- Section 10: Tools and Technologies
Internet Hyper Chains. Architectures
to add flexibility to the value chain
N. Sakkas, R. Malkewitz, A. Oliveira
On the Offline Portability of Web Sites
G.R. Joubert, O. Kao, I. La Tendresse, S. Weinhuber
VIRTUE - The step towards immersive telepresence
in virtual video-conference systems
O. Schreer, P. Sheppard
eBusiness Solutions for Flexible Mobility
Services In Europe
G.Ambrosino, M.Boero, P. Eloranta, D.Engels, B. Finn, P.Sassoli
Solutions for Voice-Controlled eCommerce
and eBusiness Processes
R. Köppen
Measuring the Performance of eBusiness
and eWork based on their business processes
I.S. Fan, A. Heslop, M. Heras, J. Heredia
TOWER: Theatre of Work Enabling Relationships
W. Prinz, A. Mcgrath, A. Penn, P. Schickel, F.Wilhelmsen
How Business Models Influence the Development
of E-Business Applications
H. Kühn, S. Junginger, F. Bayer
Technical Tools for Improving communication
in Textile/Clothing Sector
F. Kotzia
Requirements for Mobile E-Commerce
A. Tsalgatidou, J. Veijalainen
Sustainable Workplace and Workplace Design:
From The Definitions Towards A Conceptual Model
C. Caramelo Gomes, G. Aouad, M. Ormerod
Net Society: Content Creation in Broadband
Systems
B. Lennstrand, C. Persson, L. Forsström
The challenge of Quality Assurance in
the growing telecollaboration practice
J.A. Garcia, J.M. Hernandez, A.J. Arenas
Recognizing Speech over IP: Towards Spoken
Language Interfaces for E-business
C. Peláez-Moreno, A. Gallardo-Antolín, F. Díaz-De-María
- An
R&D RoadMap for AI Planning applied to Workflow Management
P. Kearney, D. Borrajo
eComponents in Action: Software Components
Successfully Applied to Survive to eShock
C. Pérez-Chirinos
Sign Language Translation Technology
and Its Applications
M. Takeuchi, H. Ando, H. Sagawa, A. Koizumi, J. Matsuda, H. Fujisawa
A Mobile-Agent based Infrastructure for
eWork and eBussiness Applications
G. Samaras, P. Evripidou, E. Pitoura
InGeo-IC: The portal to Geodata
U. Jasnoch, S. Göbel, D. Balfanz
Zabalnet: A powerful platform for learning
and training on the Web
A. Segovia, J. Guinea
ECOS project: E-Business platform for
SMEs
M.F. Borras, R. Gonçalves, A. Steiger-Garçao
The Promotion of Electronic Commerce
in SMEs through a National Network of Local Business Centres
C. Mayoral, I. Atorrasagasti, P.L. Palomino, F. J. González
eBusiness Models within Small and Medium
Enterprises
F. Pigni, A. Ravarini, M.Tagliavini, G. Buonanno, C. Gallazzi,
D. Sciuto
A Methodology for Exploitation of Innovative
Results in Internet-Multimedia Fields:
The ECLAIR Project
B. Lacort
Internet
Hyper Chains. Architectures to add flexibility to the value chain
Nikos SAKKAS(1), Rainer
MALKEWITZ(2) and Alvaro OLIVEIRA(3)
(1) Planet, L. Riencourte 64,11523 Athens, Greece
(2) Fraunhofer Institut für Graphische Datenverarbeitung,
Rundeturmstraße 6,
64283 Darmstadt, Germany
(3) Alfamicro, Alameda da Guia, Nº192 2750 Cascais, Portugal
A hyper chain is a simple,
yet powerful conceptual extension to the traditional client-
server computing paradigm. It suggests a three layer model, including,
besides the client and the server, also a directory service provider.
