Entrepreneurial View of Automated Process Composition

For some, the ultimate goal of the semantic web service initiative is automated interoperation and process composition. Research activity is intense in this field and many approaches have been published and discussed in Academia. However, the predominant view is focused on technical issues, although the business aspects seem to be equally important. The introduction of interoperation and process composition is complex and has a great impact on the enterprise and its value chain network. Hence, industrial scale business cases are missing, a significant drawback that is preventing new technologies from entering the market. A fundamental problem in defining a business case is the lack of a conceptual framework. We need a model of the various factors that influence the enterprise and its value chain network when automated process composition is introduced. This paper presents such a framework, which may be a help in identifying future business cases and in attracting business partners.