Method and apparatus for workarea separation for logistics service provider operations

1 . A logistics service provider, comprising:

at least one working workarea, the at least one working workarea used for at least one of logistics planning, logistics execution, handling transactional data and handling global master data;

at least one template workarea, the at least one template workarea used for at least one of generating templates for performing various operations and storing the generated templates; and

at least one customer workarea, the at least one customer workarea storing at least one of customer specific master data and customer specific configuration information,

wherein at least one of the logistics planning and logistics execution is performed for a customer in the working workarea, using at least one of the customer specific master data and the customer specific configuration information retrieved from that customer's at least one customer workarea.

2 . The logistics service provider of claim 1 , wherein the generated templates comprise at least one of preconfigured business models and industry specific templates.

3 . The logistics service provider of claim 1 , further comprising a software delivery workarea for providing at least one of software and software updates to customers.

4 . The logistics service provider of claim 1 , wherein the at least one of the customer specific master data and the customer specific configuration information is retrieved from that customer's at least one customer workarea using a remote function call.

5 . The logistics service provider of claim 1 , wherein each workarea comprises a separate data storage and processing area provided on a same hardware system.

6 . The logistics service provider of claim 1 , wherein each customer workarea comprises at least one of lists of a customer's products, descriptions of the customer's products, lists of the customer's store locations and lists of the customer's warehouse locations.

7 . A computer recording medium including computer executable code for providing logistics services, comprising:

code for providing at least one working workarea, the at least one working workarea used for at least one of logistics planning, logistics execution, handling transactional data and handling global master data;

code for providing at least one template workarea, the at least one template workarea used for at least one of generating templates for performing various operations and storing the generated templates; and

code for providing at least one customer workarea, the at least one customer workarea storing at least one of customer specific master data and customer specific configuration information,

wherein at least one of the logistics planning and logistics execution is performed for a customer in the working workarea, using at least one of the customer specific master data and the customer specific configuration information retrieved from that customer's at least one customer workarea.

8 . The computer recording medium of claim 7 , wherein the generated templates comprise at least one of preconfigured business models and industry specific templates.

9 . The computer recording medium of claim 7 , further comprising code for providing a software delivery workarea for providing at least one of software and software updates to customers.

10 . The computer recoding medium of claim 7 , wherein the at least one of the customer specific master data and the customer specific configuration information is retrieved from that customer's at least one customer workarea using a remote function call.

11 . The computer recording medium of claim 7 , wherein each workarea comprises a separate data storage and processing area provided on a same hardware system.

12 . The computer recording medium of claim 7 , wherein each customer workarea comprises at least one of lists of a customer's products, descriptions of the customer's products, lists of the customer's store locations and lists of the customer's warehouse locations.

13 . A programmed computer apparatus for providing logistics services, comprising:

at least one working workarea, the at least one working workarea used for at least one of logistics planning, logistics execution, transactional data handling and global master data handling;

at least one template workarea, the at least one template workarea used for at least one of generating templates for performing various operations and storing the generated templates; and

at least one customer workarea, the at least one customer workarea storing at least one of customer specific master data and customer specific configuration information,

wherein at least one of the logistics planning and logistics execution is performed for a customer in the working workarea, using at least one of the customer specific master data and the customer specific configuration information retrieved from that customer's at least one customer workarea.

14 . The programmed computer apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the generated templates comprise at least one of preconfigured business models and industry specific templates.

15 . The programmed computer apparatus of claim 13 , further comprising code for providing a software delivery workarea for providing at least one of software and software updates to customers.

16 . The programmed computer apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the at least one of the customer specific master data and the customer specific configuration information is retrieved from that customer's at least one customer workarea using a remote function call.

17 . The programmed computer apparatus of claim 13 , wherein each workarea comprises a separate data storage and processing area provided on a same hardware system.

18 . The programmed computer apparatus of claim 13 , wherein each customer workarea comprises at least one of lists of a customer's products, descriptions of the customer's products, lists of the customer's store locations and lists of the customer's warehouse locations.