Applications
Information flow management: workflow

Workflow has many uses. All company activities are a priori concerned. These range from trans-actional production processes to administrative procedures, collaboration and document production processes. With the Internet, it's now the way we do business that is affected. New ranges of services induced by e-commerce [H 3 568] on a global scale are being deployed, and with them, a range of innovative middle-office services is developing.

The world of commerce has traditionally been organized around the "front-end customer/back-end store" model. In this simple model, the front end (store, agency) manages customer relations, while the back end organizes production and supply. One aims to increase revenues by attracting and retaining customers, the other to minimize costs by managing...