WO2017042600A1 - Method and system for providing a company reference network - Google Patents

Method and system for providing a company reference network Download PDF

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Publication number
WO2017042600A1
WO2017042600A1 PCT/IB2015/001577 IB2015001577W WO2017042600A1 WO 2017042600 A1 WO2017042600 A1 WO 2017042600A1 IB 2015001577 W IB2015001577 W IB 2015001577W WO 2017042600 A1 WO2017042600 A1 WO 2017042600A1
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Prior art keywords
network
business
businesses
connection
previous
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PCT/IB2015/001577
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French (fr)
Inventor
Harald Jellum
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Companybook As
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Priority to EP15903505.4A priority Critical patent/EP3350764A4/en
Priority to PCT/IB2015/001577 priority patent/WO2017042600A1/en
Publication of WO2017042600A1 publication Critical patent/WO2017042600A1/en

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    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q50/00—Information and communication technology [ICT] specially adapted for implementation of business processes of specific business sectors, e.g. utilities or tourism
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q10/00—Administration; Management
    • G06Q10/06—Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
    • G06Q10/067—Enterprise or organisation modelling
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q30/00—Commerce
    • G06Q30/02—Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q50/00—Information and communication technology [ICT] specially adapted for implementation of business processes of specific business sectors, e.g. utilities or tourism
    • G06Q50/10—Services

