e3service: An Ontological Approach for Deriving Multi-supplier IT-Service Bundles from Consumer Needs

IT-services should not only be considered from a technical perspective, but should also be seen as commercial services that satisfy a consumer need. Examples include well-known services such as Internet access or content provisioning services. Typically, to satisfy a consumer need, a bundle of elementary services is required. In such a bundle, each elementary service can be offered by a different supplier. A key problem is then how to actually find service-bundles that satisfy consumer needs as close as possible. Because IT-service bundles can be automatically provisioned online immediately after ordering, finding a service bundle satisfying a need should preferably also happen automatically. To this end, we propose the e³service ontology, which offers constructs from service marketing, but in a computational way, such that automated reasoning support can be developed to match consumer needs with IT-services. This paper presents the e³service ontology and explains it by a case from the telecom industry.