Start Date
11-8-2016
Description
The increasing ubiquitous access to information technology has substantially improved customers’ informedness about available offerings, as well as increased knowledge about their own desires, needs and wants. Today’s customers often seek for offerings uniquely tailored to their needs, which is leading to an increased complexity of demands. To address such customer needs, composition intermediaries play an important role as they are combining offerings of various providers in a single offering. However, little is known about the roles and functions such intermediaries must fulfill to achieve the desired outcomes. Drawing on literature related to service composition and roles fulfilled by traditional intermediaries, we explore how these concepts are actually employed in real world intermediaries. Based on illustrative examples from the travel and mobility industry, our analysis reveals that composition intermediaries do not differ that much from traditional intermediaries in their roles. Rather, the complexity of functions within these roles increases significantly.
Recommended Citation
Schulz, Thomas; Rockmann, Robert; and Weeger, Andy, "Service Composition in Networks – Towards a Typology of Intermediaries" (2016). AMCIS 2016 Proceedings. 26.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2016/DigitalComm/Presentations/26
Service Composition in Networks – Towards a Typology of Intermediaries
The increasing ubiquitous access to information technology has substantially improved customers’ informedness about available offerings, as well as increased knowledge about their own desires, needs and wants. Today’s customers often seek for offerings uniquely tailored to their needs, which is leading to an increased complexity of demands. To address such customer needs, composition intermediaries play an important role as they are combining offerings of various providers in a single offering. However, little is known about the roles and functions such intermediaries must fulfill to achieve the desired outcomes. Drawing on literature related to service composition and roles fulfilled by traditional intermediaries, we explore how these concepts are actually employed in real world intermediaries. Based on illustrative examples from the travel and mobility industry, our analysis reveals that composition intermediaries do not differ that much from traditional intermediaries in their roles. Rather, the complexity of functions within these roles increases significantly.