Definitions

  • catalogue services are offered for individuals and companies. Very often these have started out as paper based catalogues which later has evolved into electronic versions made available via web portals. Examples on such are Yellow pages. Who's who and others. Typically for these are that they offer a catalogue lookup for publically available information.
  • portals offering financial information about objects such as individuals for companies; usually these services are built around financial information originating from public records. Examples of such services are Purehelp, Proff and D&B, Experian and others. Typically, there will in these services be offered information such as financial key numbers, accountant records, credit rate information, and even financial analysis, together with ownership details and board representation in the case of companies. Even board members roles in other companies may be offered in the latter case.
  • the present invention is generally directed towards a networked solution that comprises validated information about an enterprises relations with other enterprises.
  • the phrase Company Reference Network is used to define the invention, but may for short be mentioned as the network or the network service in this document.
  • the phrase business is used to define all types of businesses and organizations, both public, private and state/government/authority organizations or agencies and companies or the like.
  • FIG. 1 Block diagram of the system overview
  • the invention provides a novel way for connecting businesses together by strengthening the relations between a business and its business contacts, and in the process building a "Trusted Network", where a set of validated, publically accessible and visible relation provides the core of the Network.
  • the invention provides a public Trust-value based on the available relations for the businesses, and at the same time providing more online visibility of the same.
  • the invention also provides a server-client type of services, where the server part is associated with network type operations, residing on a server connected to the network as a cloud service, Internet service or as a local LAN or WAN service or the like, whilst the client service may be provided in a graphical user interface to the user as a computer client (downloadable), applet for phones or similar type of available client solutions.
  • the invention provides enhanced possibilities for businesses to make their network more visible for others, and promoting and building the public Trust-value.
  • the invention is specifically adapted to enhance the relations of local and global businesses aiding them in the task of being more visible for others by making each business' network more visible.
  • the invention is usable by both the businesses and their employees. There are no limitations or requirements to business size. All types of businesses and organizations, both public, private and state/government/authority organizations and companies or the like, also teams, associations, foundations and agencies, may be part of the network, and is regarded as a business in the spirit of this invention description.
  • the invention may be made available for its users through an internet portal, but this is not a requirement. It is also equally relevant to offer the service in a private closed network of businesses. It would be relevant to offer the invention through a cloud service as well.
  • the invention deviates from traditional applications concerned with providing services to social media applications and personal network enhancing applications in that the relations are between businesses, and it is the quality of the relation itself that is evaluated and that contributes to the calculation of the company's Trust-value.
  • the relation is further only backed with "true" information available public information. Therefore the Trust value is an objective value of the business relations, which is comprised of publically verified information as well as optionally verifications by all involved businesses/parties for each relation.
  • the relations may be comprised of customers, clients, partners, owners, licensees, sister organizations, parent organization and others.
  • the invention deviates from prior art such as catalog services that has been transformed into internet services by shear necessity, but which has kept its original format and technology base.
  • Phone catalogues, Business financial status catalogues and others are examples of such services. These are static services based on one verified database source, and the benefit from such services is limited.
  • the invention makes use of such services to verify the information defined in its relations to other businesses, both own and the details of the businesses in the network, and each verified element is used as input to the calculation of the Trust-score of the business in question.
  • the invention comprise a «follow»-feature, enabling a first business to identify a relation to a second business.
  • the relation may be confirmed by the second business.
  • a relation that is confirmed will normally achieve a higher Trust-score contribution than an unconfirmed relation.
  • the follow feature may be implemented as a push button request, or similar, provided when a user is viewing a company in the invention user interface.
