Top B2B Business Processes to Integrate
Posted by Mike Canniff on April 8, 2011
In my last post of the Hubspan expert blog series, I am returning to the topic of business process. We’ve looked at integration design patterns, straight-through processing, and cloud-based Integration as a Service (IaaS). All of the technical aspects are important considerations, yet they remain as underpinnings to accomplish business objectives.
Let’s look at key IaaS issues with respect to the following core business processes that most enterprises implement.
- Order to Cash – This core business process has existed in B2B scenarios since the days of EDI. As applications move to the cloud, or trading partners participate in cloud based mediation, IaaS becomes a viable alternative. The benefit of cloud based integration is that pre-built adapters for popular ERP applications such as NetSuite will work “out of the box”. Typically, on-premise integrations need to be customized due to the variations of the target order processing systems. This can be minimized when the end-points are cloud based.
- Procure to Pay – Supplier Relationship Management methodologies can reduce enterprise expenses. Processes such as punch-out, pay-upon-receipt, advanced shipment notices (ASNs), and contract management have electronic implementations. As an enterprise expands their trading partner reach, managing these transactions become more complex. IaaS allows an enterprise to grow with on demand provisioning of the procurement functionality as needed. New hardware or software licenses are not required as procurement functionality grows.
- Cloud based CRM integration – With Salesforce.com leading the SaaS initiative, more companies need to integrate their back office/on premise ERP applications with Salesforce (or Dynamics CRM). Now many ERP products provide direct integrations to Salesforce. But the Salesforce interfaces tend to take a back seat to development of the vendors’ on premise integration CRM requirements. So IaaS provides an independent integration option. And most IaaS vendors have extensive experience delivering integrations to Salesforce (and more recently Dynamics CRM).
- Cash / Bank Settlement – Electronic communication standards such as ACH and SWIFT have existed for years. Most enterprise integration efforts tend to focus on the previous business operations. But without efficient connections to banking institutions, the most important aspect of the process – cash transfer – can suffer. Banks become additional trading partners in overall B2B scenarios. This is actually an area that is relatively undeveloped with respect to IaaS. Yet, I expect standards based pre-built connectors to major banking institutions to be rolled out from IaaS providers over the coming year.
When implemented correctly, these business processes can add value to the core “blocking and tackling” of operations. Without the ability to efficiently process orders, manage customers, and interface with banks, enterprises leave money on the table and lose competitive advantage.
Integration remains a hidden cost when implementing enterprise line of business applications. Yet IaaS offerings can help reduce this cost and decrease the time to implement a solution. From an IT perspective, IaaS provides management the opportunity to budget integration costs smoothly over time and deliver value to the corporation.
This post brings this blog series full circle – from business process overview, to technical details, and back to key processes to focus on when implementing IaaS.
Tags: Cloud-based Integration, IaaS, Integration as a Service, Order-to-cash, Procure-to-pay
No Comments »
No comments yet.