PANDA: Enabling RBVOs for the ERP/CRM industry using a Service Oriented Approach

Transcription

1 5th International Conference on Information Technology and Applications (ICITA 2008) PANDA: Enabling RBVOs for the ERP/CRM industry using a Service Oriented Approach Dimitrios Tektonidis, Ioannis Ignatiadis, Stamatia-Ann Katriou, Adamantios Koumpis Abstract PANDA is a European Union co-funded Information Society Technologies project examining innovative aspects of e-collaboration in the European Enterprise Resource Planning/ Customer Relationship Management (ERP/CRM) industry of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). One outcome of PANDA is an advanced Business to Business (B2B) web-platform, dedicated to serving the international value chain operations of the ERP/CRM industry. PANDA introduces a system with a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach which includes Request-Based Virtual Organisations (RBVOs), i.e. flexible clusters reflecting international ERP/CRM value chains, comprised of ERP/CRM vendors, their national representatives, dealers and consultants. The RBVOs are driven by the use of an innovative generation of sector specific Service Level Agreements (SLAs), which are a regulating framework among value chain members, for RBVO s operations. RBVOs and SLAs are served by a community of Intelligent Agents. The paper discusses the objectives of PANDA, illustrates its main concepts, briefly outlines the operations and explains the architecture of PANDA s system. Index Terms-- E-Collaboration, RBVO, SLA, SOA. I. INTRODUCTION As various independent researches [1, 2, 3] have shown, the European Enterprise Resource Planning/Customer Relationship Management (ERP/CRM) market a major part of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) applications market for business in Europe, currently worth approximately 15 billion is dominated by large multinational actors, most of them originating outside the EU. These actors focus mainly on the high-end market segment, i.e. ERP/CRM solutions for large multinational end-users, such as SAP solutions. However, the high-end market has already reached maturity, and there is a turn to mid-market and small-market segments, namely ERP/CRM solutions for small and midsize companies/end-users, as these are anticipated to drive market growth in the following years. EU Enlargement provides additional growth opportunities for these segments, though extended local alliances and business partnerships are required to respond to diversified local market needs. This makes it difficult for small or even large European players to This work was supported under the European Commission s Sixth Framework Programme for Information Society Technologies. We thank the European Commission for the generous financial support. D.T., S.A.K., A.K. are with ALTEC S.A. Research Programs Division, Thessaloniki, Greece ( {dte kann akou}@altec.gr) I.I. is with Kingston University, Faculty of Computing, Information Systems and Mathematics, Surrey, KT1 2EE UK ( I.Ignatiadis@kingston.ac.uk) ICITA2008 ISBN: expand activities using the traditional way, e.g. establishment of a number of branches per country. This is because: (i) they consider there is an increased risk and uncertainty investing in new national markets, (ii) they face difficulties in developing multi channel partner networks, (iii) they may not have the expertise to address the socio-economic barriers hindering internalization efforts, (iv) they lack in some cases the required financial and human resources. A review [4] on ERP installations in three European countries, concerning a three year period dating back to 2001, showed that more than 85% of ERP projects have failed to run within the assigned time period and over 60% of the projects exceeded the initially planned costs for the whole value chain. Focusing on current inefficiencies and sub-optimal implementations several weaknesses and malfunctioning aspects have been pinpointed concerning the whole ERP/CRM value chain. These inefficiencies include: Delays with the acquisition and formation of a partnership in the EPR/CRM value chain, i.e. vendor, national representative, solution provider or added value reseller / dealer, due to changing needs during this process. Delays in the implementation of ERP or CRM projects, due to a lack of transparency in the availability of resources among collaborating partners. Difficulties in the pricing and costing of the provided services among the value chain actors particularly in multi-regional or multi-national ERP/CRM projects, because of the differences in rates, taxes, and other national/regional particularities. This creates multiple side effects that require extra administrative and management resources, while there is also a need for more rational costing and planning of resources by all actors. So, there is a window of opportunity for improvement and optimization of operations for European ERP/CRM value chain actors, both large and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), to increase their market shares in the 28 member-countries of the European Union (EU-28) market, particularly in mid-small market segments. The PANDA project [5] aims to speed up the integration process in the European ERP/CRM industry, by developing an advanced set of conceptual components and e-services dedicated to: (i) addressing current inefficiencies in the ERP/CRM value chain (ii) facilitate efficient value chain operations and (iii) broaden opportunities for international e-collaborations. To do this, PANDA introduces a system with a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach [6], [7] which includes the powerful notion of Request-Based Virtual Organisations 478