  • the mechanism to verify a relation may be incorporated in the network services, such as a popup on the service when the second business logs in the next time, requesting a confirmation or denial of the relation request sent by the first business. Another mechanism can be to let the first business send an e-mail request for confirmation of a relation to the second business. Other mechanisms for verification will be adapted to state of the art request/acknowledge mechanisms.
  • a further feature to grow the network of a business is that the network services may use advanced search technologies for searching sources available on the web, such as web pages, catalogues, registers, social networks, bloggs, forums, news or other where the search machine will use past search criteria, and search results, as learning input for optimizing the next search and suggestion operation, in order to suggest relations to the business.
  • the user may then from the suggested list make a pick to which the business can define a relation to one or more businesses, and whether it wants the defined relation to be verified by the other business(es).
  • the follow feature may be associated with further parameters for each business that defines which relations shall be updated prior to recalculation of the business' Trust score.
  • the focus on building a higher Trust-score may enhance each business' potential for new and improved relations in their network.
  • the Trust-score may be used to filter out poor relations on a periodic review basis, for example day, month, quarter or other, and thereby improve overall Trust-score.
  • the invention may provide calculated Trust-score for each individual business contact, group of businesses, or category of businesses, in a portion of a business' network.
  • the category may define a business by product type, size, revenue, profit, innovation, geography, industry segment or other.
  • the Trust score may be published in the same manner.
  • the Trust score may also comprise an expiration date and/or date for last Trust-score calculation for individual Trust scores.
  • One use of the invention is to search for businesses within a specific industry area with Trust - score higher than a defined number and/or within certain time periods for expiration date, for example : businesses within automotive in Europe with overall Trust score above 5.0 and where expiration date is later than January 2016.
  • Figure 1 describes a Company Reference Network being defined by one-way-connections 30 and two-way-connections 40 between two businesses 20.
  • two-way-connections 40 a user choose to follow a company of interest whereupon a user if the company such as an employee or associate of the company 10 may choose to accept the two-way-connection. If accepted, the connection is validated as approved.
  • the employees/associates may be assessed as employed by the company by having the same e-mail address domain or sub-domain part as the company they are associated with.
  • association of the person to the company in question may be verified by using other relevant information sources, such as public registers, databases or other, if such sources are not available there may be offered a way of validate the association by more manual activities, such as by phone, phone number, other networks, news references or other.
  • relevant information sources such as public registers, databases or other, if such sources are not available there may be offered a way of validate the association by more manual activities, such as by phone, phone number, other networks, news references or other.
  • the two-way-connections 40 may provide the possibility to comprise a description or parameter of the relation, such as client, customer, partner, supplier, service provider, member of nn, co-location, one time customer, sponsored by nn, sponsoring nn, competitor, investor, parent company, child company, sister company, or other, where nn represents any type of entity.
  • the two-way-connections 40 may also comprise description of time value(s), who asked for the relation, and who responded and accepted or denied, visibility of the link, such as visible for all (public), visible only for your network connections (private) or only for the employees of the company (internal) or other.
  • Other parameters may also be defines, such as duration, value, importance, commodity or services, third party assessment of the connection and other.
  • One-way-connections 30 may have the same content as the two-way-connections 40, but does not need to be validated of the second part/business.
  • the visibility of the network may be defined by each individual business, depending on their desire to be visible. If a business needs their relations to be visible for all, i.e. public, their relations will be visible in different levels, first level, second level, .... In figure 1 company A will be connected to businesses B, C and E in a first level, then to businesses D, H and F in a second level. A third level could be business G if H was connected to G (Not shown).
  • the visibility and number of levels to be visible is flexible, and the business may be free to choose this either freely or within preset ranges set by network owner, or other.
  • connections and relations between the businesses in a network may be displayed as a map, where the viewer further may be provided with a utility to navigate in the map, and to visit and display individual businesses and/or connections displayed in the map.
