---
last_verified: 2026-03-18
pattern:
  id: business-drivers
  name: "Business Drivers Framework"
  category: define
---

description: >
  Categorizes customer business drivers into four pillars (Strategic,
  Financial, Business Ops, IT Ops) and maps them to cloud value
  propositions. Used during DEFINE phase to structure the Value Story
  and during CONFIRM to frame the Solution Proposal. Source: ECAL 3.1.

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# The Four Pillars
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pillars:

  strategic:
    label: "Strategic"
    headline: "Business Transformation to Cloud"
    description: >
      Long-term strategic positioning. Cloud as enabler for business
      model evolution, M&A, market expansion, or competitive defense.
    common_drivers:
      - "Cloud-first / cloud-native strategy mandated by CxO"
      - "Digital transformation initiative"
      - "Merger or acquisition requiring platform consolidation"
      - "Geographic expansion requiring global infrastructure"
      - "Competitive pressure from cloud-native disruptors"
      - "Board/investor mandate for technology modernization"
      - "Innovation enablement (AI/ML, IoT, blockchain)"
    value_propositions:
      - "Cloud-based solution with enterprise features"
      - "On-premise security with cloud economics (C@C, dedicated region)"
      - "Customer-defined security model"
      - "Data sovereignty and residency guarantees"
      - "Multi-cloud and hybrid flexibility"

  financial:
    label: "Financial"
    headline: "Cost Optimization"
    description: >
      Direct financial impact. CAPEX→OPEX shift, license optimization,
      support cost reduction, consumption-based pricing.
    common_drivers:
      - "Reduce total cost of ownership (TCO)"
      - "Shift from CAPEX to OPEX model"
      - "Optimize Oracle licensing (ULA wind-down, BYOL)"
      - "Reduce data center costs (power, cooling, space, staff)"
      - "Support rebate / simplified licensing"
      - "Avoid hardware refresh cycle"
      - "Consumption-based pricing alignment with business cycles"
    value_propositions:
      - "Subscription and consumption-based commercials"
      - "Simplified licensing (BYOL, universal credits)"
      - "PAYG flexibility for variable workloads"
      - "Support cost reduction via managed services"
      - "Elimination of hardware refresh capex"
    quantification_tips:
      - "Compare 3-year TCO: current state vs. OCI (include staff, power, space)"
      - "Factor in support rebate for moving to OCI"
      - "Account for BYOL savings (if eligible)"
      - "Include non-prod savings (auto-scaling, auto-stop)"

  business_ops:
    label: "Business Operations"
    headline: "Faster Time to Market"
    description: >
      Business agility and speed. Faster development cycles, quicker
      deployment of new capabilities, reduced time-to-value.
    common_drivers:
      - "Faster development and deployment of new applications"
      - "Reduce release cycle from months to weeks"
      - "Enable self-service provisioning for developers"
      - "Data platform for analytics and decision-making"
      - "Support rapid experimentation and A/B testing"
      - "Enable mobile/digital channels faster"
      - "Partner and ecosystem integration"
    value_propositions:
      - "Faster development of customer-facing and internal apps"
      - "Data platform implementation (lakehouse, analytics)"
      - "Self-service database provisioning"
      - "CI/CD and DevOps enablement"
      - "Integration with partner ecosystems"

  it_ops:
    label: "IT Operations"
    headline: "Operational Efficiency"
    description: >
      IT team productivity and operational excellence. Reduce toil,
      improve reliability, automate operations.
    common_drivers:
      - "Reduce DBA / sysadmin toil (patching, backups, monitoring)"
      - "Improve availability and reduce unplanned downtime"
      - "Standardize operations across environments"
      - "Automate provisioning and lifecycle management"
      - "Improve disaster recovery posture"
      - "Address skill gaps (hard to hire Oracle DBAs)"
      - "Consolidate tooling and reduce tool sprawl"
      - "Performance improvement without hardware throw"
    value_propositions:
      - "Oracle Managed Cloud environment"
      - "Autonomous operations (ADB self-tuning, self-patching)"
      - "Data platform implementation and consolidation"
      - "Performance improvement via Exadata architecture"
      - "Unified monitoring and management (OCI native tools)"

# ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
# Mapping: Business Driver → Hypothesis Family
# ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
# Use this to quickly map a customer's stated driver to a
# hypothesis family for the Value Story

hypothesis_families:

  db_consolidation:
    triggers:
      - "Too many databases across too many platforms"
      - "Hardware refresh coming due"
      - "DBA team stretched thin"
      - "License compliance concerns"
    use_cases:
      - "Consolidation of N databases to shared platform"
      - "Transform to fully managed operations"
      - "Improved elasticity and cost control"
      - "Standardized backup, HA, and DR"
    typical_services:
      - "ADB-S or ADB-D (for consolidation)"
      - "ExaCS or ExaCC (for large scale)"
      - "OEM for fleet management"
    pillar_alignment: ["financial", "it_ops"]

  cloud_migration:
    triggers:
      - "Data center lease expiring"
      - "Cloud-first mandate"
      - "Competitive pressure"
      - "EOL hardware or software"
    use_cases:
      - "Lift-and-shift existing Oracle workloads"
      - "Re-platform to managed services"
      - "Hybrid cloud (keep some on-prem)"
    typical_services:
      - "OCI Compute (VM/BM)"
      - "ExaCS (for Oracle DB workloads)"
      - "ADB-S (for re-platform)"
      - "FastConnect + VPN"
    pillar_alignment: ["strategic", "financial"]

  modernization:
    triggers:
      - "Legacy app can't support new business requirements"
      - "Technical debt is slowing delivery"
      - "Need for microservices or API-first"
      - "AI/ML capabilities required"
    use_cases:
      - "Re-architect legacy apps to cloud-native"
      - "Add AI/ML capabilities to existing workflows"
      - "Microservices decomposition"
      - "APEX rapid app development"
    typical_services:
      - "OKE (Kubernetes)"
      - "ADB-S + APEX"
      - "OCI AI Services"
      - "API Gateway + Functions"
    pillar_alignment: ["business_ops", "strategic"]

  dr_and_resilience:
    triggers:
      - "Recent outage or near-miss"
      - "Audit finding on DR gaps"
      - "Insurance or compliance requirement"
      - "Business continuity plan update"
    use_cases:
      - "Cross-region DR for critical workloads"
      - "Active-active for zero RPO"
      - "Pilot light DR for cost optimization"
    typical_services:
      - "Cross-region ADG"
      - "Full Stack DR"
      - "Object Storage for backups"
    pillar_alignment: ["it_ops", "strategic"]

  compliance_driven:
    triggers:
      - "New regulation (DORA, NIS2, GDPR enforcement)"
      - "Audit finding requiring remediation"
      - "Data sovereignty requirement"
      - "Industry-specific mandate (banking, healthcare)"
    use_cases:
      - "Data residency with OCI regions or dedicated region"
      - "Encryption and key management (customer-managed keys)"
      - "Access controls and audit trail"
      - "Isolated compute (C@C, dedicated region)"
    typical_services:
      - "OCI Vault (KMS)"
      - "Data Safe"
      - "Cloud Guard"
      - "ExaCC or Dedicated Region"
    pillar_alignment: ["strategic", "it_ops"]

# ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
# Usage in the skill
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skill_usage:
  define_phase:
    - "Parse discovery notes to identify which pillar(s) are dominant"
    - "Use pillar alignment to select the right hypothesis family"
    - "Structure the Value Story around the dominant 1-2 pillars"
    - "Use value_propositions as talking points for the proposal"
  confirm_phase:
    - "Frame the Solution Proposal business case around the identified pillars"
    - "Use quantification_tips for the financial pillar"
    - "Map each architecture decision back to the business driver"
