Technology creates competitive advantage when an organisation knows how to use it well. As AI makes powerful capabilities available to almost everyone, the differentiator is the organisation itself: how its people work together, how quickly it can turn ideas into better services, and how effectively those improvements create business value.
The Business Technology Standard (BTS) provides an integrated operating model for doing this. It brings business and information technology together across the full value creation flow, supported by clear capabilities, roles and governance.
BTS is an open operating model that any organisation can adopt and adapt to its needs. We believe that the opportunities created by information technology, data and AI should be within reach of organisations of all sizes, anywhere in the world. By keeping BTS openly available, we provide a standardised and well-documented foundation for turning these opportunities into better services, better ways of working and greater value for organisations and people.
This new edition strengthens that foundation. The BTS capability model brings together six disciplines: Demand, Strategy and Governance, Service Governance, Development, Service Delivery, and Data and AI. It makes the operating model clearer and easier to adopt, with an even stronger focus on end-to-end value creation and the responsible integration of data and AI.
An operating model ultimately comes to life through people. Clear roles, responsibilities and ways of working help people collaborate, make better decisions and turn ideas into better services and ways of working. AI can increasingly support and automate their work, while human judgement, ownership and accountability remain essential.
The Business Technology Standard is developed by the Business Technology Forum together with organisations and professionals who contribute their experience and help keep the BT Standard practical, relevant and open to everyone.
Juha Huovinen
Chairman of the Board
Business Technology Forum
Katri Kolesnik
President
Business Technology Forum
Editorial Team
Juha Huovinen (Editor in Chief), Katri Kolesnik (Managing Editor), Elena Van Leemput (Product Manager)
Special thanks to Nicholas Leake and John Butterworth at King’s College London for their valuable contribution to the development and validation of this edition of the Business Technology Standard
Business Technology Standard Publication
The Business Technology Standard is published at btstandard.org. In addition, BTS Guides provide more detailed guidance on implementing specific areas of the Standard. The guides, together with further information on BTS training and certifications, are available through the Business Technology Academy.
Use of artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence was used to assist with drafting, language refinement and editorial consistency, using existing Business Technology Standard materials provided by the Business Technology Forum as source content. The substantive BTS content, models and illustrations were created and validated by the BTS development team and contributors. The final publication was reviewed and approved by the BTS development team.
