As part of the EKM project itself, decentralised alliances in the form of virtual companies will be analysed. Such intra-organisational and inter-organisational virtual enterprises are characterised by the overlapping combination of core competencies along the entire value-added chain. The issues considered by the EKM can therefore stem from various business functions such as e.g. logistics, controlling, marketing, procurement, production and R&D.

The partner "bubbles" in the drawing can be understood as project subteams of different companies / departments / members of a holding, who join their forces in order to build a temporarily project team, which can be understood as a virtual enterprise.