Business Relationships ...

Something i have been meaning to write about for some time now ... First, let me get this straight ... I am not trying to sell any product. Having said that, i do have a close relationship with Oracle, given that i have spent most of my working life there.

One of the najor aspects of the workspace that we are focussing today is relationships. Interestingly, Oracle came up with an interesting idea quite some time back ... only thing, i dont see them talking about it the way they could have had. They have a rather interesting tool ... The Trading Community Architecture. From what i know about the tool, the idea is to be able to capture the eco-system of the organization ... including customers, partners, employees ...

Though, thats not the main aspect that i am writing about here. The thing which impresses, looking back, is the way the tool addresses relationships. There is a neat way to define relationships between customers, partners, vendors, etc., not just in terms of organizational relationships, but in terms of relationships between people, too. And this is the impressive part ... the way the tool recognizes the value that can be derived from these relationships. So, for example, if Ms. X is working for Customer A, and Mr. Y is working for Customer B, and they happen to be husband and wife, then the value to be derived from this relationship can also be captured in this paradigm. Another source for identifying and leveraging relationships for the organization. Though of course not something which is comparable to a facebook (definitely not), it is the way the paradigm of the relationship is recognized here, which is impressive.