2 (RBVOs), i.e. flexible clusters reflecting international ERP/CRM value chains. The RBVOs are driven by the use of an innovative generation of sector specific Service Level Agreements (SLAs), which are a regulating framework among value chain members, for RBVO s operations. SLAs in PANDA measure business objectives such as adherence to deadlines, costs, and other measurable business agreements within an RBVO. RBVOs and SLAs are served by a community of Intelligent Agents [8], [9], comprising a Multi-Agent System, that has been developed to orchestrate and automate SLAs empowerment and RBVO operations in a predefined, standardized and automatically generated manner. In the sections that follow, we start by discussing the objectives and main concepts involved in PANDA. We then refine the profiling and partner searches, as well as the RBVO life-cycle as we have currently implemented it in PANDA. Next we continue with the system architecture and components, before concluding the paper with our considerations for future work. II. OBJECTIVES AND MAIN CONCEPTS PANDA has developed a new partnership based e-business model and uses a set of integrated supporting technologies to engage and involve local players in flexible multinational e-collaborations, forming European clusters in ERP/CRM industry, in order to expand and broaden their activities. To facilitate e-collaborations in the ERP/CRM value chain PANDA s partnership-based business model is a distributed RBVO service for the internationalization and optimisation of the operations of the ERP/CRM value chain actors. The concept of RBVOs comprises a cluster of partnering organizations that have totally replaced their vertical integration into a virtual one. The RBVOs are short-living entities that are formed to respond to business opportunities offered by electronic commerce [10]. The key features of a RBVO as opposed to the classic Virtual Organization (VO) are: A possibility for an enterprise to discover potential business partners upon demand and advertise itself in a standard way. Short-lived ad-hoc virtual formations of collaborating partners. Highly dynamic involvement of an enterprise in different e-business activities, serving different defined and advertised roles, at the same time, if needed. In addition, RBVOs also inherit many of the features of a classic VO, i.e. A cluster of geographically dispersed organisations either within regions or inter regionally. A range of relationships from transactional to collaborative that vary dynamically over time in response to market opportunities. Lower transaction costs for geographically dispersed transactions. As has been mentioned, the RBVO s operations in PANDA stand on predefined, automatically applied web-based Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Consequently, SLAs act as the regulating framework of e-collaborations among RBVO members incorporating all the business, financial and legal aspects that are essential when considering the real environment in business. The organisation and functioning of the RBVO s activities, as those regulated under SLAs, are served by a Multi-Agent system that has been developed to orchestrate and automate procedures and operations of RBVOs. These services are hosted on a B2B web-platform. Figure 1 illustrates Panda s SOA architecture the central point of user interaction is a Web 2.0 based portal, which aggregates the content available via simple and composite services. Interests of individual members of the PANDA ecosystem are represented by intelligent agents, acting according to customisable business rules. 479

3 Fig. 1. PANDA s SOA Architecture The components that comprise PANDA are the following: Directory Service: A common repository containing login information, standard values like languages, modules, industry sectors etc. The directory service is accessed by a web service. Agent Service: A web service that enables the submission of a Collaboration Request to the Agent and the acquisition of the list of the proposed RBVOs. Controller: User Functionality that enables the creation and submission of Collaboration Requests to the Agent as well as Contract Management. Agent Component: The company agent that undertakes the negotiations and the formation of the RBVOs. Private Primitive Data Services: A set of simple web services that enable the company s Agent and Controller to access its Private Repository, i.e. Company Database. Private Repository: Contains private information of the company like Company Profile, Collaboration Requests, Contracts, etc. III. PROFILING AND PARTNER SEARCH In order to realise e-collaborations, companies in the ERP/CRM industry who will use the PANDA web-platform must create profiles so that they can be found by potential partners. A. Company Profile The Company Profile defines the information that PANDA platform stores for each partner in order to automate processes. It consists of the company s official information, i.e. its name and address, contact persons, the industry sectors in which the company has experience, the products the company has experience with, the languages in which the company can offer services, the countries where it can offer services, the services it offers and details that describe its field of expertise and interests. B. Collaboration Request Creation In order for a company to request for partners to collaborate on a project, such as ERP/CRM implementation at a customer s site or support/training/upgrading of ERP/CRM solutions, it must first define the type of partners it is looking for and define the details of the project. Company profile information is used to locate possible partners. Once the search has been completed and the project has been described, Collaboration Requests (CR) are sent to all prospective partners via their agents. These requests describe the nature of the project and the particular experience of the partners who are being sought to do collaborative work. IV. PANDA RBVO CYCLE Once a Collaboration Request has been created by a company, referred to here as the RBVO coordinator, and sent to potential partners, referred to as collaborators, the companies that receive the request may begin negotiations. This is done by editing the request and sending a proposal to the coordinator via their agents. When the coordinator wants to select a proposal he/she first views all the proposed RBVOs then chooses the preferred one. The collaborator who made the 480

