1. A computer program product comprising application software encoded on a tangible machine-readable information carrier, the application software being structured as process components interacting with each other through service interfaces, the software comprising: a plurality of process components, each of the process components being a package of software implementing a respective and distinct business process, the plurality of process components including: a project processing process component that supports planning and execution of projects; a purchase request processing process component that supports processing of purchase requests to locate appropriate external sources of supply; a purchase order processing process component that supports creation and maintenance of purchase orders and purchase order confirmations; a purchasing contract processing process component that supports creation and maintenance of purchasing contracts; a goods and service acknowledgement process component that supports confirmation by an employee of goods received or services rendered; an request for quote (RFQ) processing process component that supports processing of requests for quotes and supplier quotes; and a time and labor management process component that supports management of employees timekeeping and work planning; and a plurality of service operations, each service operation being implemented for a respective process component, the operations comprising inbound and outbound operations, the outbound operation for a first process component being operable to send a message to a second process component of the plurality of process components, the second process component having an inbound operation for receiving the message, the passing of messages between an inbound and an outbound operation defining a message-based pair-wise interaction between the respective process components of the respective operations, the pair-wise interactions between pairs of the process components including interactions between: the purchase request processing process component and the project processing process component; the purchase request processing process component and the RFQ Processing process component; the time and labor management process component and the project processing process component; the project processing process component and the purchase request processing process component; the purchase order processing process component and the project processing process component; the RFQ processing process component and the purchase order processing process component; the project processing process component and the time and labor management process component; the time and labor management process component and the goods and service acknowledgement process component; and the purchase order processing process component and the time and labor management process component.