Application of the Business Networking Method at SAP

Chapter 4 describes different Business Networking strategies based on three levels of the Business Engineering Model. In reality these strategies do not normally appear in their original form. Existing strategies, IT applications and their functionaUties tend to mix them. Examples of this fact are businesses that:

Use ‘outsourcing’, ‘insourcing’ or ‘virtual organizing’ in parallel according to their business processes. For example, a corporation runs a virtual organization in procurement, operates insourcing in sales by taking over an eMarket and outsources all fulfillment activities.

Realize integrated electronic transactions. In the long-term it makes no sense to inform customers about new products, prices, specific product information, availabilities, etc. without giving them the chance to order. And without a selection of products and more or less individual negotiation no physical supply chain can be triggered and no order entry occurs.

Use different Business Networking systems at the same time. For example, decentralized eProcurement applications and eMarkets are used in parallel for procurement, and process portals support the entire customer needs on the sell side.