Fostering SMEs networking through Business Ecosystem and ICT

1
Fostering SMEs networking through Business
Ecosystem and ICT

• Lorena Scarpulla l.scarpulla_at_dtpm.unipa.it
• G. Perrone, L. Scarpulla, L. Cuccia

2
Fostering SMEs networking through Business
Ecosystem and ICT

• This paper presents an ongoing research whose
  aim is to build an ICT Architecture to foster
  SMEs Business Networking.
• The Business Networking Ecosystem matches both
  Strategic, Operational and Evolutionary point of
  view.
• This research has been developed within the SDBE
  project funded by the regional government of
  Sicily

While this paper provides only the general
description of the Networking Business Ecosystem,
forthcoming works will describe in further
details its valuable components.
3
Agenda

• The context
• The Networking Business Ecosystem
• The Intelligent system engine
• Conclusion

4
The context

• Networked organization has emerged as a new
  enterprise pattern able to better match the new
  competition arena requirements.

Through networks, SMEs are able to overcome some
of the limitations due to their size (achieving
scale and scope economies coming from resource
pooling) by maintaining the advantages coming
from being small
Several works have addressed the performance
issue for SMEs networks indicating that networks
are able to support long term growth for SMEs, so
several work packages of the 7th Framework
Program of the European Commission pay attention
to networking issue
5
The context

• ICT technologies promise new tools for improving
  business relationships making collaboration and
  coordination easier

Encountering the suitable business paradigm, ICT
can also improve the ability of SMEs to associate
in networks facilitating complementarities
matching and business opportunities discovery
The project presents a novel methodology for
improving SMEs networking not from a cooperation
and operative point of view, where different ICT
platforms have been already developed, but from
the SMEs networks building point of view.
6
Agenda

• The context
• The Networking Business Ecosystem
• The Intelligent system engine
• Conclusion

7
The networking business ecosystem

• The NBE draws on the European Project Digital
  Business Ecosystem whose main objective is to
  spread the use of open source software
  technologies
• Using an ICT platform, SMEs users adopt
  open-source software developed by SMEs providers
  according to their needs

Such an exchange should improve the development
of new software applications, allowing the growth
of both SMEs users and providers
The NBE takes inspiration from the idea to share
a distributed ICT platform, but it focuses on
developing networking opportunities for SMEs
registered in the NBE
8
The networking business ecosystem
The NBE consists of a set of registered SMEs that
interact each other through a distributed ICT
Architecture
An Intelligent System Engine evaluates SMEs
aiming at finding sustainable cooperation
solutions discovering new business opportunities
9
The networking business ecosystem
Pull Approach
Push Approach
NBE Technology Platform
Deficiency notification
A SME informs the system about a deficiency in
its activities the ISE searches the NBE to find
out possible partners that can help the
SME. Possible partners are evaluated, accordingly
ranked and proposed for a networked solution.
The ISE is not triggered from a specific
requirement, but periodically uses its own rules
to find business opportunities involving
registered SMEs
Networking solution suggestion
Business idea forecasting
Registered SMEs
10
The networking business ecosystem

• The NBE consists of several components
• a BML editor that is used by the SME to describe
  its business characteristics

• a Knowledge base system obtained using a
  network-oriented version of the Porter Value
  Chain, where activities are described through the
  beneath resources

• an Intelligent System Engine that processes sets
  of rules in order to discover business
  opportunities

11
Agenda

• The context
• The Networking Business Ecosystem
• The Intelligent system engine
• Conclusion

12
The Intelligent system engine
Strategic rules
Business discovery rules
Strategic approach
Operational approach
Evolutionary approach
13
The Intelligent system engine
The Strategic approach analyses firms activities
with a set of Strategic rules by this
evaluation, it suggests the best way to manage
them according to their attributes and firms
features

• The information provided by the strategic
  analysis is added to the knowledge base used by
  Operational approach to find business networking
  solution

Such a strategic approach allows the firm to
focus on its best resources and to rely on
resource pooling with external partners for
assets that cannot be developed inside or easily
traded in the market
14
The Intelligent system engine

• The Operational approach works scanning firms
  data through a set of Operational Rules aimed at
  finding bottleneck activities or underexploited
  resources

After activities have been scanned, the ISE
suggests actions for both covering the lack or
using resources underexploited to establish
cooperation relationships
The solution suggested by Business Discovery
Rules is notified to all the SMEs selected that
can eventually start the cooperation
Once SMEs agree in starting cooperation, a new
entity is created in the Ecosystem, thus allowing
population evolution
15
The Intelligent system engine

• The Evolutionary Approach allows the system
  learning based on a set of performance indicators

Also the system provides an objective evaluation
of SMEs suitability to cooperation
SMEs actually involved in networks suggested by
the NBE are asked to state their satisfaction for
joining the network and to evaluate other
partners behavior
This set of data provides a feedback, allowing
both population and system intelligence evolution
16
Agenda

• The context
• The Networking Business Ecosystem
• The Intelligent system engine
• Conclusion

17
Conclusion

• This paper presents an undergoing research whose
  aim is to build an ICT Ecosystem for SMEs
  Business Networking and provides only the general
  description of the Networking Business Ecosystem

While lot of theoretical and technical work has
been done in order to adapt Porter Value Chain
model and Business Modeling Language to obtain a
networked-oriented Knowledge base system and to
build the distributed ICT Architecture required
for SMEs networking further effort is required
to structure and integrate Strategic, Operational
and Evolutionary points of view
18
Fostering SMEs networking through Business
Ecosystem and ICT

• Lorena Scarpulla
• G. Perrone, L. Scarpulla, L. Cuccia