How did enterprises look 40 years ago today? What were the business process automation limitations without computers? How much harder was it to exchange information, not counting on global telecommunications and digital multimedia? Was it possible to externalize business processes without Web services and cloud infras- tructures? Was it possible to develop truly adaptable information systems, not counting on sensor technology? Answering these questions would bring us to a conclusion that enterprises have been shifting to experience a growing dependency on IT over the past several decades. For this reason, it is not surprising that software engineering is becoming increasingly relevant with regard to enterprise developments. Hence, even though enterprise engineering (EE) and software engineering (SE) have developed separately as disciplines, it is currently important to bring together enterprise modeling and software specification; this would allow enterprises to adequately utilize current technology. Applying a modeling approach for closing that gap would assume estab- lishing a common enterprise–software conceptual foundation; abstract models can essentially capture entities, processes, and regulations, no matter if this concerns software or an enterprise. Such a foundation would be useful in achieving enterprise– software alignment and traceability. Nevertheless, challenges would arise, related to the numerous enterprise–software-modeling perspectives: (a) In addressing an (enterprise) system, one would need to be able to model structure, dynamics, data and still keep all as a coherent whole. (b) In considering enterprise information systems, one would face the EE vs. SE viewpoints, needing nevertheless to keep the software under develop- ment consistent with its surrounding enterprise environment. (c) In modeling an enterprise/software system, one may take a black-box (functional) or a white-box (operational) perspective but it is necessary to keep the white-box models consistent with regard to the corresponding black-box models. (d) In considering context-awareness with regard to an enterprise information system, one should decide whether the goal is to optimize internal processes or to maximize the user-perceived effectiveness; this relates to the challenge of harmonizing the perspective of the (software) system and the perspective of the user. (e) In specifying software, one may need to weave in public values (such as privacy, transparency, accountability, etc.) that are essentially nonfunctional and thus need to be operationalized, in order to be actually reflected in the system’s functionality. Thus, we have many modeling viewpoints but we need overall consistency in order to be able to effectively bring together enterprise modeling (that is mainly rooted in social theories) and software specification (that is mainly rooted in computing paradigms), as discussed during the panel of the seventh edition of BMSD – the International Symposium on Business Modeling and Software Design. Referring to the LNBIP 275 preface: bringing together all those enterprise engineers and software engineers who are inspired to search for solutions on further bridging business modeling and software design is of key importance to the BMSD community.
