Active business objects (ABO): when agents meet ABC/ABM based management

The paper studies a new paradigm for building and using business information systems, accompanied by the required enabling technologies and business models, which will assimilate innovative marketplace concepts and thus allow for better process/activity oriented management. The proposed approach is inter-disciplinary (technology and management) and relies on combining the mobile object (agent) technology with the ABC/ABM model (Activity Based Costing/Management) toward what could be called "real time management". The core idea concerns the deployment of active business objects, which may form an essential part of the emerging global business infrastructure. In the ABO approach we use agents to encapsulate business objects which become mobile active software entities, holding all the necessary data (i.e., the business objects) and code (i.e., the behaviour) to take action according to the different situations that can occur.