However, most companies wish to access a much broader array of outsourced business services in order to streamline and optimize their value chain. Companies have begun to realize that they must now participate in multiple communities and link their hubs to other hubs and exchanges. An ecommunity, or trading community, is a community of businesses electronically bonded to a specific organization. Public processes are the business processes conducted between organizations. Their definitions and designs are, at a minimum, agreed between the organizations using them and, ideally, are standardized across an industry or across the entire ebusiness world.
Private processes are the business processes conducted within an organization.
Their definitions and designs are specific to that organization and are not visible outside it. They are one of the means by which companies differentiate themselves. A trading protocol is a specification of how to conduct inter-company business electronically and over the Internet. Whereas a trading protocol defines the specifics of how two trading partners shall conduct business with one another, a Partner Interaction Model or PIM specifies exactly what business process two trading partners may conduct. Although PIMs are conceptually defined independent of a trading protocol, they are always executed under the auspices of a trading protocol.