BUILDING SUCCESSFUL INTERORGANIZATIONAL SYSTEMS

Abstract

As organizations look for new ways to obtain business value from their investments in enterprise systems, they are naturally seeking to integrate their systems externally with suppliers, customers, and other business partners by implementing what are often called interorganizational systems (IOS). Although many organizations have realized sizable benefits from IOS, it is clear that much more improvement can be achieved. The key to realizing additional benefits is to build IOS on the understanding that the benefits an organization receives from IOS depend, not only on its own implementation choices, but also on those of its business partners. This paper reviews the conditions promoting and inhibiting benefit realization from IOS, presents two examples of companies that successfully addressed those conditions, and examines why some organizations find it challenging to imitate these examples.