Industry / Academic Partnerships for XML

1. Institute of Information Systems J. W. Goethe-University http://xml.cnec.org Industry/Academic Partnerships for XML Tim Weitzel J. W. Goethe University Institute of Information Systems Mertonstraße 17, D-60054 Frankfurt am Main Tel.: +49 69 798-28804 Fax: +49 69 798-28585 tweitzel@wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de http://xml.cnec.org http://www.wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de/~tweitzel

2. Space 1999, filmed at the ICC ;-)

3. Why – lessons from our EDI partners What we can do Industry Benefits and cooperation designs Industry/Academic Partnerships for XML

4. Lessons from our EDI partners • EDI lesson: Integration could be nice, if all played... • 75% of Fortune 1,000 vs. <2% of Non-Fortune 1,000 • < 5% of all who could benefit actually use it • large companies focus on benefits, SMEs on cost • Underestimation/no idea of benefits • „excess inertia“

5. Lessons from our EDI partners • Now there is XML... • clients everywhere • XML is cool: Continuously on hype curve, still cool • XML is simple • there is general interest (but what about 18 months ago?) • But... • increasing fears • complexity • balkanization • to become locked into proprietary solutions (MS suspicion) • too few people know about potential benefits • too few skilled people • too little time to play

6. What do our partners need? • they need interoperable XML vocabularies (we told them 1997) • they need skilled people (we breed 250 p.a.) • they need technology scouts and state of the art innovations (we are high tech geeks who want to play) • they need to get to know potential (esp. local) partners (we organize workshops, symposia etc.) • they need vendor-neutral assessment partners

7. What does that mean for ebXML? • ebXML is cool, and it solves „real problems“...but success requires design AND diffusion • neutral, credible institutions like universities can be excellent communication pipelines • public awareness for standardization initiatives and associated individual benefits • esp. SMEs do not know(and dare) much about XML, let alone ebXML • economic cost and benefit analysis to reduce uncertainty • particular industries are lagging (banks...) • skill people • cross-domain applications require some interdisciplinarity • and don‘t forget vendor-neutrality (government as well)

8. Why – lessons from our EDI partners What we can do Industry Benefits and cooperation designs

9. What we do • Institute of InformationSystems: XML Competence Center (xml-network.de) founded in1997 to • create awareness for the standardization process • find partners to play • offer regular courses for students and industry partners • take the discussion to those (unknowingly) involved • develop cool XML solutions (XML/EDI, e-market, CMS, MAS/agent ontologies...) • involve and skill everybody (Management Workshop on XML) • We reached • SMEs, large companies (esp. Frankfurt/Rhine-Main area: e.g. bank, aviation, logistics), public authorities (EU), and students • qua workshops, courses, publications (scientific, technical, „public“)

10. Competence Network Electronic Commerce • CNEC Symposium on XML vocabularies, March 2001 • CNEC established 1997 (http://www.cnec.org) • funded by DG Bank (German top 5 bank) • brings together experts from various industries and academics • bi-annual symposia (7 so far) • 1162 participants (high level executives) • 43 speakers from five countries

11. Why – lessons from our EDI partners Industry benefits and cooperation designs What we can do

12. Fringe benefits • Benefits for DG Bank from „network“ • Marketing/network engineering e.g. via symposia • Knowledge Transfer • internal workshops on XML, standardization, EAI etc. • further projects (e.g. due diligences with university expertise) • Projects with university people/skills (e.g. trading platform migration) • Innovative branding, press • Recruitment potential • Externalizing R&D (e.g. diploma theses, PhD partnerships)

13. cooperation designs: examples • Working together on particular topics (3-5 years = PhD thesis) • University: • 1 PhD student as project head • involvment of e.g. 8 students per year (diploma theses etc.) • university network • integrating project content in courses (skill breeding) • external communication (workshops, symposia, media) • technological state-of-the-art gateway • Company • costs about $ 65.000 for 1 PhD student plus overhead • marketing budget, sometimes „strategic alliances“ or... • avg. headhunting costs $ 15.000 • at least 5 out of 8 students can be hired: cooperation paid for by HR budget • research, strategic and marketing benefits for free

14. concluding encouragement • universities can be a neutral communication pipeline use it • think about strategic partnerships (R&D...) with tactical elements (HR...) • play with us • new technologies • new concepts • new questions • economic evaluation of integration infrastructures • there are others you might want to get to know or involve • be aware of the fringe benefits: • HR development potential/skilling (internal, recruitment) • continuous knowledge transfer... •  Help us let everyone know about ebXML

15. Tim Weitzel,J. W. Goethe-University, Institute of Information Systems , Mertonstraße 17, D-60054 Frankfurt am Main, Tel.: +49 69 798-28804 tweitzel@wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de, http://www.wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de/~tweitzel