Exploring Dynamic Inter-Organizational Business Process Collaboration

In B2B-collaboration, original equipment§manufacturers are confronted with spending§considerable time and effort on coordinating§suppliers across multiple tiers of their supply§chain. In tightly integrated supply chains, the§failure of providing services and goods on time leads§to interruptions of the overall production and§results in customer dissatisfaction. Collaborating§parties must be able to set up an§inter-organizational business process by disclosing§to each other only as much as necessary. At the same§time, checking the correctness of an§inter-organizational business process must not force§the collaborating parties into revealing their§process internals to each other. However, in B2B§collaborations, the ability of keeping internal§business activities secret is important for retaining§a competitive advantage. Hence, this book proposes§the eSourcing concept for improving the coordination§of service provision across several tiers of a supply§chain. eSourcing allows the external harmonization of§business processes and the internal integration of§heterogeneous system environments without requiring§collaborating parties to disclose internal business§details to the counterparts.