THE ROLE OF STANDARDS IN B2B COMMUNICATION

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1 THE ROLE OF STANDARDS IN B2B COMMUNICATION Eva Söderström School of Humanities and Informatics, University of Skoevde Box 408, Skoevde, Sweden ABSTRACT Recent developments in e.g. technology have brought new opportunities in how and with whom to do business. -to- (B2B) is given much attention, and is expected to rise further in popularity. Integration between B2B collaborators is most often undertaken using a B2B standard for the information exchanges. However, it is still unclear what role these standards play in the interactions. This paper analyses four existing standards in order to establish their respective roles. The results show that standards clearly cover different aspects, types, and levels of details of business es. The choice of standards is therefore complex and requires careful analysis and consideration beforehand. KEYWORDS -to-, Standard, Communication. 1. INTRODUCTION Recent technological developments have brought new opportunities in how and with whom to do business, which requires solid business es. This can be achieved through automation, such as automatic responses to electronic customer orders, and automatic notifications of product information updates. Automation removes much of the slow creation, handling, and distribution of business documents (Premkumar et al, 1994; Chau and Hui, 2001). Part of making the business es solid is to synchronise and integrate them. Standardisation of es and transactions is one approach, since co-operation is simplified if the same types of standards are used (Emmerich et al, 1999; Burrows, 1999, Hasselbring, 2000; Ghiladi, 2003). The setting of this paper is -to- (B2B), defined as: the use of the and Web-technologies for conducting inter-organizational business transactions (Thompson and Ranganathan, 2004). B2B organisations must form relationships with one another, and inter-organisational systems help improve these links. Standards are a natural part of such systems (Soliman and Janz, 2004). Even though standards are central to business communication, only little research has so far focused on elaborating on what role standards may have therein. This paper will analyse four existing standards for B2B with respect to their role in communication. We use a model of human-to-human (H2H) communication as the basis of analysis. B2B is described in chapter 2, B2B standards in Chapter 3, and the four standards are introduced in Chapter 4. The H2H model is introduced in Chapter 5, the comparison in Chapter 6, and Chapter 7 concludes the paper with a discussion. 2. B2B STANDARDS In this paper, a B2B standard is defined as: guidelines for how communication and information sent between organisations should be structured and managed (Söderström, 2004). One common misunderstanding is that standards are the same as the technology used. This is not the case. Instead, messages created based on the guidelines of the standards are sent using the technology. The standard is thus the glue enabling alignment and co-ordination of the communication. Standards differ in scope depending on type of information to exchange. Some focus only on the structure and content of messages (document-centric), while others focus 439

