Business modelling with UML: Distilling directions for future research

The Unified Modelling Language (UML) was originally conceived as a general-purpose language capable of modelling any type of system and has been used in a wide range of domains. However, when modelling systems, the adoption of domain-specific languages can enable and enhance the clarity, readability and communicability amongst modellers of the same domain. The UML provides support for extending the language for defining domain-specific meta-elements. This paper approaches the UML from a business perspective and analyses its potential as a business modelling language. The analysis proceeds along two complementary paths: a critical study of UML diagrams and a description of UML extensibility mechanisms for the definition of a business profile.