An Enterprise is an agent which delivers Product to its Customer. The Product (Good or Service) can be economic or not (for example, cultural value).

Embraces not only capitalistic Enterprises but also governmental Entity, university, research center, association…

An Enterprise can be a Legal Entity, a part of a Legal Entity, a network of Legal Entities.

A Group of Companies may represent a real Economic Entity with a unique decision center, without being described as one big Legal Entity. The Group teams represent an Enterprise, and each Company represents an Enterprise.

Enterprise Architecture-Description represents the Structure of the Enterprise Model

It generally is represented by Maps. which offer a Global View to better understand EA: Process Maps, Entity Maps, Function Maps, Solution Maps, Application Maps and Block Maps are the most commonly used. The most important is the Entity Map. CEISAR represents the Enterprise Architecture-Description according to a cube of 3 dimensions (see below):

- Complexity: isolates Enterprise Real World from Enterprise Model.

- Agility: isolates Enterprise Operations from Enterprise Transformations.

- Synergy: isolates Specific Elements from Shared Resources and Reused Models. Enterprise Architecture-Discipline represents the set of Transformation Processes to Build the Enterprise Model-Architecture.

An Entity is a representation of a real world object ex: Mr Dupond, Contract of Mr Dupond, Account of Mr Dupond…

Entities which have same Attributes and same behavior (same Life cycle and same Functions) have the same Entity Model.

A Business Entity is necessary for Business, independently of the Organization of the Enterprise, such as Product or Customer or Contract or Account.

An Organization Entity is necessary for Organization purpose : Organization-Unit, Position, Profile, Right, Duty, Role… are all Organization-Entities

Their requirements evolve by the time. They often are Solutions to differentiate from Competitors.

Ex: Solutions for Front Office, Product Design, CRM, End to End Process, Business Intelligence…

Many Evolving-Solutions require specific developments which can be based on reusable Components. Evolving-Solutions should be constructed with a Cooperative Approach.