Through this service, clients can first search and "reach"
suitable business partners, before embarking on fully custom
and "rich" queries and other business transactions
with these, meaningful to their purpose, partners. The implications
of this model can be significant, especially in the case where
the business environment involves value chains that are relatively
loosely connected and not fixed by definition. It may not be
equally helpful, in cases where the value chain involves always
the same companies, set around a fixed supplier mindset and modus
operandi. In this work a number of aspects of the hyper chain
will be presented. We will start by reviewing the business rationale
that underlies the approach and that in certain circumstances
may render it particularly resourceful. Then, we will present
the technical details of a particular hyper chain implementation
in the furniture-manufacturing sector. Finally, we will conclude
with some hints on the modalities by which such a service is
delivered and exploited.
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On
the Offline Portability of Web Sites
G.R. JOUBERT, O. KAO, I. LA TENDRESSE, S. WEINHUBER
Department of Computer Science, Technical University of Clausthal
Julius-Albert-Strasse 4, 38678 Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany
Due to the development of e-commerce/e-business
combined with global marketing strategies, the way in which products
and services are advertised changed dramatically. In the transition
from brick-and-mortar-business to e-business, the classic approach
of advertising in newspapers, on TV and radio, etc. was firstly
complemented with CD-ROM's. Due to the flourishing use of the
internet, companies increasingly tend to advertise directly through
web sites. A disadvantage, which is increasingly being felt,
is that many customers, sometimes still the great majority, prefer
the bricks-and-mortar mode of doing business. Companies are thus
confronted with the task of maintaining two separate information
bases describing their offerings. In this paper web elements
are analysed. Furthermore a system is described, which enables
the porting of a company's product information from a web site
to another medium, such as a CD-ROM. The main advantage is that
only one information base must be maintained.
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VIRTUE
- The step towards immersive telepresence in virtual video-conference
systems
Oliver SCHREER(1) and Phil SHEPPARD(2)
(1) Heinrich-Hertz-Institut, Einsteinufer 37, D-10587 Berlin,
Germany
(2) British Telecommunications, BT Adastral Park, Martlesham
Heath, UK-IP5 3RE
We present the challenging
project VIRTUE, which will supersede current video conferencing
systems. The essential features of this virtual video conferencing
system, aiming at a convincing impression of immersive telepresence,
are presented. To demonstrate what telepresence in video conferencing
means the main properties of such a system are described together
with the approaches to achieve the illusion of telepresence.
We discuss the technological challenges of the project, which
aims to advance the state of the art in a number of component
discipline areas, in terms of either proposing novel paradigms,
approaches and algorithms or pushing forward the frontiers of
the current approaches. Finally, we give first results of the
work, which end in the requirements specification of the advanced
real-time demonstration system. It will be designed and constructed
to achieve a 3-way telepresence video conferencing system supporting
life-sized upper body video images in a shared virtual environment.
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eBusiness
Solutions for Flexible Mobility Services In Europe
G.AMBROSINO(1), M.BOERO(2), P. ELORANTA(3), D.ENGELS(4), B. FINN(5)
and P.SASSOLI(1)
(1) ATAF, Azienda di Trasporto dell'Area Fiorentina, Via Pratese
105, Firenze, 50145 Italy
(2) Softeco Sismat SpA, World Trade Centre Tower, Via De Marini
1, Genova, 16149 Italy
(3) Mobisoft Oy, Hatanpaan valtatie 26, Tampere, 33100 Finland
(4) TRITEL, Louizastraat 40b, Mechelen, 2800 Belgium
(5) ETTS, European Transport Telematics Systems Ltd., 55 Main
Street; Rathfarnham,
Dublin, 14 Ireland
With increased eCommerce and
new forms of working, new patterns of daytime travel and of activity
are increasingly based within the community. This radically changes
the mobility patterns, and poses new questions for transportation
which have to be addressed and answered in the correct way in
order for the digital economy to bring real benefits to the citizens.
This paper provides an overview of main contributions provided
by eBusiness and eCommerce technologies in the development and
operations of innovative, flexible transport systems, addressing
the different levels of the business-to-consumer and business-to-business
sides of the process.