4 proposal is informed that its proposal has been accepted and the coordinator starts composing a contract with its new partner. Once the contract has been defined and agreed upon by both parties the project is started. This Collaboration Request lifecycle is illustrated in Figure 2. Fig. 2. PANDA s Overall Collaboration Request Lifecycle V. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE AND COMPONENTS A. Panda Portal The Portal of the PANDA system is based on Web 2.0 technologies in order to facilitate the interaction with the end user. More specifically the Portal consists of a set of components based on Microsoft Web Part s technology. Each component is a stand-alone web control that wraps relevant functionality. The web controls use Ajax technology for interfacing with the end user and Web services to communicate with the Panda repository. This three tier component based architecture enables customization of the portal to user needs. In general the Panda system aims to be adaptable to the user environment. distributed instances of Partner Agents interacting with each other and with a set of centralized platform services. During the Collaboration Request (CR) lifecycle, the agents are involved in negotiating CR details that lead to RBVO formation. Each agent is dedicated to a single company the member of the value chain. The scope of agent contribution can be formulated as agent-based negotiation towards RBVO formation by using dynamic (semi-)private knowledge. The agents represent individual actors participating in the RBVO formation processes taking into account individual private constrains, preferences that are hidden to other actors and minimizing the disclosure of such private information. The interaction amongst agents in PANDA for the handling of collaboration requests and RBVO proposals is shown in Figure 3. B. Panda Agents The PANDA agent system is composed of independent 481

5 Fig. 3. Collaboration Request Submission and RBVO retrieval In their negotiations, agents can be guided by user-defined business rules. Agents need to decide which of these rules are applicable in each type of negotiation. Flexibility is needed when adapting and prioritising these rules as the negotiations progress. Such rules can be set by each user to guide his/her agent, and can be implemented using a rules engine such as JBoss. Indicative user-defined business rules for the negotiation amongst agents may include: My tolerance on price is -x% to +y%. I am prepared to wait x days to get a better price. I will pay more for the project to be finished sooner (Y/N). Only consider partners in the same region/country as me (Y/N). If the buyer comes from regions A or speaks languages B then lower the price by x%, otherwise raise by y%. I do not want to participate in projects less than x Euros. C. Project Management module The project management module of PANDA is a SOA component that can be invoked when partners for a project have been found and the relevant contract between them has been accepted in the system, indicating that the project is currently in its running phase. Being a SOA component, this module can be adapted to user needs and commercial packages e.g. Microsoft Project may also be plugged in. In PANDA we have designed the project management module using open source tools as a demonstrator of its value in running projects. In this module users can define deadlines and milestones in order to monitor the progress of the project. Changes to the RBVO can also be accommodated, e.g. companies can join or leave the RBVO after its initiation. The designed management module also includes a reputation mechanism for partners to rate each other in an RBVO. This is important since companies may not have collaborated before and therefore need a measure to gauge the reliability and expertise of potential partners before entering into agreements. The business viability of the partner reputation mechanism in a complex business area such as the implementation of ERP/CRM systems is currently being evaluated in the PANDA project. VI. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK The advantages of SOA can be obtained for a conglomeration of companies coming together to synergistically exploit complementary skills and competencies. Although there is not a shortage of platforms for firms to collaborate online in particular industries or across industries, the advantages of adopting a SOA approach for such platforms offered by the adaptability and easy reconfigurability to match 482

