Global Networked Organizations

Designing relationships among business units is of growing competitive relevance. However, gaining critical participation and aligning business and technical issues are major difficulties these Business Networking Systems (BNS) have to face. On the basis of three types of BNS and the specifics of inter-business relationships, this article describes the implementation of three different BNS. The major steps are analyzed and two techniques which strongly determined the projects’ success are described. We conclude that design methodologies for BNS-projects should consider both, partner profiling and win-win situations, as integral elements which foster adoption and business orientation. 1. Relevance of Designing Business Networking Systems The Need for Establishing Networkability Relationships among business units are gaining momentum in a broad variety of industries. This is due to a new business model which emphasizes customer-orientation and flexible, tailored solutions on the one hand and cost-efficiency and quality on the other. To resolve the quest for more performance at lower costs new organizational paradigms suggest insourcing of all core competence activities and outsourcing of all other activities. As a consequence business networks emerge and relationships between organizational units are becoming more prevalent. As Davis/Meyer [9] put it “increasingly, value resides in information and relationships – things you can’t see at all and often can’t measure. The arrangements we are all used to, like working for money, paying for goods and services, and maintaining clear boundaries between one organization and another are all blurring.” As coordination science shows, managing is a highly information-intensive activity and applying information technology (IT) to this area has a profound impact. Many authors