A process model to guide the integration of business processes and services within and across organisations

Organisations are facing a major transformation from application-based to service-oriented architecture. It is the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that are especially confronted with both the opportunity and increasing pressure to establish efficient business-to-business (b2b) integration solutions to stay competitive in the globalised economy. As this integration involves business processes, services and technologies, they are complex and multi-disciplinary by nature and organisations have the need for a properly planned, methodological approach. To guide organisations in that process this paper introduces a process model for business integration. The methodology comprises an initial exploratory study, a thematic analysis focusing on process models in scientific literature, consolidated requirements for the model, and case studies conducted to refine and prove the practical applicability of the proposed process model. The process model was finally consolidated using triangulation of the results.