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Solutions
for Voice-Controlled eCommerce and eBusiness Processes
Ralph KÖPPEN
Novalisstr. 10, 10115 Berlin, Germany
Today's business solutions
using speech processing applications are often designed to give
customers easy access to standardized information. These systems
are rather expensive, inflexible and knowledge-intensive, and
thus not suitable for smaller companies or a broad market. Besides
this, they often do not have an intelligent acoustic user interface,
customers complain about their poor quality and they do not use
convergent technologies. A new approach (CorporateInfoCenter)
acts like a voice solution factory to overcome a lot of these
shortcomings. In addition, totally new value-added voice and
internet services can be designed and implemented. New speech
processing technologies will facilitate the next step towards
eCommerce - voice commerce: solutions for voice-controlled eCommerce
and eBusiness processes based on the internet.
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Measuring
the Performance of eBusiness and eWork based on their business
processes
Ip-Shing FAN(1), Alistair HESLOP(2), Miguel HERAS(3) and Jose
HEREDIA(4)
(1)Cranfield University, Cranfield, Bedfordshire, MK43 0AL, United
Kingdom
(2)Business Integration Technologies Ltd, Stoke Bruerne, Northants,
NN12 7SJ UK
(3) ESADE, Av Pedrables 60-62, Barcelona, Spain
(4) Universitat Jaume I, Campus Riu Sec, Castellón, Spain
eBusiness and eWork require
new working paradigm. The relationship between consumers, business
and people who works within the business are changing. The pace
of change is such that there are no static model that could be
used as reference for the way to work. For organisations to remain
effective within this fast changing environment, it needs to
know what is it doing (strategy), how it is working (business
processes) and how well it is doing (performance measures). Esprit
Project 26736 delivers an integrated methodology and a set of
tools to help an organisation to develop its performance measurement
system through business process. The performance measurement
system is developed in a way that aligns the operations performance
measures fully to the business mission and vision of the organisation.
Using the software tool developed in the project, the organisation
can rapidly review and adjust to the changing business environment.
This paper reports on the methodology and how organisations can
benefits from the approach.
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TOWER:
Theatre of Work Enabling Relationships
Wolfgang PRINZ(1), Andrew MC GRATH(2), Alan PENN(3), Peter SCHICKEL(4),
Fredrik WILHELMSEN(5)
(1) GMD-FIT, Schloß Birlinghoven, 53754 Sankt Augustin,
Germany
(2) BT-Labs, Ipswich,UK
(3) UCL, Bartlett School of Architecture, London, UK
(4) blaxxun GmbH, München, Germany
(5) Statoil, Trondheim, Norway
TOWER supports group awareness
and chance encounters through a 3D en-vironment which is at the
heart of the Theatre of Work. Users and their current actions
on shared objects while using a groupware application are re-pre-sented
by avatars and their symbolic actions. Avatars of users who work
in a similar context appear spatially close in the 3D environment.
The integration of the Theatre of Work into a work setting opens
new opportunities for spontaneous en-coun-ters and spon-ta-neous
contacts. The usage of TOWER increases the likeliness of synergy
effects to occur in virtual teams, and contributes to improved
team co-he-sion. The perception of co-presence effects the quality
of the work with respect to the quality of the out-come. It improves
the working atmosphere by the reduction of planning, sy-n-chro-nisation,
and coordination efforts, it reduces the feeling of isolation
of teleworkers and contributes to orientation in both the social
and the task related environment.
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How
Business Models Influence the Development of E-Business Applications
Harald KÜHN(1), Stefan JUNGINGER(2), and Franz BAYER(3)
(1) BOC GmbH, Development Dep., Bäckerstr. 5/3, A-1010 Vienna,
Austria
(2) BOC GmbH, Dep. IT Consulting, Voßstr. 22, D-10117 Berlin,
Germany
(3) BOC GmbH, Dep. Consulting Services, Bäckerstr. 5/3,
A-1010 Vienna, Austria
Currently, we are in the midst of the digital equivalent of the
Industrial Revolution. Internet technologies fundamentally change
the way business is done. Besides offering new possibilities
for existing business models, they also enable totally new ones.
