Planning Considerations

As discussed, collaboration can drive process and operational improvements in many business areas, provided that the integration hurdles can be overcome and that the tools and technologies are mature enough to enable true collaborative behavior.

Web services can facilitate increased collaboration among businesses along the dimensions described above, since in many cases they fit the generic criteria for successfully deploying Web services: processes that are recurring, dynamic, and disconnected. ^[4] Web services provide the right blend of standards-based technology and cost-benefit to allow organizations to realize the real business benefits of collaboration.

Initially, as collaboration processes are implemented, they will be targeted toward close trading partners or internal divisions of large multinationals and conglomerates:

“Companies experimenting with Web services over the Internet are doing so only with established business partners. For now.” ^[5]

As experience is gained through increasing the scope and reach of collaboration for a variety of business processes, organizations will have the confidence to extend collaboration to trading partners outside of their normal partner channels. As the reach of collaboration is extended through Web services, increased benefits will accrue through interaction with more partners and by implementation across additional business functions.

As Web services standards and technology mature, particularly security standards, Web services collaboration will be extended to reach a growing number of trading partners. As this network or ecosystem of connected partners, suppliers, and customers continues to grow, organizations will increasingly derive greater business benefit through, for example, reduced inventories, improved cash flow, and greater customer satisfaction. Collaboration will inevitably be a significant driver behind the adoption of Web services technology, and will lead to more creative uses of Web services, along with their increased penetration into all areas of business operations, internally as well as across a networked value chain.

Plan of Action

Collaboration using Web services will require that every organization take specific actions in order to take advantage of their collaboration opportunities. These actions include:

1. Continue education and communication programs to ensure that both business and technical personnel are aware of the direction in which the organization is moving and how the deployment of Web services will impact them.

2. Start working with key trusted partners to ensure that they are willing to participate in pilot collaboration projects and that they are developing the technical capabilities to support the implementation of Web services.

3. Identify candidate business processes that can be extended across corporate firewalls using Web services. Initially focus on processes that can be automated with close trading partners who are willing to pilot programs for mutual benefit. Use the lessons learned from these initial forays to tackle high-cost, high-value process that can yield the greatest returns.

4. Consider where collaborative processes can improve business fitness metrics such as time to market, operating efficiency, cycle times, inventory costs, cash flow, and customer satisfaction.

5. Monitor Web services standards, specifically looking to the adoption of service registries (specifically, UDDI) for service publication and discovery, as well as business process execution (for example, BPEL4WS) standards.

6. Secure Identity Management (SIM) will play an important role in the collaborative use of Web services. Look to OASIS and the Liberty Alliance to see how the technologies that enable services registries and identity management will possibly converge.

7. During the early stages of the collaboration phase, it is not necessary to wait for Web services security to be fully ironed out. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) can be established with trusted partners to provide bulletproof security. Investigate the deployment of a VPN, but track the progress of Web services security standards such as WS-Security and XML Key Management Service (XKMS).

Maturation in the collaboration phase of the Web services adoption model will prepare organizations for the innovation phase of the Web services adoption model. The innovation phase will spur a new wave of rapid business change, which will largely shape the next wave of Internet expansion for organizations worldwide.

^[4]Forrester Research, December 2001, “The Web Services Payoff,” by Simon Yates, 6.

^[5]www.cio.com, CIO Magazine, September 1, 2002, “Web Services—Still Not Ready for Prime Time,” by Ben Worthen.