In order to investigate the notion of Enterprise Design, we take the general definition of design by Herbert A. Simon as the starting point: devising courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones. Undoubtedly, this definition does also hold for the design of enterprises: one wants to replace the current shape (AS-IS) of an enterprise by a preferred one (TO-BE). In discussing the design process, previous research in two different fields is investigated: the work by Wolfgang Hesse in software engineering and the work of Christopher Alexander in building engineering. Viewing a design process as alternate steps of analysis and synthesis, including the recognition of its iterative nature, seems to be a powerful idea.