Exploring business capabilities

---
title: Exploring business capabilities
description: A business capability is the ability of an organization to do its business activities successfully and fulfill its business goals.
locale: en-US
canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/application-portfolio-management/eaw-business-capabilities.html
release: australia
topic_type: concept
last_updated: "2026-09-10"
reading_time_minutes: 2
breadcrumb: [Exploring the business architecture, Exploring Portfolio list view, Exploring Enterprise Architecture Workspace, Enterprise Architecture Workspace, Enterprise Architecture]
---

# Exploring business capabilities

A business capability is the ability of an organization to do its business activities successfully and fulfill its business goals.

Use the business capability mapping to establish a CI relationship between the business capability and the business applications. Establish a similar relationship between business capabilities and the application technologies to ascertain the risks involved in using them.

As business organizations grow, it’s imperative for an enterprise architect to assess the business capabilities to know how to strengthen the business processes.

From the Portfolio page in Enterprise Architecture Workspace, you can perform the following:

-   Create a business capability
-   View existing business capabilities
-   Add a sub-capability
-   Add architectural artifacts to a business capability
-   Associate a business capability with the business unit that uses it

You can also view and add business capabilities and perform a host of other tasks relating to business capabilities, from the Business Portfolio page. For more information, see [Exploring a business portfolio](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/application-portfolio-management/manage-business-portfolio.md).

**Note:** Before Australia Patch 5, a business capability could be associated with only one business unit, using a **Business Unit** field on the form. This field has been removed from the default form view and replaced with the **Related business units** related list, which lets you associate a business capability with multiple business units. The Business Unit field still exists on the table — administrators can add it back to the form from Form Layout if needed. Associations that existed before the upgrade are not automatically migrated; you must explicitly add the business unit to the Related business units related list.

**Parent Topic:**[Exploring the business architecture](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/application-portfolio-management/eaw-business-architecture.md)

**Related topics**  


[View all business capabilities on the Portfolio page](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/application-portfolio-management/eaw-view-all-capabilities-on-the-portfolio-page.md)

[Add or edit a business capability from the Portfolio page](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/application-portfolio-management/eaw-add-capability.md)

[Create a sub-capability from the Portfolio page](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/application-portfolio-management/eaw-create-a-sub-capability-from-the-portfolio-page.md)

[Create a Lucidchart diagram for a business capability in the Enterprise Architecture Workspace](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/application-portfolio-management/eaw-create-lucid-diagram-cap.md)

[Manage architectural artifacts of a business capability](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/application-portfolio-management/eaw-assoicate-artifact-bc.md)

[Add or remove business capabilities from a value stream stage](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/application-portfolio-management/add-or-remove-a-bc-from-vs-stage.md)

[Add a business unit to a business capability](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/application-portfolio-management/eaw-add-business-unit-to-business-capability.md)

[Remove a business unit from a business capability](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/application-portfolio-management/eaw-remove-business-unit-from-business-capability.md)