Loosely Coupled Business Practices Remember my ramblings about p2p companies? Well, when I wrote that piece I wanted to use the "loosely coupled" metaphor, but then for some reason I didn't. This article gives a some very interesting perspectives on the idea. You should also read the white paper. [Paolo Valdemarin: Paolo's Weblog]

» I'll be reading this article later on.  John Seely-Brown is one of it's authors so I have high hopes.

For now here is a 250 word summary:

• Collaboration can only generate economic value when it is firmly anchored in specific business processes that span across enterprises.
• Three core business processes meet this requirement: supply chain management, customer relationship management, and product innovation and commercialization.
• Li & Fung provides a powerful example of a new kind of sophisticated orchestrator coordinating a very broad process network.
• More fully developed process networks typically represent an expanding group of companies organized by an orchestrator to execute tailored business processes extending across multiple stages of activity.
• For ts and to motivate every orchestrator, then, there will be a growing number of companies known as service providers.
• Another aspect of Cisco's operations receives relatively little attention -- its development of an innovative process network to enhance the performance of its customer relationship management process.
• The differences between tightly coupled and loosely coupled business processes explain fundamental differences in the economic value creation potential of each type of business process.
• The early examples of loosely coupled business processes have all emerged within existing generations of information technology.
• Web services are the technology analog to loosely coupled business processes.
• Another key challenge in this stage is to build the appropriate information feedback loops to accelerate the ability of s improve their performance in supporting the process networks.
• Few companies will evolve to the third stage where they shed their traditional core business and become pure process network orchestrators.
• Success requires migrating towards a much more flexible business architecture supported ultimately by a more flexible technology architecture.