design Science” research method and “Theory Triangulation” approach. The AESS integrates the enterprise context perspectives from three well-known theories of agility, (agent) system, and service science. The AESS model, as a part of the large adaptive enterprise architecture toolkit, defines a modern enterprise as an adaptive enterprise service system. The adaptive enterprise service system is a multi-agent system of service systems that exhibits agility and focuses on the emerging service-centric view as opposed to a traditional product-centric view. The service-centric view of an enterprise is critical for establishing the adaptive enterprise architecture capability for handling complex enterprise transformations.