This paper starts by asking two questions; In order to create and sustain competitive advantage through collaborative systems WHAT should we be managing? and HOW should we be managing it? It introduces the Competitive Business Structure and reviews some of the global trends in manufacturing and business, which leads to focus on Manage Processes, Value Propositions and Extended Business Processes. It then goes on to developing a model of the collaborative architecture for extended enterprises

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... demonstrates the validity of this architecture through a case study. It concludes that, in order to create and sustain competitive advantage, collaborative systems should facilitate the management of the collaborative architecture of the extended enterprise, the extended business processes and the value proposition for each extended enterprise through a Performance Management process. It also identifies areas for further research, such as better understanding of: the exact nature and interaction of multiple value propositions within an enterprise, how to manage people/teams working along extended business processes and the nature and prerequisites of the manage processes.