Glossary

Ontological model

Also called: business ontology

The formal vocabulary of the business: the actors, objects, events, transactions and outcomes the organization handles, and how they relate.

The formal vocabulary of the business: the actors, objects, events, transactions and outcomes the organization handles, and how they relate. It precedes and governs the data model; its purpose is to make processes, data, capabilities and indicators speak the same language.

Its absence has a recognisable symptom: two departments reporting the same indicator with different figures because each understands "customer" differently. That disagreement is not fixed with a dashboard; it is fixed by agreeing the vocabulary before measuring.

Related terms

Business entity

An object, actor, event or transaction the organization needs to know about, manage or evaluate, such as Customer, Request, Contract or Payment.

Business model

The starting point of the architecture: it describes how the organization creates, transforms, delivers and transfers value.

Data model

The structuring of business concepts into entities, attributes, relationships, domains, keys and referential integrity.

Semantic coherence

The condition in which every area uses the same concept with the same meaning. Its absence produces automations that work technically and fail commercially, as when customer, user and third…