Analyzing the Use of Blockchains for Challenges in Inter-organizational Business Processes

Abstract

Managing business processes in a (semi)-automated manner remains challenging, especially when processes span across two or more companies. This area of interest, also named inter-organizational process management, faces challenges like correctness, traceability and trust of data objects and message flows. There are different solutions in existence which are aimed at tackling the aforementioned challenges. These range from electronic data interchange through the use of trusted third parties to solutions which use blockchains. However, a detailed comparison of currently employed solutions and suggested alternatives is still missing. We aim to fill this gap and furthermore provide a method that helps to choose the best-fitting architecture based on business needs.