Exchange of information between business units (B2B) and government agencies (G2G) is an active area of work at present. Here are some examples of B2B and G2G integrations:

• A supply chain system consisting of several consumers and suppliers
• A B2B marketplace with numerous buyers and sellers
• Business networks, such as health information networks (HINs), that are formed between firms for special purposes.
• G2G systems (i.e., communications between government agencies) that involve communications between public safety, law enforcement and the judicial system.
• Entrepreneurial Networks between entrepreneurship sites, funding bodies and buyers
• Educational Networks between various educational agencies

In addition, the divisions/sites of large corporations interact with each other in a manner that is similar to B2B trade. For example, the divisions of GM (e.g., Chevrolet and Buick) interact with each other as business partners.
Within each of these categories, significant differences exist across various industry sectors. Even the differences between competing groups of partners in the same industry sector can be significant. The need to link together independent organizations and various information systems is common to all solution areas. The set of technologies that compose this infrastructure and the approaches used to implement it are the focus of B2B/G2G integration.

SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) plays an important role in B2B trade and B2B integration. The following figure shows a common B2B integration configuration that introduces a “B2B Service Bus” for communications between different companies (organizational units) for B2B trade. Note that the B2B bus only communicates with the public applications of different organizations and that the public applications are also players on the internal integration busses. Several standards such as NIEM (National Inter-agency Exchange Model) have been introduced. SPACE provides extensive support for B2B and G2G integrations (please review the Stage 3 and Stage 4 materials in the “Planner Learning Corner").