This paper presents a methodology for the development of e-business
applications which considers in particular the (strategic) business
model level. The explicit representation of the business model
supports the design of the e-business application according to
the business needs. Additionally, a classification schema for
business models is explained and application architectures and
development technologies for e-business applications are described.
The three-level modeling language of the proposed methodology
has been realized within the (meta) business process management
tool ADONIS.
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Technical
Tools for Improving communication in Textile/Clothing Sector
Fani KOTZIA
CLOTEFI SA, El. Venizelou 4, GR-17676 Kallithea, Athens, Greece
It is well known - even to
non-experts - that companies in the textile/clothing sector face
not only the continuous increasing in the variety of products,
but also the internationalisation of the production usually to
low-wages countries. Two parts are involved and work usually
in co-operation: the 'designers' (contractors) with companies
established in Europe and the 'production units' (subcontractors)
in third countries. The communication becomes then difficult
due to objective reasons (i.e. bad quality of communication)
but also due to varying mentality among the different countries.
It has been among the objectives of the TEXCOMTOOLS project to
work on both sides: to work on a standardising model/recommendation
for technical information exchanged and in parallel, to build
a bridge between the two parties by introducing new scopes and
ways of working to the third countries.
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Requirements
for Mobile E-Commerce
Aphrodite TSALGATIDOU and Jari VEIJALAINEN
University of Jyväskylä, Dept. of Computer Science
and Information Systems/
Information Technology Research Institute, P.O.Box 35, JYVÄSKYLÄ,
40351 FINLAND
Mobile Electronic Commerce
(MEC) can be defined as Internet e-commerce conducted by a mobile
hand-held terminal and thus using the wireless telecommunications
network. MEC operates in a different context than Internet E-Commerce
due to the special characteristics and constraints of hand held
devices and wireless networks and the different usage of the
hand held devices than desktop or laptop PCs. The Wireless Application
Protocol (WAP) bridges the gap between the mobile world and the
Internet by optimizing the Internet standards for the constraints
of the wireless environment and hand held devices. A number of
companies started offering products to satisfy the continuously
evolving user requirements by exploiting the technical advances
in wireless network technology. This paper gives an outline of
the dynamically evolving functional and non-functional requirements
and of solutions currently offered in this area.
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Sustainable
Workplace and Workplace Design: From The Definitions Towards
A Conceptual Model
Cristina CARAMELO GOMES; Ghassan AOUAD and Marcus ORMEROD
Research Centre for the Built and Human Environment, Salford
University
R. Dr. Francisco Gentil Martins 2, 3dto. 2795-083Linda-a-Velha,
Portugal
BridgeWater Building, Salford Great-Manchester M7 9NU, United
Kingdom
This paper aims to highlight
the interaction of the workplace with the human behaviour. How
are the layout, finishing, furnishings and equipment perceived
by the human being, as its productivity? In the world, what we
perceive it is not the reality but just a repercussion of the
physical strengths on our sensitive organs. Which are the psychological
impacts of the workplace location as layout in the user behaviour?
Is the home workplace a question of social and professional isolation?
Is a misunderstanding of the individual life? Is the modern slavery
of the worker? Is this a consequence of workplace location, methods
of work or just user behaviour? The planning and the design of
an office should be a process where different areas give its
knowledge contribution to support the objective of the company
its activity and the users requirements. This bi-directional
interaction should result in the sustainable workplace.
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Net
Society: Content Creation in Broadband Systems
Bo LENNSTRAND(1), Christian PERSSON(2) and Lars FORSSTRÖM(3)
(1) School of Business, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 STOCKHOLM,
Sweden
(2) Media Technology and Graphic Arts, Royal Institute of Technology,
SE-100 44 STOCKHOLM, Sweden
(3) Telia AB, Box 20038, SE-104 60 STOCKHOLM, Sweden
The development of a broadband
application which integrates TV, Internet, picture telephones
etc has been going on for several years within Telia, Sweden's
leading telecom operator. The prototype solutions have been developed
from a vision of how the distant communication of the future
could function. Results of a qualitative study of how the prototype
is perceived by consumers and service providers are presented.
