Future Internet EU Project

 

Интернет на бъдещето - Проект на Европейския Съюз

 

FIA Valencia Session: What does Future Internet mean for enterprise?

 

 

Background and Objective

This session is motivated by the outcome and follow-up activities of the FIA Stockholm Enterprise session. The objective of this session is to further advance the Stockholm results by:

• Stimulating additional debates on several of the priority topics
• Attracting new inputs from a broad spectrum of stakeholders of FIA
• Reaching agreement (where possible) on the direction of the Future Internet research that would motivate, enable and support enterprises, including SMEs, to achieve their business aspirations and objectives, thereby creating a positive impact on the economy and society.

This session is planned in close consultation with the Future Internet Enterprise Systems (FInES) Cluster of DG INFSO, taking into account the Cluster’s recent publications. These include analysis of the economic crisis context and ICT-enabled enterprise transformation, as well as the final version of the FInES research roadmap expected to be released in the coming weeks.

 

[edit] Target Participants

The session is targeted at all stakeholders of FIA. We emphasise the multi-disciplinary nature of the enterprise domain and welcome participation from all.

The session has been planned to encourage energetic debates and active participation in advance of, during and after FIA Valencia.

 

[edit] Session Description

Recent research and our ongoing consultations suggest that the new drivers for prosperity and growth will come from innovation and from using resources better, where the key input will be knowledge. Future competitiveness will be driven by factors far beyond conventional economic dynamics. Instead, the focus is increasingly on conserving and making more effective use of energy, natural resources and raw materials; it is also on social cohesion, tackling unemployment and fostering social inclusion. European enterprises have the opportunity to thrive in this post-crisis landscape by means of environmentally and socially responsible business innovation and creativity.

Enterprises of the future are envisioned to be ever more open, creative and sustainable – they will become Smart Enterprises. Smart enterprises will reap competitive advantage through innovation. Innovation is at work at different levels. It includes not only products, services and processes; but also the organisational model and the full set of relationships that comprise the enterprise’s value chain. The unifying glue is the enterprise’s business model. New value propositions and business models will arise, generating new demands for and from ICT. The Future Internet will best support and enable enterprises by directly meeting requirements as determined by the business models. It will give enterprises a new set of capabilities not possible today. Specifically, Future Internet will enable enterprises to innovate through flexibility and diversity in experimentation with new business models, structures and arrangements.

The time has come to consider what Future Internet systems may be, that will deliver to and deliver for future enterprises. Whatever they might be, one thing is certain – those systems will not be based on technologies in silos. Instead, it is envisioned that they will directly reflect the “DNA of the Future Internet” so that they are, for example, simple to use, adaptable to dynamic needs, customisable to highly specialised markets, affordable to small budget holders, as well as having the required technical attributes of accessibility, reliability and interoperability. They will be enterprise-centric rather than technology-centric. The availability of such systems would lead to an explosion of adoption by particularly SMEs. The DNA of the Future Internet would become the building blocks for potentially an unlimited array of value-added enterprise applications.

The session will focus on the following three themes, emphasising the central role of innovation in catalysing Europe’s economic recovery and pursuing future growth and prosperity:

• Vision: Smart Enterprises of the future and Innovation as a business routine
• Business Models: business models to support new value propositions and drive new business values
• Future Internet Systems: next generation systems that will support enterprises to innovate and thrive in the post-crisis landscape.

 

Future Internet Enterprise Systems (FInES) Cluster.

 

The FInES Cluster is uniting the previous Enterprise Interoperability and Collaboration (EI) and Digital Ecosystems (DE) clusters in order to encompass the past and current research experts and organisations focusing on benefiting all of us by offering an increased opportunity for synergy and enhanced collaboration among research projects in this unit.

The community of the former Enterprise Interoperability Cluster represents the Enterprise Interoperability and Collaboration Research Domain in Europe, and is composed of FP6 and FP7 funded projects, as well as experts and stakeholders from all over Europe, working in the areas of Enterprise Software, Enterprise Interoperability and Collaboration applicable to enterprises. In 2009, additional projects were added from the former Digital Ecosystems Cluster in order to foster endogenous local development, local capacity building and knowledge sharing processes providing tailored and personalized ICT services to citizens and business networks.

 

 

Socio-economics aspects of FIA

 

• The impact of FI on enterprises: What are the trends? What are the needs? How to determine, evaluate and measure the needs?
• A new notion of enterprise and enterprise network: Internal organization of enterprises - traditional hierarchical structures will change? External organization of enterprises – new forms of enterprise collaboration and new paradigms for enterprise competition? Boundaries between what are “inside” and “outside” an enterprise – more fluid, less structured, even disappear?
• Business models and relationships: Enterprises as “prosumers” of FI technologies and services? New agreements will emerge? New possibilities of and approaches to enterprise innovation?
• Enterprise “attractiveness”: new business values beyond economic values? Enterprise sustainability incorporating economic sustainability, environmental sustainability and social sustainability?
• Telecommunications sector: how will Telcos adapt to the FI technologies in order to expand their area of business, their customer base and the offered services?

