TABLE OF CONTENTS The dawn of the new digital, networked economy [1], enables enterprises to transform themselves into adaptable processes networks [2]. The advent of the Internet as a universal communications platform extends even further a company's reach, and enables richer information exchange among collaborative networks of partners. In such an environment, companies must be flexible and agile able to react quickly with minimal effort and expense. Agility can be greatly increased by improving the ability to detect problems, threats, and opportunities, giving the organization and its partners more time to react. Innovative companies are using current advances in information technology [3] (like Collaborative SCM systems) and utilize common communication, security and process standards [4], to expand their networking capabilities and transform the nature of their operations. They are pursuing a more narrow control by reconfiguring their supply chains, focusing on core competencies that add value to their supply network, and leveraging skills and information technology to connect and coordinate processes among their trading partners in real time. Such seamless electronic connectivity enables companies to execute networked, cross-enterprise processes and integrate with trading partner operations.
These developments are transforming sequential, enterprise-centric supply chains in which an enterprise drives multiple processes, into synchronized electronically connected supply networks, where one process drives more than a single enterprise. E-supply networks may be established either via direct B2B interfaces or via a new breed of Trade Exchanges, or e-Markets, which facilitate information sharing,...