Compared to the Internet, the NNS prototype was perceived as
being simpler, less confusing, faster to navigate and suited
for all kinds of people. This paper has two aims: to provide
an inspiration for new applications in a broadband environment,
and to indicate problems connected with presenting content in
a broadband environment.
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The
challenge of Quality Assurance in the growing telecollaboration
practice
Javier A. GARCIA, José
M. HERNANDEZ and Antonio J. ARENAS
SIP, Ronda de Poniente 6, E-28760 Tres Cantos (Madrid), Spain
In our days, more and more
companies are adopting telecollaboration practices, supported
by the currently available networking facilities and tools. This
results in a company profile in which workers can be distributed
in different sites and companies, even at home, and can collaborate
through heterogeneous means. An immediate consequence is the
weakening of the cultural and procedural cohesion in companies.
Most Quality Systems, certified or not ISO-9000, are not conceived
for such a working scheme. As a result, the whole classical concept
of Quality Assurance (QA) has to be revised in depth, and new
models for QA have to be devised for those companies joining
the telecollaboration era. In this paper, the challenges faced
by companies which try to keep their quality standards in this
new context are analysed and the proposal of a model for QA in
telecollaboration-based projects is presented.
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Recognizing
Speech over IP: Towards Spoken Language Interfaces for E-business
Carmen PELÁEZ-MORENO,
Ascensión GALLARDO-ANTOLÍN and Fernando DÍAZ-DE-MARÍA
Dept. of Communication Technologies- Universidad Carlos III de
Madrid, Spain
Avda. de la Universidad 30, 28911 Leganés (Madrid)
In this paper we propose a
novel approach to speech recognition over IP. Specifically, we
suggest recognizing from encoded speech. In other words, we extract
the recognition parameters from the encoded speech instead of
decoding it and subsequently extracting the parameters, therefore
avoiding the influence of the speech coding distortion on the
recognizer. This approach has been proved to be much more effective
than the conventional one in coping with packet loss conditions,
which characterize the VoIP environment.
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- An
R&D RoadMap for AI Planning applied to Workflow Management
Paul KEARNEY(1) and Daniel BORRAJO(2)
(1) Advanced Communications Research, British Telecom
(2) Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
-
- This is an overview of the
R&D Road Map for AI Planning and Scheduling (AI P&S)
applied to business process management (BPM) produced by the
Workflow Management Technical Coordination Unit (TCU) of PLANET.
PLANET is the European Network of Excellence on AI P&S. The
purpose of a Road Map is to coordinate R&D by establishing
end-user requirements on short medium and long time scales and
proposing research and technology transfer goals and activities
that will enable the requirements to be satisfied. The current
version is only a first step towards such a Road Map, which in
any case should be a living document updated regularly.
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eComponents
in Action: Software Components Successfully Applied to Survive
to eShock
César Pérez-Chirinos
European Projects Manager; TransTOOLs, S.A.
Edificio World Trade Center; Isla de la Cartuja s/n; 41092 Sevilla
(Spain)
GIRALDA is an advanced Internet-oriented
architecture based on standard Java™ components and XML
documents, developed by TransTOOLs within the ESPRIT JEDI Project.
This paper will show how GIRALDA has been successfully applied
to solve some hard problems, in Internet time-to-market:
- Creation of modular multimedia
training courses delivered over Internet, for a German car manufacturer.
- Cloning a proprietary RAD
tool for business applications into a kit of standard Java™
components, making it ready to e-business application development.
Finally, it will show how GIRALDA
is being used in Jiralda™, a revolutionary 100%Pure Java™
tool for the visual creation of business applications that TransTOOLs
will release in last quarter of 2000. The applications visually
composed with Jiralda can run in any Internet client (HTML browser,
WML browser, etc.) transparently to its composers.
