Business Cycle Synchronization and Regional Integration: A Case Study for Central America

In early January 2003, the United States and Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua launched official negotiations for the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), a treaty that would expand NAFTA-style trade barrier reductions to Central America. With deeper trade integration between Central America and the US, it is expected that there will be closer links in business cycles among Central America and the US. The aim of this paper is to assess the degree of business cycle synchronization between Central America and the US. This is not only relevant for a better understanding of the influence of important trading partners on the business cycle fluctuations in the domestic economy. It has also an important implication in terms of evaluating the costs and benefits of macroeconomic coordination.

Understanding the manifold forms of B2B integration - A transaction cost perspective

The need for collaboration within value chains is rapidly increasing and drives enterprise to align and electronically integrate their business processes with their business partners. As technologies evolve, manifold forms of B2B integration have emerged – from e-mail communication to customer or supplier portals, the exchange of EDIFACT- to XML documents, and Web Services. Although serviceoriented architectures (SOA) are considered the future of inter-organizational linkages, no empirical studies have been found which surveyed the impact of SOA on B2B integration costs and benefits. From a research perspective, we still lack a systematic analysis that explains how a specific B2B integration technology impacts the effectiveness of B2B integration. Building on transaction cost theory, this research analyzes the different forms of B2B integration with regard to their impact on connectivity and coordination costs. Based on a field study from the automotive industry, it demonstrates that there is economic rationale for preferring supplier portals to machine-to-machine integration based on EDIFACT or XML messages. Compared to prior technologies, SOA reduces the costs of external integration by eliminating separate B2B integration infrastructures and improving connectivity of internal applications. However, we find that prior literature tends to overestimate the impact of open Internet and Web service technologies on connectivity costs

Internal markets as a sourcing option for the delivery of IS services: Improving outsourcing and insourcing

The need for collaboration within value chains is rapidly increasing and drives enterprise to align and electronically integrate their business processes with their business partners. As technologies evolve, manifold forms of B2B integration have emerged – from e-mail communication to customer or supplier portals, the exchange of EDIFACT- to XML documents, and Web Services. Although serviceoriented architectures (SOA) are considered the future of inter-organizational linkages, no empirical studies have been found which surveyed the impact of SOA on B2B integration costs and benefits. From a research perspective, we still lack a systematic analysis that explains how a specific B2B integration technology impacts the effectiveness of B2B integration. Building on transaction cost theory, this research analyzes the different forms of B2B integration with regard to their impact on connectivity and coordination costs. Based on a field study from the automotive industry, it demonstrates that there is economic rationale for preferring supplier portals to machine-to-machine integration based on EDIFACT or XML messages. Compared to prior technologies, SOA reduces the costs of external integration by eliminating separate B2B integration infrastructures and improving connectivity of internal applications. However, we find that prior literature tends to overestimate the impact of open Internet and Web service technologies on connectivity costs

The internet: strategy and boundaries of the firm

Many advantages have been ascribed to the Internet. Although it lacks the necessary elements to be regarded as a strategic resource, the Internet seems to be a useful tool to provide support for business strategies.In this work we discuss how the Internet can be used to support the development of capabilities and define firm boundaries. Using a sample of Spanish firms, empirically analysed, we find positive relationships between the use of the Internet and product differentiation, as well as the introduction of organizational changes. In addition, we present evidence that the Internet reduces both internal coordination costs and transaction costs as a result of the positive relationships found between the use of the Internet, the degree of vertical integration and the establishment of technological agreements with suppliers and customers

THE INTERNET: STRATEGY AND BOUNDARIES OF THE FIRM

Many advantages have been ascribed to the Internet. Although it lacks the necessary elements to be regarded as a strategic resource, the Internet seems to be a useful tool to provide support for business strategies.In this work we discuss how the Internet can be used to support the development of capabilities and define firm boundaries. Using a sample of Spanish firms, empirically analysed, we find positive relationships between the use of the Internet and product differentiation, as well as the introduction of organizational changes. In addition, we present evidence that the Internet reduces both internal coordination costs and transaction costs as a result of the positive relationships found between the use of the Internet, the degree of vertical integration and the establishment of technological agreements with suppliers and customers.

The forms of industrial enterprices cooperation within fragmentated production

Проаналізовано основні особливості міжнародного ринку, що дозволяють промисловим підприємствам підвищувати ефективність діяльності шляхом застосування принципів фрагментації виробництва та побудови виробничих мереж. Узагальнено особливості таких процесів, як аутсорсинг, офшоринг, офшорний аутсорсинг, ніешоринг, блендсорсинг, які є окремими формами співпраці промислових підприємств у межах фрагментованого виробництва.The main features of the international market, that allowing industrial companies to improve performance by applying the principles of fragmentation of production and building production networks are analyzed at the article. Based on the analysis of statistical data on the volume and intensity of import transactions of intermediate products in the world market obtained conclusion, that today the industry characterized by a strong interdependence and coordination in global processes of globalization and inter-firm integration. These trends lead to the need for greater awareness of managers towards the exploration and use their own experience of new forms of cooperation. Developing the effective business structure should be based on current trends in innovation management companies. Especially important was the issue in a global competition where inflexibility, slow adaptability to business changes in the external environment, reluctance to transfer the functions of companies partners a destructive factor in the effort to increase the competitiveness of business entities. The features of fragmentation depending on the geographical relationships between the performers and the aspect ratios of ownership are considered in the article. Generalized features of such processes as outsourcing, offshoring, offshore outsourcing, nearshoring, blendsourcing, and found that traditional business models are losing their relevance for modern efficient business organization because competition between companies moved from the plane of factors of production in the plane of optimal allocation and using. The application integration and cooperative forms of cooperation allows the company to acquire the core competencies partners, that can make benefit for the production with minimal costs

On approach for the implementation of data mining to business process optimisation in commercial companies

Nowadays, organisations aim to automate their business processes to improve operational efficiency, reduce costs, improve the quality of customer service and reduce the probability of human error. Business process intelligence aims to apply data warehousing, data analysis and data mining techniques to process execution data, thus enabling the analysis, interpretation, and optimisation of business processes. Data mining approaches are especially effective in helping us to extract insights into customer behaviour, habits, potential needs and desires, credit associated risks, fraudulent transactions and etc. However, the integration of data mining into business processes still requires a lot of coordination and manual adjustment. This paper aims at reducing this effort by reusing successful data mining solutions. We propose an approach for implementation of data mining into a business process. The confirmation of the suggested approach is based on the results achieved in eight commercial companies, covering different industries, such as telecommunications, banking and retail

Simulating Collaborative Mobile Services – An Approach to Evaluate a New Location Enabling Service

Although enthusiasm for the “killer-application” in the mobile sector has decreased, location based services still seem to be valuable mobile services. Today’s location based services are mostly forced to use the proprietary location information provided by mobile network operators. The approach that is discussed here depicts a way of locating a mobile client independently from certain network operators and in heterogeneous networks. The Location Trader system collects and provides location information for users and providers of location based services. The accumulated interaction of each user of the user community enables to generate reliable location information in the Location Trader database. This paper prepares the groundwork for modeling the core principles of unintended value co-production with the Location Trader System. We intend to focus our analysis on the Location Trader System resp. Services, as the phenomenon of value co-production is widespread because of low coordination costs for integration and transactions enabled by immateriality and potential automation of business and transaction processes. The focus of this paper is the simulation of the user integration based on the theoretical basis