Supporting the Diversity of B2B E-Contracting Processes

Abstract

Contracts specify the rights and obligations of the contracting parties. Information technologies can make e-contracting more effi cient and effective. A process model for fl exible B2B e-contracting is proposed that separates concerns by distinguishing function and communication perspectives of e-contracting processes supplemented with activity constraints. The model supports the elaboration of fully detailed e-contracting process specifi cations, coherent communication between contracting parties, and seamless coupling between the internal and external activities of a company.KEY WORDS AND PHRASES: Business-to-business e-contracting, e-contracting process model, fl exible e-contracting.Business process modeling aims at improving the effi ciency and effectiveness of business processes executed in a company. Software applications with different levels of complexity are provided to coordinate and automate intraorganizational processes. Until recently, software applications modeling and supporting business processes were intra-organizational and thus limited to the scope of one company. With the rapid development of information technology, the possibility for supporting cross-organizational business processes has emerged. Research and standardization efforts have concentrated on modeling and realizing cross-organizational processes by supporting information systems [1, 9,17,26].Business-to-business (B2B) contracting encompasses a collection of coherent intra-and cross-organizational activities. To the extent allowed by the level of information technology, there have been many attempts to realize information systems that can support contracting processes [6,7,17,18,24]. Unfortunately, none of these systems has the fl exibility to support the complete range of contracting processes. This is mainly because of their reliance on fi xed, structured models of the contracting process for automated contracting support. Contracting processes are far too complex and variable to be addressed through traditional process specifi cations. Consequently existing systems only support context-specifi c contracting processes and provide little fl exibility in business relations.This paper defi nes a general model for B2B e-contracting that can specify diverse and fl exible e-contracting processes. The proposed model has three elements: a function perspective, a communication perspective, and constraint operators. The function perspective provides descriptions of e-contracting activities at multiple levels of abstraction. It supports process designers in the selection and specifi cation of contracting activities. Case PresentationThe The contracting process is not strictly defi ned and allows fl exibility to each party. A client will perform a number of activities. Figure 1 lists 12 activities typically performed by clients. The UML activity diagram shows one of the possible control fl ows for these activities.In parallel, Telegraaf also performs a number of activities. Figure 2 lists 13 activities typically performed by Te...

Patterns to Enable Mass-Customized Business Process Monitoring

“…The customer may ask to change its campaign if it observes that the ad is not reaching the target audience, the campaign has little impact, etc. This business case is described in greater detail in [28].…”

An e-contracting reference architecture

“…Table 1 contains the subset of concrete activities that together with the abstract activities are used for refinement of the general functional requirements. The complete set of concrete activities can be found in Angelov and Grefen (2004a).…”

“…Abstract activities can be decomposed to ''concrete" activities. In Table 1, based on Angelov and Grefen (2004a), we provide decomposition of the phases into abstract activities and decomposition of the abstract activities into concrete activities. Table 1 contains the subset of concrete activities that together with the abstract activities are used for refinement of the general functional requirements.…”

“…The architecture qualities are qualities that are important for the design of a ''good" e-contracting reference architecture. Initially, as an inspiration for the definition of non-functional qualities required in an e-contracting reference architecture, we used the list of non-functional qualities on information systems presented in Bass et al (2003) and existing publications on e-contracting (Angelov and Grefen, 2002, 2003b, 2004aGrefen et al, 2003;Griffel et al, 1998;Hoffner et al, 2001b;Merz et al, 1998). Based on our initial list of requirements, we defined a draft version of ERA.…”

“…Functional qualities express the functionalities that must be supported by an e-contracting system. We used Angelov and Grefen (2004a) for the definition of the required functionalities. Non-functional qualities are separated into two groups, i.e., system qualities and architecture qualities.…”