Method for the standardization and syndication of business transactions

#As the world's economies have merged into one global economy, cross border trade has gained in importance and frequency. These cross border transactions range from a simple sale of goods to complex construction projects and more. Individuals in the United States want to sell food to African corporations. French communications firms want to contract with governments in less developed countries to set up their communications infrastructure. German construction companies want to bid on an airport construction project in South America. Canadian investors want to finance a business in Indonesia. Businesses all over the world are identifying business opportunities outside of their national borders.

#While economies all over the world have opened themselves to the idea of globalization, the cost of cross border transactions, in terms of money, time, and effort, has remained a barrier. Although many businesses have identified opportunities outside of their borders, they have little knowledge of the requirements for executing a cross border transaction. It may be impractical for these businesses to invest resources into understanding a specific cross border transaction, when the change of one variable, such as the country of origin of the goods or the type of goods, may call for a completely different process. Even when a business identifies an opportunity that requires the execution of the exact same transaction every time, the transaction may still prove to be too costly. Such transactions can require as many as 200 documents to complete one deal. It can take six months or longer to process paperwork. Legal and other procedural costs have averaged seven percent of a transaction's value, as high as fifteen percent. Businesses of all sizes have held back from entering a growing and lucrative global marketplace because of the awesome paperwork load, its expense and incalculable variable costs. In order to maximize trade efficiencies on a global scale, the overhead costs of cross border transactions must be reduced to a practical level.

#Others before have attempted to implement electronic solutions to reduce the high overhead costs of international transactions. While many of the systems implemented are excellent task performers, they lack the flexibility and interoperability to handle the expansive range of international transactions. These systems are typically designed to handle a specific transaction for a large Fortune 1000 company, but because these products are proprietary, conflicting application standards prevents cost effective seamless interoperability among enterprises. The expense and inefficiency of constant system updating and reengineering in order to interface with multiple information technology systems in the execution of one desired transaction does not equate to the desired comprehensive solution to reduce overhead costs across all cross border transactions.

#The following detailed description, given by way of example, and not intended to limit the present invention solely thereto, will best be understood in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:

#FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the system architecture of an embodiment of the present invention; and

#FIG. 2 is a flow chart for the system process of an embodiment of the present invention; and

#Currently available communications apparatus and electronic components readily implement the present invention. The invention finds ready application in virtually all-commercial communications networks, including, but not limited to, an intranet, a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), World Wide Web, a telephone network, a wireless network, and a wired cable transmission system.

#The present invention avoids the weaknesses of current systems by facilitating the execution of complex transactions, including international transactions, by utilizing open standards in its system architecture and allowing compatibility between the systems of all parties involved in such transactions. Additionally, the present invention provides the benefit of flexibility, as it has not been tailored for the transactional needs of any particular business or industry. The system of the present invention is dynamic and systematically and comprehensively collects the required information and resources required to guide the execution of and/or execute transactions as requested by its users. The system also stores and indexes the information collected for requested transactions in such a manner that it allows for syndication of one or more components of those transactions.

#Turning now to FIG. 1, the block diagram illustrates an ergomundus system 10 (or system 10) in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. According to this embodiment of the present invention, clients 120 initiate the transaction by contacting the system hub or ergohub 100. The hub 100 solicits information from such clients 120, including, but not limited to, transaction parameters and client or user profile information. The hub 100 processes such solicited information and compares the solicited transaction parameters to transaction parameters that have been previously categorized, indexed, and stored in the system repository or database 300. It is appreciated that within the system repository, data warehouse or database 300, transaction parameters may be connected to align specific cross border transactions or parts thereof either automatically by the system hub 100 or through manual labor.