Supporting Distributed Corporate Planning through New Coordination Technologies

This paper explores the applications of new coordination technologies in distributed corporate planning. Firstly,new technologies such as Groupware, Workflow Management Systems, Internet and WWW for supporting distributed cooperative work are investigated. Then,GroupFlow, which is a Lotus Notes based workflow management solution, is selected to model and coordinatethe planning processes. Qualitative planning information is exchanged in a Notes Discussion Database. Andquantitative planning facts are processed by WWW-oriented Q-Calculus. Thereafter, a Lotus Notes basedintegrated framework for developing a distributed corporate planning system is given. Moreover, the implemented prototype is demonstrated by a corporatefinancial planning example in a bank. Finally, main experiences are summarized and an agent-based processmanagement perspective is briefly discussed.