  • the map may be presented in an interactive mode or in a non- interactive mode, and may further be presented either in a graphical map or more as a tablelike lookup interactive or non.-interactive listing.
  • An optional feature of the invention is to provide the ability to print, share and ship information on all or parts of different usage levels. Ship may comprise sending as e-mail attachments.
  • the invention may suggest events between businesses based on values found or calculated in the connection, Trust-value, business or other.
  • An event may be to participate on same conference, have lunch, execute a phone conference and other.
  • FIG. 2 there is provided a feature where all or some members of the network may update some, or all, values or information related to any or some businesses in the network. Such utility may be depending upon revision by a moderator or the like. One example is that at least one of the parties of an amended value shall approve the information amendment before it is valid.
  • FIG 2 there is provided a flow diagram describing one embodiment of the invention. In the flow diagram embodiment a new relation initiated 200 either manually or automatically 210.
  • the network application 230 that suggests a connection based on input either from an automatic collection of information from external information sources such as other businesses web pages, catalogues, social networks, blogs, forums, news, or the like or form other preset, calculated or formatted search patterns.
  • the search for new connections may be as a result of machine learning and recognition of patterns describing the connection or relation.
  • the search process may act more like an artificial intelligent search machine.
  • a next step it may be provided a possibility to define if a connection is to be regarded as a one-way- or two-way-connection 240. This option may be manually chosen or based on the automatically suggested 230 by the invention of network service.
  • a user may choose to follow a company of interest, which then will be confirmed by the company 250 in question.
  • the connection is not verified before the network system has received 260 an accept from the company in question.
  • the verification process may be offered as an asynchronous service, in the meaning that a user/business in the network may continue to request more connections even if the first business requested as a connection still has not verified the connection.
  • the network system may regard such connection awaiting verification as a one-way-connection, and change the connection to a two-way-connection when verification is provided 260.
  • the network will be updated when a connection is verified in the two-way-connection and when activated in the one-way-connection
  • the invention comprises a calculation means for calculating Trust-score of the involved businesses 20.
  • One parameter of the Trust-score is a parameter reflecting how active the business 20 is in the network.
  • Other parameters may be comprised in the calculation of the Trust-parameter, the parameters being weighted in the calculation according to a predefined formula. Parameters and weighing may comprise revenue, profit, credit rating, timestamp of any parameter, new or old connection, one-way or two-way-connection, number of publications, connections in other business or social networks.
  • the Trust-score is typically a filter parameter when a search for other businesses is performed in the network service of the invention.
  • a business Trust-score is defined by its own parameters and values, but also on the Trust-score of its connections.
  • the network service comprises a network between computers, the users connecting to the network services of the invention by connecting computing means to the network.
  • the network services of the invention is further comprising database resources and computing means for computing Trust Values, and the like, and further backup means and
  • communication means for communicating with the users via the network, or optionally via other communication channels, such as phone services or other.
  • the system further comprises storage means and calculation means for providing the network services defined in the invention.
  • the system will further comprise computing means used by the users (10) and businesses (20) of the network services.
  • the invention is defined by the associated claim set.
  • the ownership of the participation in the network may be owned by the business 20, and administered by the employees 10. Therefore the network will remain in the business even if an employee 10, having had the responsibility of administering the network, leaves the business 20.
  • the network services may automatically suggest potential business events such as lunch meetings, breakfast seminars, colloquiums and similar based on location, industry sector, services types or the like.
  • a network may, when implemented for an organization, a defined group of businesses or the like, provide a real time organization map which may be shared, sent by e-mail, posted online and similar.
  • a map of a limited number of users, or all users, may be provided in another embodiment of the invention.
  • a feature providing editing capability of some or all parameters for some or all users by some or all users may be provided.