6 heterogeneous RBVO s business requirements, need to be taken into consideration. Coupled with (semi-)automated decisions aided by intelligent software agents (with regards to partner selection and formation of RBVOs), an e-collaboration platform based on these principles is expected to significantly aid the operations of international ERP/CRM value chains. In the current phase the existing PANDA system is being tested by actors vendors, national representatives, dealers/consultants in the European ERP/CRM industry. Their feedback will provide directions for the updating of the system and the development of a business plan for its commercial exploitation. It would be beneficial to the creation of partnerships (RBVOs) and the running of collaborative projects for us to conduct follow-up research on: Providing a higher level abstraction of agents so that they can easily be switched on or off, or their functionality updated according to business needs. This may be useful in cases where users prefer to carry out the relevant business processes manually, e.g. finding suitable collaborating partners and negotiating the terms of agreement. Abstract at a higher level the rules and criteria used for partner searches, which are currently hard-coded in the system This would make the system more SOA compliant and agile to the needs of different value chains in different sectors. Increasing the sophistication of agents. Agents could mash-up information, e.g. partner profiles, from different sources on the web, not just from the portal or from partners systems. Agents could also be implemented with a learning mode, with which the user could teach the agent such things as price tender strategies, and correct the agent when these strategies go contrary to user requirements. Using mash-ups to create profiles. As mentioned above, agents could mash-up information to created partner profiles. This information could be found in business directories or other distributed entities with which PANDA can communicate via SOA. To construct a user s profile information can also be used from the project management module, e.g. previous collaboration history. In essence, this uses the module as a business intelligence function. By following such an approach the value of mash-ups can be demonstrated and decision services, such as finding the most suitable partners for a project, can be further enriched. Further abstraction of directory services, e.g. modules offered, service offerings, so that the system can be easily used in other service-oriented business sectors. Opening the market more by carrying out transparent collaborations in PANDA. In the current closed market of ERP/CRM companies this is not possible due to business and operational restrictions, i.e. confidentiality. This would include looking at the softer aspects of Web 2.0 and SOA in an attempt to develop a better climate of trust for the user. The latest Web2.0 initiatives such as Google OpenSocial and examining their applicability in a business context and their potential relevance to PANDA. The linking to geographical location or mapping services, e.g. Google Maps, might also be used for calculations of geographical distances between partners in PANDA, providing more accurate partner matches when geographical location of partners is an issue. Although we have not touched on the issues of building online trust in such environments [11]-[13] in order to increase collaboration, the softer aspects of e-collaboration in the European ERP/CRM industry also need to be examined. We hope that the results of our research will be of benefit to other environments where collaborative software solutions as services (installation, customization, training, support) requiring the skills and competencies of more than one partner need to be provided to an end customer. The business viability of the proposed solution in other collaborative environments is also a matter for future research. ACKNOWLEDGMENT We would like to thank all the PANDA partners for their valuable collaboration and support. Without the generous support of the EU Commission this project would not have been possible. REFERENCES [1] IDC study, Western European ERP Applications Competitive Analysis, 2004, Nov [2] ARC Advisory Group, ERP Software and Services Worldwide Outlook Market Analysis and Forecasts Through 2008, [3] AMR Research, European Market Analytix Report, , [4] ALTEC CORPORATION, ERP installations. Problems & inefficiencies, Dec [5] PANDA-Project, EU IST , [6] J. Bloomberg. and R. Schmelzer. Service Orient or Be Doomed!: How Service Orientation Will Change Your Business. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, [7] R. Tews, Beyond IT: The business value of SOA, AIIM E-DOC, vol. 21, pp , Sept/Oct [8] F. Guidi-Polanco, C. Cubillos, and G. Menga, The Global Automation Platform: An Agent-based Framework for Virtual Organizations, in: PRO-VE'05-6th IFIP Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises. Valencia, Spain, [9] V. Marik and D. McFarlane, Industrial Adoption of the Agent-based Technologies, IEEE Intelligent Systems, vol. 20, pp , [10] B. Roberts, A. Svirskas and B. Matthews, Request Based Virtual Organizations (RBVO): An Implementation Scenario, PRO-VE 05: 6 th IFIP Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises, Valencia, Spain, Sept [11] T. Dimitrakos, M. Wilson, and S. Ristol, TrustCoM - A Trust and Contract Management Framework enabling Secure Collaborations in Dynamic Virtual Organisations, in: ERCIM News. Sophia Antipolis, France. pp , [12] I. Ignatiadis, A. Svirskas, B. Roberts, and K. Tarabanis, Promoting Trust in B2B Virtual Organizations through Business and Technological Infrastructures, International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organizations, Special Issue on: Trust Development and Management in Virtual Organizations, vol. 3, pp , [13] S.S. Msanjila and H. Afsarmanesh, Towards Establishing Trust Relationships Among Organizations in VBEs, in: PRO-VE'07: 8th IFIP Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises. Guimaraes, Portugal,