Creating Collaborative Partnerships through e-Business

teams, partnerships, and alliances

• organizations cretae and use teams, partnerships, and alliances to:
• undertake new initiatives 
• address both minor and major problems
• capitalize on significant opportunities
• organizations create teams, partnerships, and alliances both internally with employees and externally with other organizations
• collaboration system - supports the work of teams by facilitating the sharing and flow of information
• organizations form alliances and partnerships with other organizations based on their core competency
• core competency - an organization's key strength, a business function that it does better than any of its competitors
• core competency strategy - organization chooses to focus specifically on its core competency and forms partnerships with other organizations to handle nonstrategic business processes
• information partnership - occurs when two or more organizations cooperate by integrating their IT systems, thereby providing customers with the best of what each can offer
• the internet has dramatically increased the ease and availability for IT-enabled organizations alliances and partnerships

collaboration system

• two categories of collaboration
1. unstructured collaboration (information collaboration) - includes document exchange, shared whiteboards, discussion forums, and e-mail
2. structured collaboration (process collaboration) - involves shared participation in business processes such as workflow in which knowledge is hardcoded as rules
• collaboration systems include:
• knowledge management systems
• content management systems
• workflow managements systems 
• groupware systems

knowledge management systems

• knowledge managements (KM) - involves capturing, classifying, evaluating, retrieving and sharing information assets in a way thta provides context for effective decisions and actions
• knowledge mangement system - supports the capturing and use of an organization's " know-how"

explicit and tacit knowledge

• intellectual and knowledge -based assets fall into two categories 
1. explicit knowledge - consists of anything that can be documented, archieved, and codified, often with the help of IT
2. tacit knowledge - knowledge conatined in people's haeds
• the following are two best practices for transferring or recreating tacit knowledge
• shadowing - less experienced staff observe more experienced staff to learn how their more experienced counterparts approach their work
• joint problem solving - a novice and expert work together on a project
• reasons why organizations launch knowledge management programs

KM technologies

• knowledge mangement systems include:
• knowledge repostories (databases)
• expertise tools
• E-learning applications
• discussion and chat technologies 
• search and data mining tools

KM and Social networking

• finding out how information flows through an organization
• social networking analysis (SNA) - a process of mapping a group's contacts (wether personel or professional) to identify who knows whom and who works with  whom
• SNA provides a clear picture of how emplotees and divisions work together and can help identify key experts

content management

• content managemnet system (CMS) - provides tools manage the creation, storage, editing, and publication of information in a collaborative environment
• CMS marketplace includes:
• document management system (DMS)
• digital asset management system (DAM)
• web content management system (WCM)

working wikis

• wikis - web-based tools that make it easy for users to add, remove, and change online content
• business wikis - collaborative Web pages that allow users to edit documents, share ideas, or monitor the status of a project

workflow management systems

• work activities can be performed in series or in parallel that involves people and automated computer systems
• workflow - defines all the steps or business rules, from beginning to end, required for a business process
• workflow management system - facilitates the automation and mangaement of business processes nd controls the movement of work through the business process
• messaging-based workflow system - sends work assignments through an e-mail system
• databases-based workflow system - stores documents in a central in a central location and automatically asks the team members to access the document when it is their turn to edit the document

groupware systems

• groupware - software that supports team interaction and dynamics including calendaring, scheduling, and videoconferencing
• groupware system advantages
• facilitating communication(faster,easier, clearer, more persuasive)
• enabling telecommuting
• reducing travel costs
• sharing expertise
• forming groups with common interets where it would not be possible to gather a sufficient number of people face-to-face
• saving time and cost in coordinating group work
• facilitating group problem

videoconferencing

• videoconference- a set of interacts of interactive telecommunication technologies that allow two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmission simultaneously
• web conference - blends audio, video and document-sharing technologies to create virtual meeting rooms where people "gather" at a password protected Web site

instant messaging 

• e-mail is the dominant form of collaboration application, but real-time collaboration tools like instant messaging are creating a new  communication dynamic
• instant messaging - type of communications service that enables someone to crate a kind of private chat room with another individual to communicate in real-time over the internet