An Exploration of Emerging IOS Infrastructures

Pat FinneganUniversity College Cork, Ireland

May 10th 2004

Background

Timmers (1999) sees new business models emerging from linkages between elements of the value chains of different organisations.

Such business models result in new internal and external processes and relationships.

This will affect both how organisations relate to external parties (customers, suppliers, partners, competitors, and markets) and how they operate internally in managing activities, processes, and systems

Background

Much of the research on inter-organisational systems and business models has concentrated on well-established technology that has been implemented in simple supply chains (e.g. retailer and supplier)

Emergent technology such as XML presents a potential solution to the dynamic communication and collaboration needs of more complex business webs

However, the use of XML to support new inter-organisational business models has received little empirical attention.

Case Studies

Digifone Identifying the need for a pooled IOS

infrastructure Reuters

Building the IOS infrastructure (Reciprocal inter-dependencies)

APRA Implementing and exploiting the IOS Infrastructure

(Sequential Inter-dependencies)

Digifone and the Mobile Telecommunications Sector Digifone

Founded as Esat Digifone in 1997 Purchased by BT in April 2001 Now part of O2 Buying a 3G license

The Mobile sector Increasingly dynamic Mounting debts from spectrum auctions An increasingly saturated subscriber base Commitments to build new network infrastructure Volatile technological change

The Digifone Experience

The key issues instead relate to the strategic repositioning of the organization

within the telecommunications sector, and the development of the IT and systems

infrastructure to support the resulting new business models

The Digifone Experience

Digifone wishes to control ownership of 3G consumers, rather than be relegated to a commodity service as happened with Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Digifone will have control of customer information that will

not be available to any other single service/content provider; e.g. a full mobile commerce purchase history, site access history, target advertising details, roaming history, etc.

The m-Commerce Revenue Model Crisis The intangible value associated with the consumption of

mobile commerce services. The complexity of the value web needed for the delivery of

mobile commerce services.

The Digifone Experience

Digifone must be able to evaluate mobile services based on factors other than the volume of data downloaded.

The IOS infrastructure is required to record activities by customers and other value chain organisations. In particular, the IOS infrastructure can help Digifone: operationalise a rich description of mobile data/services, accurately measure the value associated with the delivery of

these data/services, and deliver value-added mediation services to market participants.

Value bar-coding?

Reuters

Founded in 1851 Now one of the world’s largest and most successful news

and financial information organisations. Over 16,000 employees in 220 cities in 94 countries Services nearly 500,000 professional users in 52,900

client locations Provides data on more than 960,000 shares, bonds etc. Read by users of more than 900 web sites worldwide, with 50

million online users per month. Maintains more than 200 million data records. Proprietary technology

‘Multiple feed – multiple boxes’ architecture Rethinking approach from mid-1990s

Addressing the Needs of a Changing Industry Dynamic Changes within the news media market Technological changes in the delivery and

consumption of digital content, and The need to address the enormous logistical

challenges presented by Reuters’ media operations.

Supporting Emerging Business Models Proliferation of content providers Multi-point positioning in the value chain Community-driven value

Supporting Inter-Organisational Business Processes

Each day, Reuters manages around 2500 editorial staff based in 190

locations in over 100 countries. Reuters produce and distribute about 14,000 headlines in 26

languages, over 1,000 pictures, and 23 hours of broadcast quality video.

‘Follow the sun’ approach Reuters bureaus in various locations around the world

collaborate over time to follow the unfolding of related news stories

Internal peer-review

Supporting Inter-Organisational Business Processes “content management is not only an issue in

the packaging stage where you are combining content, but also at the content creation stage when you want to know who is doing what and when, and what has previously been done on the subject”

Supporting Inter-Organisational

Business Processes Supply Side Internal Operations Demand Side

Global coordination of Reuters journalists; Authentication of news items; Centralised collection of media objects; Aggregation of disparate sources

Editing and relationship building between objects; Packaging, retrieval and transmission.

Use and reuse of content objects; Filtering activities; format management for multi-agent, multi-lingual consumption; interaction with users to personalise the delivery of content.

From an Internal Solution to an Open Industry Standard The challenges with news content management

were strategic and operational, as well as technological not unique to Reuters, or to the internal processes of any

one organisation, but were industry-wide “one of the reasons [Reuters] chose the IPTC as a

consortium is that is where our peers represented.”

NewsML

Reuters invented ReutersNewsML in 1998. Reuters submitted it to the International Press

Telecommunications Council (IPTC), which coordinated the development of NewsML.

NewsML has become the standard data format for multimedia content in Reuters Internet Delivery System (IDS)

NewsML was ratified as an IPTC standard for the entire global news media industry in 2000

NewsML

Multi-media “news wrapper” Facilitates exchange of news items Addresses needs of heterogeneous client environments

(mobile phones, desktop computers, interactive television, handheld computers or other devices).

Provides a common structure that enables news providers like Reuters to flexibly combine and recombine content items as they wish.

Helps publishers to create packages of personalised information targeted at specific audiences/users.

APRA

Australian Prudential Regulator Established in July 1998 Co-operative venture with ABS and RBA

(Central bank) XBRL-enabled IOS linking financial

institutions with APRA, ABS & RBA. Re-engineering the regulation process

Complexity of data consumption Ubiquitous data consumption Heterogeneous nature of data consumption Need to aggregate disparate data Adaptable data consumption Adaptive to users’ behaviour and

environment Proliferation of data consumers

Complexity of Value Webs

Constant change Re-positioning of existing players Inter-dependence between participants Multiple roles in the value web Proliferation of players

Context-driven data exchanges Real-time transparent exchanges Need to manage exchanges Need to measure value Metadata as value driver Data as a commodity

Commoditisation of IT

Pushed by legacy systems / integration Inter-industry standard (XML) Intra-industry platforms (Vocabs) Open tools Intangibles-based competition

Cooperation among value-web participants Community of peers Knowledge sharing Trust Collaboration Shared cost Shared risk

Summary

Digifone APRA Reuters Complexity of Data Consumption and Value Webs

Varied participants. Standardisable needs.

Less varied participants. Large degree of customisation.

Varied participants. Large degree of customisation.

Context of Value Exchanges

Complexity reduced by adoption of standards-based IOS.

Complexity reduced by design of standards-based IOS.

Handling of complexity facilitated by adoption of standards-based IOS.

Commoditisation of IT

Adopted and exploited by individual participants.

Used to implement accepted industry practices

Exploited due to network externalities.

Co-operation amongst participants

Buy-in to neutral 3rd party body (IPDR.org) to co-ordinate development.

Specifically created body (TDC) to harmonise stakeholder requirements

Industry body (IPTC) to co-ordinate adoption by peers

Conclusions