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Sign
Language Translation Technology and Its Applications
Masaru TAKEUCHI, Haru ANDO, Hirohiko SAGAWA, Atsuko KOIZUMI,
Junichi MATSUDA and Hiromichi FUJISAWA
1-280, Higashi-Koigakubo Kokubunji-shi, Tokyo 185-8601, Japan
We have developed two sign
language systems: a sign-language-animation editing system by
which persons who understand sign language can make natural sign
language animation; and a Japanese-to-sign-language translation-system
by which anyone (i.e., persons who do not understand sign language)
can make sign language animation in real time. Using the sign
language animation editing system, information providers can
communicate with deaf persons by natural sign language animation.
And by the Japanese-to-sign-language translation-system, they
can communicate in real time. Furthermore, deaf persons can talk
to information providers through the Internet by using sign language
recognition technology.
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A
Mobile-Agent based Infrastructure for eWork and eBussiness Applications
George SAMARAS(1) Paraskevas EVRIPIDOU(1) and Evaggelia PITOURA(2)
(1) Department of Computer Science, University of Cyprus
CY-1678 Nicosia, Cyprus
(2) Department of Computer Science, University of Ioannina,
GR45110, Ioannina, Greece
Mobile agents have emerged
as a very promising approach for eWork and eBussiness. We have
developed an extensive mobile agent infrastructure that supports
diverse applications in these fields. Our infrastructure is built
around two basic components: a mobile-agent based framework for
distributed database access and the PaCMAn (Parallel Computing
with Java Mobile Agents) metacomputer. The major functionality
of our database framework includes (a) the ability to dynamically
create personalized views for the mobile client, (b) dynamic
creation and configuration of Web-based warehouses and (c) dynamic
support of mobile transactions. PaCMAn offers the necessary tools
for Web-based distributed High Performance Computing (HPC) and
distributed data mining. Our infrastructure provides the basis
for developing eWork applications in many fields. We have utilized
it for applications, both wireless and wireline, such as: Electronic
commerce, Health Telematics, Teleworking, Distributed Data-mining
and Web-based supercomputing.
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InGeo-IC:
The portal to Geodata
Uwe JASNOCH, Stefan GÖBEL, Dirk BALFANZ
Fraunhofer-IGD
Rundeturmstr. 6
64283 Darmstadt
In Germany there exist innumerable
geodata which, on the one hand, represent a great economic value
but, on the other hand, lie idle to a great extent with (public
and private) data suppliers so that they cannot be disposed of
by potential geodata appliers. This is the reason for a platform
or a turntable to be found connecting the groups belonging to
the geodata market: geodata providers and appliers as well as
GIS service providers. The information and cooperation forum
for geodata (InGeoForum) has taken over to create such a platform
as a project and make it available to all groups. Within the
development of the InGeo-IC project methods and concepts have
been prepared allowing to find, compare, and assess geodata by
means of the metadata technique.
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Zabalnet:
A powerful platform for learning and training on the Web
Ana SEGOVIA(1) and Julio GUINEA(2)
(1) IBERMÁTICA, Av. Partenón 16-18, 28042 Madrid,
Spain
(2) ZABALNET, c/ Hnos. Lumiere, 1. Of.:15; 01510 Miñano,
Alava, Spain
This paper introduces Zabalnet,
a platform for distance learning on the Web. It describes the
functionalities and architecture. It also summaries the feedback
collected from current users and the foreseen evolution of e-learning
platforms like Zabalnet.
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ECOS
project: E-Business platform for SMEs
Miguel F. BORRAS(1), Ricardo GONÇALVES(2) and Adolfo STEIGER-GARÇAO(2)
(1)AIDIMA. - Benjamín Franklin, 13 - Parc Tecnològic.
E-46980. Paterna. Valencia - España.
