Methodology and Software Components for E-Business Development and Implementation: Case of Introducing E-Invoice in Public Sector and SMEs

Many benefits from implementation of e-business solutions are related to network effects which means that there are many interconnected parties utilizing the same or compatible technologies. The large-scale adoption of e-business practices in public sectors and in small and medium enterprises (SMEs)-prevailing economic environments will be successful if appropriate support in the form of education, adequate legislative, directions, and open source applications is provided. This case study describes the adoption of e-business in public sectors and SMEs by using an integrated open source approach called e-modules. E-module is a model which has process properties, data properties, and requirements on technology. Therefore e-module presents a holistic framework for deployment of e-business solutions and such e-module structure mandates an approach which requires reengineering of business processes and adoption of strong standardization that solves interoperability issues. E-module is based on principles of service-oriented architectures with guidelines for introduction into business processes and integration with ERP systems. Such an open source approach enables the spreading of compatible software solutions across any given country, thus, increasing e-business adoption. This paper presents a methodology for defining and building e-modules.