2 ISBN: IADIS on entire es for the communication (-centric). The common language usually consists of either Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) or the extensible Mark-up Language (). Standards are implemented to facilitate inter-organisational communication and co-operation and make it possible to replace much manual, paper-based communication with a more automated one. We will return to the communication focus in the description of the H2H model and in the analysis. 3. FOUR B2B STANDARDS The four standards were selected based on their widespread use and on their frequent appearance in scientific papers. They are presented in alphabetic in order to avoid placing any weight of importance on either one. The information is gathered from the respective standards homepage unless otherwise stated. BizTalk: BizTalk aims to drive the adoption of in e-commerce and application integration. It has three parts: BizTalk Server; BizTalk Framework; and BizTalk.org. The server provides a visual design environment for business es and a set of bindings to connect definitions to technologies. The BizTalk framework is an framework for application integration and e-commerce, and includes a design framework for how to implement an schema and a set of tags used in messages sent between applications. BizTalk.org is a community of standards users that provides resources for learning about and using for EAI and B2B document exchange. c: The aim of c is to facilitate the exchange of content and transaction information between buyers and sellers, via a protocol for consistent communication of business documents between procurement applications, e-commerce hubs and suppliers. c is a set of protocols. More precisely, it is an -based infrastructure for standardising electronic exchange, updating, supply and control of catalogue content and e-commerce transactions. eb: eb is a modular suite of specifications for conducting business over the. Specifications provide a standard method for business message exchange, trading relationships, data communication in common terms, and storage of business es in public repositories. eb consists of: An infrastructure; a semantic framework; and a discovery mechanism. The infrastructure helps ensuring inter-operability through a standard message transport mechanism, and a business service interface for handling messages. The semantic framework containing a meta- model for defining business and information models, a set of reusable core components that reflect business semantics and the vocabulary, and a for defining message structures and definitions related to the business model. The discovery mechanism allows organisations to find each other, agree on relationships, and conduct business. RosettaNet: The aim of RosettaNet is to establish standard es for electronic sharing of business information. The focus is on business vocabularies, message wrapping and transportation, and business es for information exchange. RosettaNet contains the following parts: ; Dictionaries; Partner Interface Processes (PIPs); and RosettaNet Implementation Framework (RNIF). There are two dictionaries: a business dictionary with properties for defining business transactions between trading partners, and a technical dictionary with properties for defining products and services. PIPs specify the standard content and format for sending and receiving messages. Lastly, RNIF provides exchange protocols for RosettaNet standards implementation, specifying information exchange between trading-partner servers using, covering the transport, routing and packaging; security; signals; and trading partner agreement. 4. MODEL OF HUMAN-TO-HUMAN COMMUNICATION Organisational -to- (P2P) communication can be compared to human-to-human (H2H) communication. This does not imply that organisations can or must conform to the shape of human communication, but enables an initial understanding of the role standards play in business communication. We base our comparison on the work by O Sullivan and Whitecar (2000), who used this approach when looking at the RosettaNet standard. This paper expands their analysis by adding three other standards. The H2H communication model (figure 2) is constructed from an organisational communication perspective, since the highest level is the business. Since B2B standards are used in organisations, 440

3 the model is thus relevant for comparison. The most basic part of H2H communication is sounds. The combination of sounds is used to make up letters in the alphabet. These letters can be combined to form words. Words are combined into sentences using grammatical rules in order to e.g. describe and discuss phenomena that exist in the world. Sentences are used in dialogues between humans, and are the basis of business es and the work performed therein. DIALOGUE Grammar Words Alphabet Sound Figure 2. Human-to-Human communication (adapted from O Sullivan and Whitecar, 2000) es may contain multiple, or sets of, dialogues. One difference between business and human communication concerns the type of actors in communication, since actors in business communication need not only be human, but can be systems or applications as well. 5. THE H2H MODEL VS. B2B STANDARDS Just as dialogue is at the centre of attention in the human-to-human model, standards are the focus of standards-based P2P communication (figure 3). Several references to the example standards will be made to exemplifying the correspondences, and figure 4 illustrates how each of these standards relate to P2P. Standards are exchangeable with dialogue, since they enable and are part of e-business es. Existing standards vary in naming and level of detail. For example, BizTalk and eb use Messages to denote dialogue, while RosettaNet has its PIPs at the same level, and c its documents. This indicates differences in level of detail, since a business document may imply more high-level and general information than a message. One commonality is that all standards deal with some type of written business information, where the senders and receivers are business es. However, BizTalk and c are document-centric standards, while RosettaNet and eb are -centric standards. Process STANDARD Models Process Definitions or EDI Figure 3. Process-to-Process communication (inspired by O Sullivan and Whitecar, 2000) A standard is made up of different models that can be graphical, textual, etc. Examples are schemas (BizTalk), protocols (c), and frameworks (RosettaNet). All standards have a set of rules for how to structure either just the messages, or both them and the es. Before model construction, definitions of concepts must be known. It must be clear what the message means. Our standards describe this in different 441