(2)UNINOVA - Center for Intelligent Robotics,
Fac. Ciências e Tecnologia - Univ. Nova de Lisboa
Quinta da Torre, P-2825 Monte de Caparica - Portugal
The ESPRIT project 27111 -
ECOS "LITE e-commerce OPERATIVE SCALABLE solutions for SMEs"
aims to develop and implement a standards-based platform for
b2b e-Commerce in the furniture sector. The exchange and share
of Product Data were addressed using standard-based platforms
for Product Data Management, now extended to support the e-Commerce
services using Internet facilities. Harmonisation between the
ISO standards for product data exchange "STEP" and
"PLIB", and XML technology is being adopted for the
purpose. This paper will present the ECOS project industrial
objectives, developments and future plans. The text also refers
the profiles of targeted industrial users and the implications
on the different integration levels.
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The
Promotion of Electronic Commerce in SMEs through a National Network
of Local Business Centres
Concha MAYORAL(1), Ignacio ATORRASAGASTI(2), Pedro L. PALOMINO(3)
y F. Javier GONZÁLEZ(4)
(1,2)Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología, Paseo de la Castellana
160, 28071 Madrid, Spain
(3,4) Robotiker, Parque Tecnológico, Edificio 202, 48170
Zamudio (Bizkaia), Spain
This project, founded by the Spanish government, has been another
step ahead in the promotion and boost of the Electronic Commerce
in Spain. A network of Local Business Centres (AIMME, IAT, IBIT,
IAT and ROBOTIKER) has developed activities in order to disseminate
all the possible benefits and advantages of Electronic Commerce
for SMEs. This activities have consisted on the celebration of
conferences, specialised courses in E-Commerce and the implementation
of E-Commerce pilots in selected companies. The results of these
implementations have been gathered in some documents: best practices,
E-Commerce models, Procedure manual, etc. The project activities
have moved more than 500 companies all over Spain and 30 of them
have participated in the pilots. All the information related
to the project is available both in the Industry and Energy Ministry
(http://www.min.es/promoce) and in the project WEB (http://www.promoce.net)
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eBusiness
Models within Small and Medium Enterprises
F. PIGNI(1), A. RAVARINI(1), M.TAGLIAVINI(1), G. BUONANNO(1),
C. GALLAZZI(1), D. SCIUTO(2)
(1) Università Carlo Cattaneo, Centro Competenze Informatiche
Corso Matteotti, 22 - 21053 Castellanza (VA) - ITALY
(2) Politecnico di Milano, Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione
Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, 32 - 20133 Milano - ITALY
The growing diffusion of electronic
commerce (EC) and the increasing focus on supply chains could
lead companies of any size to face both economic and organizational
changes. Thus, EC is becoming a way to redefine the supply chain
to achieve a higher level of integration with business partners:
this requires the introduction of new business models. Moreover,
the business drivers for implementing supply chain solutions
turn out to be quite different for small and medium enterprises
(SMEs) than for larger companies: while the existing literature
mainly focuses on the experiences of large companies, the research
on EC driven supply chain applications within SMEs is still relatively
new. Through the description of SME case studies, this paper
outlines three business models each characterized by a different
way of establishing the relationships as well as the roles of
business partners.
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A
Methodology for Exploitation of Innovative Results in Internet-Multimedia
Fields: The ECLAIR Project
Benigno LACORT
CDTI (Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology of
the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology) Cid 4, 28001
Madrid, Spain
ECLAIR Project (EP 27105) focused
on the Technology Transfer Phase of the well-known product life-cycle.
Many European SMEs fail to overcome that phase and only a few
of them succeed in the marketplace. ECLAIR studied this problem
and valuable conclusions are now publicly available. A large
number of methodologies related to how to deploy a business plan
or how to deploy an exploitation strategy have been developed
so far but they have not been effectively adopted by target companies
of the ECLAIR initiative (Small European SW developers - SESDs)
due to either their small capacity to face up internationalization
or the vague and generic nature of such plans not always well
adapted to the real needs of these small companies. ECLAIR has
developed Guidelines for Exploitation Improvement well-suited
to these SMEs. These Guidelines have been tested with success
in real-life experiences. Additionally, the ECLAIR project reveals
a new way for the Administration to adopt an enabling role in
the exploitation of innovation process.
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