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2.2.3 Design and Development of The
Evaluation Methodology
The evaluation methodology will contain questions
depending on the business sector of the enterprise. In
both cases, questions represent one or more
assessment indicators. Since most questions refer to
intangible assets, a normalized performance scale
must be defined, and all answers (belonging to
different measures - percentage, numeric, pre-
defined choices) must be transformed to values in
the common normalized scale. In order to achieve
this, for each question different quality points Li are
defined that have corresponding points to the
normalized performance scale. The performance
indicators FID are conflated with given weights wi
in a similar way in order to produce a performance
value for each Indicator Category.
2.2.4 Performance Impact Estimation
Design
Enterprise integration has been found to lead to
improved enterprise performance (Armistead,1993),
(Frohlich,2001),(Brunnermeier,2003). In the context
of the evaluation framework performance impact
means that a B2B integration solution when used in
the enterprise and interdependencies environment
will improve some unit level performance measure.
For example, improved efficiency, improved
effectiveness, improved quality, or other
performance measures are possible. The framework
will provide a rough impact estimation that depends
closely to a vast number of input parameters
provided by the stakeholders in combination with
the B2B integration readiness results. These
parameters are organized as follows:
– Macroeconomics: These parameters deal with
the performance, structure, and behavior of
national and international economy. B2B
integration impact is implicitly affected by the
determinants of aggregate trends in an economy,
such as national income, unemployment,
inflation, investment, international trade and
international finance.
– Legal and Statutory framework: Current
legislation directly affects the performance
impact both in time (audit controls, legally
required fields, messages, documents or even
processes in transactions) and cost (value-added
tax, special taxes, regulation compliance cost,
etc)
– Pricing: Pricing models are not expected to be
solidified because many solution providers are
struggling to understand the value of the
products they offer. However, in general, pricing
structures can include: subscription fees (regular
monthly fees); membership dues (typically large,
one-time investments intended to help the
exchange fund itself); and transaction fees (fees
based on a percentage of the business that is
transacted on the exchange).
– Integration Effort: Integration effort is the
difficulty level of achieving integration and is
measured in terms of cost, time, and amount of
resources that must be used in order to achieve
the desired integration. Integration effort
includes implementation and operational effort
as well as maintenance and support effort. Other
integration issues can include: defining
integration standards, linking data from the
enterprise into the exchange's systems, deciding
the data owner, defining the timing of updates
and levels of secure access to information,
agreeing on decisions that will be made based on
the data and by which partner.
– The Exchange’s Technology Vendor
Relationships: The exchange's technology
vendor relationships provide insights into its
technology strategy, for example, is it using one
technology provider or trying to integrate
solutions across several providers? (Morrison,
2001) If the B2B integration framework is using
one vendor's technology, it may require less
effort to integrate, but the enterprise may not be
getting the best functionality for specific process
areas. Likewise, if the B2B integration
framework is working with multiple vendors and
taking a best-of-breed approach, integration may
be challenging, but functionality is likely to be
better.
– The Exchange's Partnerships and Members:
Many B2B integration solution providers are
building partnerships within different functional
areas and across process areas in an effort to
create a networked end-to-end solution. The
number and the quality of potential partners and
customers that are members of the provided
network can have a significant impact on the
enterprise (Ulfelder, 2004).
The performance impact estimation
methodology is depicted in figure 3.
Provided that an enterprise has completed the
readiness evaluation, the proposed framework can
approximately calculate the performance impact of
moving to a B2B environment by identifying the
new values of performance measures, such as
required time and cost per transaction, Business
Process Interoperability (BPI), quality of service
delivery, availability, etc. In order to achieve this, a
A METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH FOR MEASURING B2B INTEGRATION READINESS OF SMES
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