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Abstract

Method and system for linking together enterprises such as companies and organizations in a Company Reference Network, CRN, using a Trusted Network, TN, comprising the use of bidirectional descriptive relations used directly between the enterprises where a first business (20) is connected to other businesses (20) in a Network, comprising using bi-directional (30, 40) descriptive relations between the first business (20) and each of the other businesses (20) for connecting the businesses (20), wherein the connections are comprised of one or more of any of one-way-connections and two-way connections, defining one or more connections to one or more businesses (20) in the Network, and computing a Trust score of the first business, the Trust score being an indication for a business' activity in the Company Reference Network.

Description

TITLE:
Method and system for linking together enterprises such as companies and organizations in a Company Reference Network, CRN, using a Trusted Network, TN, comprising the use of bidirectional descriptive relations used directly between the enterprises.
DESCRIPTION
Generally there exists several types of social media products and methodologies, and lately there have been a strong growth in the offer for social medias. These are mainly directed towards the individual personal user, where the individual is a private person or a professional. Examples on social medias for private persons are: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other. For the professionals there are Linkedln, Xing, FastPitch and others. Common for all these social media is that they represent networks connecting persons. Typical for these types of networks are that the content is user generated information about individuals.
A lot of companies tend to list their customers and partners on their web site/home page in an attempt to improve their image and make the company attractive for new customers. Such references are often non-verifiable, and can be put on display without any approval or even knowledge of the listed person or company. Even if there is some grade of consent from the listed person or company, the information might be exaggerated, outdated or not correct.
A different product or information source is catalogue services. These are offered for individuals and companies. Very often these have started out as paper based catalogues which later has evolved into electronic versions made available via web portals. Examples on such are Yellow pages. Who's who and others. Typically for these are that they offer a catalogue lookup for publically available information.
In the later years there have also appeared portals offering financial information about objects such as individuals for companies; usually these services are built around financial information originating from public records. Examples of such services are Purehelp, Proff and D&B, Experian and others. Typically, there will in these services be offered information such as financial key numbers, accountant records, credit rate information, and even financial analysis, together with ownership details and board representation in the case of companies. Even board members roles in other companies may be offered in the latter case.
There is a problem in these traditional services that they either may offer information that is not verified or real, or the information is simply a registry readout, comprising nothing but simple facts and numbers, which do not show any rating of the reputation or standing of the information (not the figures itself). It is a goal for the present invention to provide a solution to the problems related to the above described technologies.
The present invention is generally directed towards a networked solution that comprises validated information about an enterprises relations with other enterprises. The phrase Company Reference Network is used to define the invention, but may for short be mentioned as the network or the network service in this document.
The phrase business is used to define all types of businesses and organizations, both public, private and state/government/authority organizations or agencies and companies or the like.
The following figures comprises flowcharts and block diagrams intended to provide a general understanding of the invention, but should not be read as limiting the invention. The invention is defined by the attached claims.
The figures are:
Fig. 1 - Block diagram of the system overview
Fig. 2 - Flow chart of the information flow in the system
The invention provides a novel way for connecting businesses together by strengthening the relations between a business and its business contacts, and in the process building a "Trusted Network", where a set of validated, publically accessible and visible relation provides the core of the Network. The invention provides a public Trust-value based on the available relations for the businesses, and at the same time providing more online visibility of the same. The invention also provides a server-client type of services, where the server part is associated with network type operations, residing on a server connected to the network as a cloud service, Internet service or as a local LAN or WAN service or the like, whilst the client service may be provided in a graphical user interface to the user as a computer client (downloadable), applet for phones or similar type of available client solutions.
The invention provides enhanced possibilities for businesses to make their network more visible for others, and promoting and building the public Trust-value.
The invention is specifically adapted to enhance the relations of local and global businesses aiding them in the task of being more visible for others by making each business' network more visible.
