Definition of Business Processes

[Andrew Chilcott <andrew.chilcott@stpsolutions.com>]

Hi, I'm Andrew Chilcott and am new to this discussion group. I have been
monitoring the mail on definition of business processes over the last week
or so and have the following comments:-

1.	Whilst I agree that SME's need some form of generic template to
start from, I really cannot see that it is possible for a global
organization to determine a detailed process that would be globally
acceptable. 
2.	There are enormous merits in defining a very basic generic framework
that all ebusiness can use. However, I would suggest that this should go no
further than defining basic structures ie. Orders, Order Confirmation,
Delivery, Invoice, Payment and the mechanism for passing Standing Data
between the parties to a transaction ie Name, Address, Tel etc etc.
3.	ebXML cannot do this in isolation - there are other organizations
working on generic XML Schema that will be in practical use before ebXML
produces a recommendation. In particular can I refer you to www.basda.org
where some 200 of the world's leading accounting and business software
houses have agreed an XML Schema.
4.	To open another discussion thread - one of the main things missing
from global ebusiness is a common identifier whereby the legal personna of
the party to a transaction can be traced and checked out with one or more
central databases. We have international standard numbers for books and
securities - should we not have some form of international standard for
unique entity identifiers. In most countries a social security number is the
most widely recognised unique identifier for an individual and a company
registration number for a limited company. In XML terms there would need to
be an element CommonIdentifier with attributes of CountryCode = ISO3166 two
digit code; IDType = Individual or Company, CommonID = Social Security
Number or Company Registration No.

andrew.chilcott@stpsolutions.com
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