=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-344/paper-27
|storemode=property
|title=Towards a Framework for B2B Integration Readiness Assessment and Guided Support of the SMEs
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-344/paper27.pdf
|volume=Vol-344
|authors=Spiros Mouzakitis,Fenareti Lampathaki,Dimitris Askounis
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/caise/MouzakitisLA08
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==Towards a Framework for B2B Integration Readiness Assessment and Guided Support of the SMEs==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-344/paper27.pdf
Towards a Framework for B2B Integration Readiness
Assessment and Guided Support of the SMEs
Spiros Mouzakitis1, Fenareti Lampathaki1, Dimitris Askounis1
1
National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece
{smouzakitis, flamp, askous},@epu.ntua.gr
Abstract. In today's world with companies operating in a global business
environment. Most enterprises, and especially the SMEs, lack the necessary
business culture, technical and non-technical infrastructure and economic
flexibility in order to efficiently adjust to the environment of a B2B integration
framework. This paper proposes an Enterprise Integration Assessment
Framework (EIAF) and its support software system that aims to aid enterprises
in adopting a multienterprise (B2B) integration approach by evaluating its
situational status and by estimating the expected integration impact based on
the evaluation results.
Keywords: B2B integration, readiness assessment, interoperability, impact
assessment, performance indicators.
1 Introduction
In today’s competitive business environment, companies are seeking ways to perform
transactions efficiently and effectively. The Internet has created a flexible platform
for the buying and selling of products and services. As businesses recognize the need
for employing efficient methods for the vertical exchange of goods and services, they
are considering the adoption of functional business-to-business (B2B) applications
and technologies that allow transactions in "real time.” [2]. The purpose of B2B
integration is to improve profitability through establishing relationships with other
organizations that will allow supply-chain planning, collaboration, product pricing,
logistics and distribution management, and procurement efficiencies [1].
Modern B2B technologies, have solved major technical issues of traditional EDI
but due to a vast number of non-technical adoption barriers, the efforts for business-
to-business integration are still enormous [10]. Although there are some approaches
and guidelines available that address the adoption phase, most Enterprises, especially
the SMEs, struggle to overwhelming the existing hurdles due to the following key-
barriers.To solve the current issues, we present a comprehensive framework that
measures the readiness of an enterprise to adopt a multienterprise (B2B) integration
approach and, based on the findings, provides thereafter guided support to the SMEs
with a view to overcoming the related barriers.
106 Proceedings of CAiSE’08 Forum
2 Methodology
2.1 Framework Overview
The Enterprise Integration Assessment Framework (EIAF) presents a research
framework and a web-based platform with an aim to aid the Enterprises, and
especially the SMEs transition to a B2B integration environment. The EIAF will
provide insight for the B2B integration adoption phase by:
Recognizing and classifying common integration patterns and styles
Identifying key technical and non-technical factors that affect the
transition
Presenting a comprehensive methodology for the assessment of an
Enterprise’s readiness to integrate with other Enterprises
Identifying aspects that affect the integration impact
Developing a “knowledge framework” which can support the enterprises
in their brainstorming for B2B integration
2.2 Framework’s Design Scheme
2.2.1 Modelling an abstract B2B integration framework
Τhe first step in the conception of the EIAF framework is the abstraction of existing
and upcoming B2B integration architectures and solutions. The abstraction process
involves the study and analysis of the most important both dominant and promising
integration technologies, solutions and standards. This analysis will lead to a
categorization and classification of the involved patterns based on both technical and
non-technical aspects of a B2B integration solution. Then, a generic model will be
produced for each possible abstraction of two or more categories.
The output of this procedure will be a set of generic enterprise application
integration models covering a broad range of integration styles and technologies.
2.2.2 Specification of the Αssessment Ιndicators
In order to specify practical and appropriate evaluation indicators measurable
objectives must be first identified clearly. Based on the prototype B2B integration
framework model, a number of goals can be realized through discourse and
negotiation with representative enterprises, such as seamless data exchange in
automated transactions between suppliers and partners that is characterized by
maintainability, trust and confidentiality, strong security, low
implementation/integration cost/effort, low operational cost/effort, value-added
functionality, high quality of service aspects, such as speed and availability.For each
section and integration level the appropriate indicators are conceived on the basis of
Proceedings of CAiSE’08 Forum 107
that they are related to one or more of the defined goals. Since hundred of
combinations can occur, the number of indicators must be set to the minimum
possible by eliminating indicators that coincide with each other or indicators that are
expected to offer the lowest visibility of the objectives.
2.2.3 Design and development of the evaluation methodology
EIAF’s evaluation methodology will be based on one thorough questionnaire that will
contain all the questions depending on the business sector of the enterprise. In both
cases, questions represent one or more assessment indicators. A basic question for
example could be “What is the number of (major) internal IT control breaches during
this year?” Since most questions refer to intangible assets, a normalized performance
scale must be defined, and all answers (belonging to different measures - percentage,
numeric, pre-defined choices) must be transformed to values in the common
normalized scale. In order to achieve this, for each question different quality points Li
should be defined that have corresponding points to the normalized performance
scale. The performance indicators FID are conflated with given weights wi in a
similar way in order to produce a performance value for each Indicator Category.
Then intermediate tables are used that contain the indicator value thresholds with the
corresponding performance score descriptions (Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor, and Very
Poor) for translating these values into graspable scores.
2.2.5 Performance Impact estimation design
Enterprise integration has been found to lead to improved enterprise performance
[7][8][9]. In the context of EIAF’s assessment framework performance impact means
that a B2B integration solution when used in the enterprise and interdependencies
environment will improve some unit level performance measure. EIAF’s will provide
a rough impact estimation that depends closely to a vast number of input parameters
provided by the stakeholders in combination with the B2B integration readiness
results. These parameters are organized to macroeconomics,legal and statutory
framework,pricing,integration effort,the exchange’s technology vendor
relationships,the exchange’s partnerships and members.
2.2.6. Design and development of the support software system
In the context of the EIAF project, a modern technological platform is developed to
support the application of the EIAF methodology in a cost-effective and easy manner.
This platform is an intelligent web based system which will evaluate the situational
status of a member Enterprise. More specifically , it will provide the level of
readiness to adopt a B2B integration solution, detailed analysis of the evaluation
results and an n depth examination of the weak points that diminish the worth of the
B2B integration
108 Proceedings of CAiSE’08 Forum
3 Conclusions and Future Work
The primary contribution of this paper was to propose a research methodology that
evaluates the readiness of an enterprise to adopt a B2B integration solution. Future
work includes collecting the complete set of the assessment indicators, adjusting the
evaluation method and proving the framework’s merits by collecting data and
performing statistical analysis to validate each of the proposed methodologies. Work
is going forward on using the research framework to understand SMEs B2B
integration in the Greece. Additional findings and results are expected during the
EIAF system’s pilot operation that will be circulated through further dissemination
activities.
Acknowledgments. The authors of this paper gratefully acknowledge the financial
support from Greece General Secretariat of Research and Technology, Ministry of
Development, under the program “Business models and technologies for automated
business to business transactions”.
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