Establishing an Infrastructure for Value Chain Collaboration in the Norwegian Oil Industry - A Case Study

Implementation of data conferencing collaboration between companies in complex value chains is complicated by issues related to security and compatibility between systems. In this project, a collaborative infrastructure has been established by adding data conferencing capabilities to an existing industrial extranet, making it easier to establish collaboration between member companies. Using this solution, the companies were able to collaborate synchronously through corporate firewalls, with the samefunctionality as within their own corporate network. The results indicate that using an extranet can be a powerful way of enhancing collaborative performance in dispersed business networks.