Drivers towards e-Business in the steel product industry

This paper studies the importance of agility in today's business environment. We propose a new business model "a virtual enterprise" (VE) and since the success of VE depends of intensive information sharing we propose a supporting software solution for business network. The research work is conducted via case study in real life business network, which consist of several small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and one focal company. The case study describes the design and implementation of agent-based inter-organisational system (IOS), which enables maximum effectiveness, efficiency and productivity of supply chain network.