Improving Firms' Decisions of Strategic Distribution Partnerships Through a New Artificial Neural Networks Approach

Because of increasing competition and more and more demanding customers, enterprises strongly need to rely on specialized skills owned by external corporate partners in order to orchestrate collaborative business processes which could better satisfy their clients. Firms need to look for high–level skills provided by business partners that are strategic with regard to the process goals. Using the Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) technique we propose a Reasoned Neural Networks Design (RNND) model in order to strategically design the alliances' characteristics coherently with the company's goals and to support the partners' selection of strategic alliances.