A Business Service Network (BSN) is a collection of business process suites. They can also be understood as Internet business communities where companies collaborate through loosely coupled business services.
Participants register business services (e.g., place an order, make a payment) that others can discover and incorporate into their own business processes with a few clicks of a mouse. Companies can build on each other's services, creating new services and linking them into industry-transforming, network-centric business models.
BSNs can be public or private. They can be Internet-wide, or focused on a particular vertical industry (e.g., retail, healthcare), horizontal sector (e.g., payment or logistics services), or geographic region (e.g., the Bay Area). A retailer, for example, should be able to build an online store in an afternoon by outsourcing fulfillment to Ingram, shipping to Fed Ex, and payment processing to Citibank.
Healthcare providers and Insurers can save a great deal of capital expense in administrative costs by publishing real time services for eligibility and claims processing. High-tech manufacturers can eliminate expense in returns and write-downs by subscribing to the real-time “inventory services” of thousands of distributors and resellers [http://wiki.commerce.net/wiki/Main_Page].