The invention is usable by both the businesses and their employees. There are no limitations or requirements to business size. All types of businesses and organizations, both public, private and state/government/authority organizations and companies or the like, also teams, associations, foundations and agencies, may be part of the network, and is regarded as a business in the spirit of this invention description. The invention may be made available for its users through an internet portal, but this is not a requirement. It is also equally relevant to offer the service in a private closed network of businesses. It would be relevant to offer the invention through a cloud service as well. The invention deviates from traditional applications concerned with providing services to social media applications and personal network enhancing applications in that the relations are between businesses, and it is the quality of the relation itself that is evaluated and that contributes to the calculation of the company's Trust-value. The relation is further only backed with "true" information available public information. Therefore the Trust value is an objective value of the business relations, which is comprised of publically verified information as well as optionally verifications by all involved businesses/parties for each relation. Thus the image/profile that is published of the business and its relations will be a true presentation. The relations may be comprised of customers, clients, partners, owners, licensees, sister organizations, parent organization and others.
The invention deviates from prior art such as catalog services that has been transformed into internet services by shear necessity, but which has kept its original format and technology base. Phone catalogues, Business financial status catalogues and others are examples of such services. These are static services based on one verified database source, and the benefit from such services is limited. The invention makes use of such services to verify the information defined in its relations to other businesses, both own and the details of the businesses in the network, and each verified element is used as input to the calculation of the Trust-score of the business in question.
The invention comprise a «follow»-feature, enabling a first business to identify a relation to a second business. The relation may be confirmed by the second business. A relation that is confirmed will normally achieve a higher Trust-score contribution than an unconfirmed relation. The follow feature may be implemented as a push button request, or similar, provided when a user is viewing a company in the invention user interface.
The mechanism to verify a relation may be incorporated in the network services, such as a popup on the service when the second business logs in the next time, requesting a confirmation or denial of the relation request sent by the first business. Another mechanism can be to let the first business send an e-mail request for confirmation of a relation to the second business. Other mechanisms for verification will be adapted to state of the art request/acknowledge mechanisms.
A further feature to grow the network of a business is that the network services may use advanced search technologies for searching sources available on the web, such as web pages, catalogues, registers, social networks, bloggs, forums, news or other where the search machine will use past search criteria, and search results, as learning input for optimizing the next search and suggestion operation, in order to suggest relations to the business. The user may then from the suggested list make a pick to which the business can define a relation to one or more businesses, and whether it wants the defined relation to be verified by the other business(es).
The Follow feature may be associated with further parameters for each business that defines which relations shall be updated prior to recalculation of the business' Trust score.
The focus on building a higher Trust-score may enhance each business' potential for new and improved relations in their network. The Trust-score may be used to filter out poor relations on a periodic review basis, for example day, month, quarter or other, and thereby improve overall Trust-score.
The invention may provide calculated Trust-score for each individual business contact, group of businesses, or category of businesses, in a portion of a business' network. The category may define a business by product type, size, revenue, profit, innovation, geography, industry segment or other. The Trust score may be published in the same manner.
The Trust score may also comprise an expiration date and/or date for last Trust-score calculation for individual Trust scores.
One use of the invention is to search for businesses within a specific industry area with Trust - score higher than a defined number and/or within certain time periods for expiration date, for example : businesses within automotive in Europe with overall Trust score above 5.0 and where expiration date is later than January 2016.
Figure 1 describes a Company Reference Network being defined by one-way-connections 30 and two-way-connections 40 between two businesses 20. In the case of two-way-connections 40 a user choose to follow a company of interest whereupon a user if the company such as an employee or associate of the company 10 may choose to accept the two-way-connection. If accepted, the connection is validated as approved.
The employees/associates may be assessed as employed by the company by having the same e-mail address domain or sub-domain part as the company they are associated with.
Alternatively the association of the person to the company in question may be verified by using other relevant information sources, such as public registers, databases or other, if such sources are not available there may be offered a way of validate the association by more manual activities, such as by phone, phone number, other networks, news references or other.
The two-way-connections 40 may provide the possibility to comprise a description or parameter of the relation, such as client, customer, partner, supplier, service provider, member of nn, co-location, one time customer, sponsored by nn, sponsoring nn, competitor, investor, parent company, child company, sister company, or other, where nn represents any type of entity.
The two-way-connections 40 may also comprise description of time value(s), who asked for the relation, and who responded and accepted or denied, visibility of the link, such as visible for all (public), visible only for your network connections (private) or only for the employees of the company (internal) or other. Other parameters may also be defines, such as duration, value, importance, commodity or services, third party assessment of the connection and other.
One-way-connections 30 may have the same content as the two-way-connections 40, but does not need to be validated of the second part/business. The visibility of the network may be defined by each individual business, depending on their desire to be visible. If a business needs their relations to be visible for all, i.e. public, their relations will be visible in different levels, first level, second level, .... In figure 1 company A will be connected to businesses B, C and E in a first level, then to businesses D, H and F in a second level. A third level could be business G if H was connected to G (Not shown). The visibility and number of levels to be visible is flexible, and the business may be free to choose this either freely or within preset ranges set by network owner, or other.
