Back-End Management for E-Business Portals: A Workflow-Based Approach

In the E-Business world, a Web portal represents the contact point between a company and its customers. Like in the case of more traditional marketing tools, image is important in order to attract customers, but quality of service is fundamental for retention. This is especially true in a business-to-business scenario, were big sale volumes are at stake. New generation workflow systems allow full integration of web storefronts with existing business processes, as well as the engineering and enactment of a totally new type of processes. Harmonisation of web portal with business processes has a major impact on the quality of the service delivered to the customer as well as on the management complexity for business service platforms. We propose a workflow-based model for the integrated management of multiple/distinct business service platforms in terms of service configuration and service integration management. Leveraging on the HP workflow management system (Changengine), we provide some examples demonstrating the management effectiveness and operational efficiency of the model.