Questionnaire:Media:FIA_Enterprise_Social_Economics_Questionnaire.doc‎

 

[edit] Results on the prioritisation of topics based on submitted questionnaires

1. Impact of FI on enterprises: High priority (75%), Medium priority (25%), Low priority (0%)

2. A new notion of enterprise and enterprise network: High priority (20%), Medium priority (60%), Low priority (20%)

3. Business models and relationships: High priority (100%), Medium priority (0%), Low priority (0%)

4. Enterprise “attractiveness”: High priority (50%), Medium priority (25%), Low priority (25%)

5. Telecommunications sector: High priority (20%), Medium priority (20%), Low priority (60%)

 

[edit] Additional comments

1. Impact of FI on enterprises: [no specific comments received so far]

2. A new notion of enterprise and enterprise network: [no specific comments received so far]

3. Business models and relationships: [no specific comments received so far]

4. Enterprise “attractiveness”:

• Important issue but difficult to find a balance that fits the enterprise objective, i.e. to make higher profits!

5. Telecommunications sector:

• Why just telcos? We should consider more than one sector. Software market, content Industry, etc…
• Telcos are slow in adoption of novelty. They will keep the current business models as long as they are profitable! (example: IPv6 adoption by ISPs)

6. Proposal for a new topic 6: Adoption: Hard to answer to the problem indicated by Mrs. Reding that only 9% of SMEs are issuing e-invoices? Recent stories of usage of Web 2.0 in enterprises and e-government are disappointing.

 

[edit] Technology aspects

• Internet by and for People, the Enterprise of Employees. FI will empower employees and workers by making them more prone to networked collaboration, to open innovation, to social solidarity and at the same time allowing them to become co-owners and convinced ambassadors of the Enterprise’s mission and objectives
• Internet of Contents and Knowledge, the Enterprise of Experience. FI MultiMedia and Knowledge Management technologies will allow an unprecedented user-centric production and sharing of experiences for professionals and citizens, by radically changing the notion and nature of IPR & DRM, inside and outside the Enterprises’ borders
• Internet of Things, the Enterprise of Intelligence. Trillions of Things becoming smarter and smarter will further decentralize enterprise vital and decisional processes, while proliferation of information and need for mobility will emphasise the need for ubiquitous and more personalized decision support and multi-modal, interactive semantic workspaces
• Internet of Services, the Enterprise in the Cloud. FI highly professional Service Parks (Cloud Computing), user-generated Service Galaxies (Service Web) and open/trusted Service Federations (Utility Platforms) will represent an unprecedented opportunity for Enterprises not just to outsource their IT functions and dynamically access them from the cloud, but also to become service providers and protagonists of the Service Economy
• Trusted Network Infrastructure & Experimental Facilities, the Enterprise in the FI. FI Universal Business Infrastructure, characterized by technology convergence, low- or zero-cost, easiness of use, availability to all, federated trust and security policies as well as encompassing end-to-end large scale test beds will allow Enterprises, and SMEs in particular, to win their reluctance to go digital and to run their most critical and vital transactions and business processes in the Future Internet Infrastructure, under guaranteed and secure agreements

Questionnaire:Media:FIA_Enterprise_Technology_Questionnaire.doc‎

 

[edit] Results on the prioritisation of topics based on submitted questionnaires

1. Internet by and for People, the Enterprise of Employees: High priority (44%), Medium priority (33%), Low priority (23%)

2. Internet of Contents and Knowledge, the Enterprise of Experience: High priority (22%), Medium priority (77%), Low priority (0%)

3. Internet of Things, the Enterprise of Intelligence: High priority (55%), Medium priority (33%), Low priority (12%)

4. Internet of Services, the Enterprise in the Cloud: High priority (55%), Medium priority (44%), Low priority (0%)

5. Trusted Network Infrastructure & Experimental Facilities, the Enterprise in the FI: High priority (12%), Medium priority (55%), Low priority (33%)

 

[edit] Additional comments

None so far.

 

[edit] Background notes

The following are a set of tentative issues identified by the session caretakers in the initial phase of session preparation. They are listed below for record purposes.

(Potential) impact of Future Internet on enterprises

• The internal organisation of an enterprise
• The way in which an enterprise interacts with other stakeholders, including customers and business partners
• The way in which an enterprise interacts with other enterprises (new forms of networked enterprises?)
• The emergence of "prosumers"
• The nature of enterprise will evolve, e.g. what is “inside” and “outside” an enterprise?
• Is there really any impact of FI on the daily life of an enterprise? (what is the evidence of that impact, how to demonstrate the impact, how to measure the impact)
• Are the impacts (if any) largely economic rather than social?
• How do changes happen and to what extent?

Vision of and approach to Future Internet vis-à-vis enterprises

• What is the big FI vision? Is there a common vision on FI? (attention was drawn to the recently published COM on FI PPP)
• Bottom up approach to FI so far, based on inputs of about 100 projects affiliated to FIA; projects have been put into “boxes” in relation to the 7 WGs, the work has been largely technology driven rather than user or application driven (supply push rather than demand pull)
• Enterprises are not waiting for FI to define their characteristics, the business aspects have not been sufficiently visible; you cannot fit business models into boxes defined by technology
• The enterprise session should go beyond technology, beyond the specific focus of the existing WGs
• The capability of enterprises to innovate is an important, transversal issue; how to define those capabilities and by who?
• What is to be understood by innovation in an enterprise context? What is the relationship between business innovation and ICT innovation? Has the nature of innovation changed (e.g. open innovation)? And, if so, what are the drivers for change?

 

Public Knowledge and Digital Ecosystems

• DEN4DEK
• K-NET is exploring a fundamental problem: how different services to manage social interactions in a networked enterprise can be used to enhance knowledge and knowledge management (KM) services. The key hypothesis of K-NET is that the context under which knowledge is collectively generated and managed can be used to enhance this knowledge for its further use within intra-enterprise collaboration.