In one aspect of the invention the connections and relations between the businesses in a network may be displayed as a map, where the viewer further may be provided with a utility to navigate in the map, and to visit and display individual businesses and/or connections displayed in the map. The map may be presented in an interactive mode or in a non- interactive mode, and may further be presented either in a graphical map or more as a tablelike lookup interactive or non.-interactive listing. An optional feature of the invention is to provide the ability to print, share and ship information on all or parts of different usage levels. Ship may comprise sending as e-mail attachments.
In one aspect of the invention there is provided a feature where the invention may suggest events between businesses based on values found or calculated in the connection, Trust-value, business or other. An event may be to participate on same conference, have lunch, execute a phone conference and other.
In one aspect of the invention there is provided a feature where all or some members of the network may update some, or all, values or information related to any or some businesses in the network. Such utility may be depending upon revision by a moderator or the like. One example is that at least one of the parties of an amended value shall approve the information amendment before it is valid. In figure 2 there is provided a flow diagram describing one embodiment of the invention. In the flow diagram embodiment a new relation initiated 200 either manually or automatically 210. If manually initiated an employee 10 in a business 20 takes the initiative whilst in an automatic initiation it will be the network application 230 that suggests a connection based on input either from an automatic collection of information from external information sources such as other businesses web pages, catalogues, social networks, blogs, forums, news, or the like or form other preset, calculated or formatted search patterns. In one aspect the search for new connections may be as a result of machine learning and recognition of patterns describing the connection or relation. The search process may act more like an artificial intelligent search machine. In a next step it may be provided a possibility to define if a connection is to be regarded as a one-way- or two-way-connection 240. This option may be manually chosen or based on the automatically suggested 230 by the invention of network service. In a two-way-connection 40 a user may choose to follow a company of interest, which then will be confirmed by the company 250 in question. The connection is not verified before the network system has received 260 an accept from the company in question. The verification process may be offered as an asynchronous service, in the meaning that a user/business in the network may continue to request more connections even if the first business requested as a connection still has not verified the connection. The network system may regard such connection awaiting verification as a one-way-connection, and change the connection to a two-way-connection when verification is provided 260.
In one aspect of the invention the network will be updated when a connection is verified in the two-way-connection and when activated in the one-way-connection The invention comprises a calculation means for calculating Trust-score of the involved businesses 20. One parameter of the Trust-score is a parameter reflecting how active the business 20 is in the network. Other parameters may be comprised in the calculation of the Trust-parameter, the parameters being weighted in the calculation according to a predefined formula. Parameters and weighing may comprise revenue, profit, credit rating, timestamp of any parameter, new or old connection, one-way or two-way-connection, number of publications, connections in other business or social networks.
The Trust-score is typically a filter parameter when a search for other businesses is performed in the network service of the invention.
A business Trust-score is defined by its own parameters and values, but also on the Trust-score of its connections.
The network service comprises a network between computers, the users connecting to the network services of the invention by connecting computing means to the network. The network services of the invention is further comprising database resources and computing means for computing Trust Values, and the like, and further backup means and
communication means for communicating with the users via the network, or optionally via other communication channels, such as phone services or other.
It is an intention of the invention to provide a system where the network services are provided for a group of users via an existing network, such as Internet or cloud service or similar, or via a dedicated network such as a LAN or WAN. The system further comprises storage means and calculation means for providing the network services defined in the invention. The system will further comprise computing means used by the users (10) and businesses (20) of the network services.
The invention is defined by the associated claim set.
Other aspects of the invention may be that the ownership of the participation in the network may be owned by the business 20, and administered by the employees 10. Therefore the network will remain in the business even if an employee 10, having had the responsibility of administering the network, leaves the business 20.
The network services may automatically suggest potential business events such as lunch meetings, breakfast seminars, colloquiums and similar based on location, industry sector, services types or the like.
A network may, when implemented for an organization, a defined group of businesses or the like, provide a real time organization map which may be shared, sent by e-mail, posted online and similar.
A map of a limited number of users, or all users, may be provided in another embodiment of the invention.
In one embodiment of the invention a feature providing editing capability of some or all parameters for some or all users by some or all users may be provided.

