Digital Business Network (DBN)

In the world of BPMS a new concept is emerging: Digital Business Networks (DBN). In reality DBN is a mature model of what has formerly been known as "eBusiness network". Here is an example of DBN at work: chip manufacturer AMD brokered a DBN to deliver a $250 personal Personal Internet communicator (PIC) to India, Carribien and Latin America.

Instead of a single corporation putting together this business on their own (such as Dell or Lenovo), AMD acts a broker agent in the design of the product idea, the transformation of the concept into a product using an array of companies (Indicom, Solectron, Micro finance loan companies and NGOs) and in the sales and services (actually handled by intermediaries). BPMS traditionaly helps bridge the gaps between an organization's functional silos. DBN extends this capability to bridge across functional areas in different organizations. For instance: each of the design organizations on the PIC project has a product design functional area. DBN creates a secure transactional network between these areas so that the network (all of AMD's partners) can integrate their work to deliver the best value to the customer leveraging their combines skills and capabilities, acting as a more cohesive end-to-end organization. For more information on DBN and the technologies that enable this collaboration and further details on the AMD example view the Forrester Research roundtable discussion on DBN.