4 ISBN: IADIS ways, for example: BizTalk: defines tags similar to word construction, eb: defines concepts that refer or correspond to words, and RosettaNet: provides dictionaries of word definitions. Concepts can be defined using a common alphabet. This is essential for achieving inter-operability. In B2B standards, the alphabet is either or EDI. The most basic means through which standards-based communication takes place is technology, corresponding to sound in H2H communication. MESSAGE BUSINESS DOCUMENT MESSAGE PIP Schema Protocol Meta-Model Framework Tags Content Concepts Dictionary BizTalk c eb RosettaNet Figure 4. Human-to-human model versus four B2B example standards A summary of the comparison is presented in Table 1, outlining similarities and differences for each aspect. All standards use the same naming for e-business es. They also differ in coverage, since they are either document-centric or -centric. The two -centric standards differ between them, in what type of es they cover. RosettaNet focuses on a few industry branches, while eb takes a more general approach. All four standards deal with exchange of written business information, but differ in their naming convention. The same differences in es as with e-business apply here as well. Table 1. Comparison summary Human-tohuma Process-to- Similarities Differences e-business Naming Process coverage Types of es Dialogue Standard Transportation of written business information Naming of concepts Process coverage Grammar Models Some rules are provided Naming Concept content Words Definitions Support for words exist Naming Concept content Support for one or multiple words Alphabet or EDI All use None Sound All use technology None In grammar, all standards provide some rules for how to combine words into sentences, even though the approaches and names differ. For example, BizTalk: schemas, c: communication protocols, eb: an inter-operability meta-model, and RosettaNet: a communication framework. The exact contents of the concepts differ, and rules are thus provided in different ways. The same applies to words, where all standards have some support. Differences are naming, concept content, and support of either single (BizTalk tags, eb concepts) or multiple words (c document content, RosettaNet dictionaries). All standards are alike in alphabet and sound, since all use and internet technology. 442

5 6. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS The focus of the paper was to analyse four B2B standards with respect to their role in communication we discussed. Results showed that the standards cover different aspects, types, and levels of details of business es. Even though several of them deal with e.g. information sharing, they do so in different ways. The comparison provides an insight into how much and what parts of an organisation that will be affected using a standard. The differences call for a thorough analysis of standards content, to enable better decision-making about standards, as well as for an analysis on what organisations themselves want to standardise which will affect their standards choice. In the long run, it will not be enough to scratch the surface of standards. Future research will focus on providing organisations with a tool for comparing standards. REFERENCES BizTalk: Burrows, J. (1999), Information Technology standards in a changing world: the role of the users, Computer Standards & Interfaces, pp , Elsevier Science B.V. Chau, P. and Hui, K. (2001), Determinants of Small EDI Adoption: An Empirical Investigation, Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, 11 (4), pp c: eb: Emmerich, W., Finkelstein, A., Fuggetta, A., Montangero, C. and Derniame, J.-C. (1999), Software Process - Standards, Assessments and Improvement, in: Derniame, J.-C., Badara Kaba, A. and Wastell, D. (eds.), Software Process: Principles, Methodology, Technology, pp Springer Verlag Ghiladi, V. (2003), The Importance of International Standards for Globally Operating es, International Journal of IT Standards & Standardization Research, Vol.1, No.1, January June 2003, pp.54-56, Idea Group Publishing Hasselbring, W. (2000), Information System Integration, Communications of the ACM, June 2000, vol.43, no.6, pp O Sullivan and Whitecar (2000), Implementing an Industry Initiative: Getting to RosettaNet, Intel Technology Journal, 1 st quarter, February 3, 2000 Premkumar, G., Ramamurthy, K. and Nilakanta, S. (1994), Implementation of Electronic Data Interchange: An Innovation Diffusion Perspective, Journal of Management Information Systems, Fall 1994, Vol.11, No.2, pp RosettaNet: Söderström, E. (2004), B2B Standards Implementation: Issues and Solutions, PhD Thesis, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University, Akademitryck, ISBN Soliman, K. and Janz, B. (2004), An exploratory study to identify the critical factors affecting the decision to establish -based inter-organisational information systems, Information & Management, 41 (2004), pp Thompson, T. and Ranganathan, C. (2004), Adopters and non-adopters of business-to-business electronic commerce in Singapore, Information & Management, In press 443