Towards a healthier business ecosystem
With the global financial crisis threatening the well-being of struggling businesses, SMEs in Europe need all the help they can get. The EU-funded project 'A multi-agent approach to digital business ecosystems' (Ecobusiness) is exploiting cutting-edge tools to help SMEs. It has developed a digital infrastructure and environment for networked organisations to support knowledge sharing, collaboration, evolutionary business models and development of open, adaptive technologies. Ecobusiness's primary goal is to develop the first multi-agent digital business ecosystem (MADBE) for SMEs in Europe, based on the emerging digital business ecosystem (DBE) concept. The latter enables an in-depth look at the behaviour of SMEs and how they evolve in a specific ecosystem. Two years after its initiation, the project designed the first prototype of the system offering a suite of learning, optimisation and negotiation tools. These would enable a single organisation to offer the services package in a more dynamic and efficient way, either independently or jointly with other SME's, increasing collaboration and competitiveness significantly. once the final product is thoroughly tested and distributed to SMEs, it is destined to increase productivity, facilitating collaboration with different stakeholders and other businesses. The benefits of such improved cooperation are expected to reach not only the companies themselves, but government infrastructures and citizens as well.
