Towards the service-oriented enterprise

Concepts and technologies such as service-oriented architectures, web services, service-oriented infrastructures or business process management are widely discussed in research and practice today. By applying these concepts and technologies, enterprises should be transformed into Service-oriented Enterprises, i. e. flexible enterprises that are able to react quickly to new customer demands or new laws and regulations. This doctoral thesis covers a variety of topics in this context, ranging from the semantic-based, automatic planning of process models to the application of service-oriented infrastructures for risk/return management. It integrates technical aspects with an analysis of economic implications in specific application domains. This book is particularly suited for all those, who are interested in current research issues in fields such as service-oriented infrastructures or semantic business process management.