Business Capability

A business capability is a stable expression of organizational ability—such as “Manage Claims” or “Acquire Customers”—defined by outcomes, not processes or systems. Capabilities enable planning that survives reorganizations and technology churn. Maturity, performance, and investment align naturally to capability gaps.

In Practice

Larkinized LLC defines capability taxonomies with business leaders to ensure language matches strategy conversations. Capabilities link to applications, data, and metrics in the repository for heatmaps. Avoid overly granular capabilities that resemble task lists.

Example

The “Process Payments” capability maps to two applications and a target maturity increase from level 2 to level 4.