Supplier Communities
Making it Easy for Suppliers to Work with You
The manufacturing of goods and overall supply chain processes have grown increasingly complex, particularly in today’s global economy. Companies must share information, documents and plans with sometimes hundreds or even thousands of suppliers, contractors and subcontractors. Many suppliers still use traditional EDI standards, but increasingly, supplier companies are using ERP systems, such as SAP and Oracle, and want to exchange information based on their internal systems and business rules.
While it was standard operating procedure to force suppliers to conform to your needs in the past, it is not always possible to achieve this, while at the same time expecting lower costs and a faster time to market. But to allow every supplier to choose their own data format and business rules would create a complex web of connections and data translation requirements.
Building Supplier Communities with Cloud-based B2B Integration
B2B integration solutions enable you to do business your supplier’s way by allowing each member of the integration community to leverage existing infrastructure and business rules. With the availability of cloud-based technologies, companies can benefit from the latest integration solutions without incurring exorbitant purchase expenses or the other costs of ownership typical with traditional on-premise hardware and software. What’s more, a good integration solution not only manages the connections and overall transactions, it does so while managing sophisticated business rules and maintaining a high level of security across the integration process.
Strategic Benefits of Supply Chain Integration
- Automates manual business processes to drive out costs
- Reduces ongoing costs associated with existing infrastructure
- Consolidates systems and business processes
- Simplifies the task of adding new suppliers
- Increases corporate agility
- Makes suppliers want to work with your company