In this example, we consider an automobile rental company. We are working in the current project to improve
the core aspects of rental management. We identify five domains, those being:
-
Marketing and Customer Management
-
Products
-
Rentals Management
-
Rental Fleet Logistics
-
Business Administration
For now, we will focus on the first four domains.
Identifying the Functional Areas
Each domain is analyzed to identify the major functions it is responsible for. Analysis results can be captured in a
visual model that groups functional areas by domain.
For Rent-a-car, we break the domains into functional areas by identifying major functional responsibilities for each
domain in focus: Marketing and Customer management, Products, Rental Fleet Logistics, and Rentals Management.
A major functional area of the Marketing and Customer Management domain is Customer Service. For this
example, we fill focus on this area.
For the Products domain, Promotions Management is a major functional area identified for further
analysis, because promotions affect rental pricing.
Fleet Management is a major functional area for the Rental Fleet Logistics domain that plays a role in
the reservation process, for example where vehicle availability information is important.
Rentals Management has been decomposed into three major functional areas: Rental,
Reservations, and Pricing. The Reservation and Rental functional areas provide
the most customer visible aspects of the car rental experience. Pricing is a key function for completing a reservation,
as well as for completion of the vehicle rental at check-in.
These will be the core functional areas for this example.
There is actually an overlap across several domains regarding pricing, but we have chosen to emphasize just the pricing
aspect of Rentals Management, because this is the aspect of pricing that is most directly related to the example.
The Products domain establishes baseline pricing guidelines that account for standard cost and profit policies.
Marketing and Customer Management information combined with information from Rental Fleet Logistics information and
other marketplace related criteria supports special promotional pricing by the Products domain. Marketing and Customer
Management influences the criteria by which pricing schedules are applied to various customer types.
Nevertheless, whatever led to the establishment of pricing schedules, in this specific example, it is Rentals
Management where the prices are actually used during the reservation and rental. In a different scenario, other aspects
of pricing could be the focus area.
Further analysis will consider the interdependencies that begin to emerge as analysis delves deeper into these
functions. For example, as part of Reservations, it would be advantageous to adjust pricing due to oversupply of
vehicles of a particular class at a particular location that Fleet Management is aware of.
Each functional area is described with a concise textual explanation. Further analysis -- such as mapping
the functional areas into business processes or performing business use case analysis -- would reveal the
services each functional area requires and offers, as well as which functional areas are related due to needs to
communicate during the execution of the business processes.
|