Claims

1.
Method for providing a Company Reference Network, where a first business (20) is connected to other businesses (20) in a Network, comprising:
using bi-directional (30, 40) descriptive relations between the first business (20) and each of the other businesses (20) for connecting the businesses (20), wherein the connections are comprised of one or more of any of one-way-connections and two-way connections, defining one or more connections to one or more businesses (20) in the Network, wherein a connection is initiated by an employee or associated (10) of the first business (20), and when a two-way-connection is defined,
sending a request for accept (250) to the other business (20) via one of, but not limited by, e-mail, SMS, Chat or other,
receiving an accept (260) from the other business (20),
updating the network (280) to make the new connection visible,
computing a Trust score of the first business, the Trust score being an indication for a business' activity in the network (290),
updating the network (280) to make the new Trust Score available, and
adjusting the first business' visibility in the network according to the new Trust Score.
2.
Method according to claim 1, wherein the connections between the businesses are owned by the businesses.
3.
Method according to any of the previous claims, wherein the businesses are one of, but not limited to, companies, organiszations, state/government/authority organizations, teams, associations, foundations, agencies, public and private.
4.
Method according to any of the previous claims, wherein the method further comprises, defining the connection as a connection type, the connection type being at least one of, but not limited to: client, customer, partner, supplier, service provider, member of nn, co-location, one time customer, sponsored by nn, sponsoring nn, competitor, investor, parent company, child company, sister company, or other, where nn represents any type of business entity.
5.
Method according to claim 4, wherein the definition of the connection further comprising at least one of, but not limited to:
defining: timestamp for the initiation of the connection, the initiator of the connection, who acknowledged the request, and duration, value, importance, and commodity or service.
6.
Method according to any of the previous claims, the method further comprising:
defining the visibility of the links (30, 40) between the businesses (20), the visibility being one of, but not limited to: visible to all, visible for only those in your network, or only for the employees (10) of the business.
7.
Method according to any of the previous claims, the method further comprising:
verifying that the employee (10) is employed by the first business, by checking:
whether the employee having the same e-mail domain and/or subdomain as the business' (20) webside domain name, information in publically available sources confirming the association between the employee (10) and the company (20), or
database content or relevant information sources conform the employment or association, or
verifying the connection by manually checkout via phone, check in other network, or news or similar.
8.
Method according to any of the previous claims, the method further comprising:
calculating a new Trust Score for all involved businesses (20) every time the Company Reference Network is updated, the Trust Score being an indicator of how active the business (20) is in the network.
9.
Method according to any of the previous claims, wherein the calculation of the Trust Score comprise, including a weighted value of at least one of, but not limited to, parameters: timestamp, value, financial parameters of the connected business (20), Trust Score of the connected business (20) and of the connected business' (20) network.
10.
Method according to any of the previous claims, the method further comprising:
defining the first business (20) as the owner of the relation to the Company Reference Network, independent of employment of the business' employees having network access and authorization to manage the business' connections.
11.
Method according to any of the previous claims, the method further comprising:
providing a real time organization map reflecting all recent changes to the Company Reference Network, and
enabling the organization map to be distributed by one of, but not limited to: publish on web site, share, send as e-mail attachment or other.
12.
Method according to any of the previous claims, the method further comprising:
suggesting automatically potential business events such as, but not limited by: lunch meeting, breakfast seminar, colloquiums, and similar based on location, industry sector, services types or the like.
13.
Method according to any of the previous claims, the method further comprising:
providing editing capability of some or all parameters for some or all users by some or all users.
14.
Method according to any of the previous claims, the method further comprising:
initating a new relation (200) by either an employee (10) in the business manually initiating the relation, or the Company Reference Network (230) automatically suggests a connection based on input either from an automatic collection of information from external information sources such as other businesses web pages, catalogues, social networks, blogs, forums, news, or the like or from other preset, calculated or formatted search patterns, or search pattern provided by machine learning from previous usage pattern.
15.
Method according to any of the previous claims, the method further comprising:
making visible the parameters of the connections between the businesses in the Company Reference Network (230), where the parameters may comprise one or more of, but not limited to: strength of the connection, time stamp of the connection, third party assessment of the connection, and all or some of the content parameters.
16.
System comprising a Company Reference Network, the Company Reference Network comprising:
a network service provider, computing means, storing means, and a user environment, where the user environment is connected to other users of the Company Reference Network via a connection interface, and the user environment further comprises computing means enabling the users to access the services and methods provided by the Company Reference Network as defined in claim 1 - 15.
17.
System according to claim 16, wherein the network service provider make use of one of, but not limited to WAN, LAN, Internet, or cloud services.
18.
System according to claim 16 or 17, wherein the network service and the user environment is provided in a closed private network.
19.
System according to claim 16 or 17, wherein the network service and the user environment is provided in an open public network.
20.
System according to any of claim 16 to 19, wherein the users may be one of, but not limited to: businesses and organizations, both public, private, state/government/authority organizations or agencies.
PCT/IB2015/001577 2015-09-07 2015-09-07 Method and system for providing a company reference network WO2017042600A1 (en)

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EP15903505.4A EP3350764A4 (en) 2015-09-07 2015-09-07 Method and system for providing a company reference network
PCT/IB2015/001577 WO2017042600A1 (en) 2015-09-07 2015-09-07 Method and system for providing a company reference network

Applications Claiming Priority (1)

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Citations (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US20100235489A1 (en) * 2009-03-13 2010-09-16 Catelas Inc. Systems and methods for determining electronic relationships
WO2012083071A1 (en) * 2010-12-15 2012-06-21 Vineloop Social network information system and method
NO20120854A1 (en) * 2012-07-30 2014-01-31 Companybook As Method and arrangement for the Company Reference Network to link businesses together in a Trusted Network using bidirectional descriptive relationships directly between businesses.

Patent Citations (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US20100235489A1 (en) * 2009-03-13 2010-09-16 Catelas Inc. Systems and methods for determining electronic relationships
WO2012083071A1 (en) * 2010-12-15 2012-06-21 Vineloop Social network information system and method
NO20120854A1 (en) * 2012-07-30 2014-01-31 Companybook As Method and arrangement for the Company Reference Network to link businesses together in a Trusted Network using bidirectional descriptive relationships directly between businesses.

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Title
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