Purpose
Various networked organizational forms already exist in the market today, however, all of them share the same problem – lack of fast and objective procedures for partners’ selection when addressing a particular project. The purpose of this paper is to solve such problems by offering an alternative to the existing global market layout, dominated by large corporations.
Design/methodology/approach
This research belongs to the category “fuzzy decision making and multi-attributive decision making,” since it is using methodologies such as the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), the fuzzy-AHP approach, and the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution.
Findings
The authors defend that appropriate partner selection is a vital success factor in any collaboration.
Research limitations/implications
The authors have designed a sustainable partner network solution for the field of machinery. Nevertheless, the proposed approach is adaptable to other fields also, whereas the focal player or project owner selects the best partner based on a set of criteria.
Practical implications
The paper includes a feasibility case study for the approval of findings, where several small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from the field of machining collaborate to achieve a common goal.
Social implications
The research focuses on production enterprises (especially for SMEs) and is intended to improve their competitiveness. Small enterprises combining into a network makes it possible to compete with large corporations and helps to decrease project initiation time and project realization risks.
Originality/value
The main idea is to collect information about the available resources of SMEs into a new temporary entity and to utilize those resources for the realization of the tasks of a particularly large project, while meeting customer expectations. In addition, this work also suggests a calculation tool for faster partner evaluation (assessment) based on various criteria for each particular project.
In current research it is suggested to use the Enterprise Architecture (EA) management approach, which enables to decrease the duration and to improve the efficiency of IS integration process. Developed framework for business process implementation is adapted to the requirements of the Virtual Collaborative Network of Enterprises. The key business processes should be described internally based on common standard for all collaborative partners and it is suggested to use the ISO 9000 Quality Management standard as a base. This process is followed by analysis of inter-organizational business processes and possible process modeling solutions are also outlined in the paper. The implementation and management of collaborative business processes decrease the risks for the new potential customers and partners on the way to successful collaboration. After the collaborative business process is described it is possible to proceed with the implementation of collaborative IS.
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