*This blog was updated on 2/9/2022
Recent supply chain disruptions have made the business landscape increasingly insistent on proper trading relationships. Consequently, many enterprises are exploring technological solutions to streamline communication with customers and suppliers.
Consistent and reliable B2B connections have significant potential benefits. For example, McKinsey & Company estimates that companies can increase annual revenue and growth by 2.3% and 3.2%, respectively, by digitizing B2B communications.
If maintaining a well-oiled supply chain is a priority for your business, you need a B2B integration suite. The right solution will provide all the necessary components for establishing solid B2B connections.
This article covers the ins and outs of B2B integration solutions, highlighting their types and benefits and outlining five critical capabilities to look for in a comprehensive B2B integration suite.
What is a B2B Integration Suite?
A B2B integration suite is a bundle of software applications that help businesses manage the connections between themselves and their trading partners.
A typical B2B integration solution aggregates connectivity options, identity management services, governance tools, and security features onto one platform to facilitate secure, cost-effective B2B data exchange. Comprehensive integration suites also come with pre-built interfaces, pre-integrated data management solutions, and multiple connectors to support end-to-end B2B integration.
Types of B2B Integration Solutions
B2B integration suites come in three distinct types, depending on their architecture: cloud, on-premise, and hybrid.
Cloud B2B Integration Solution
Cloud integration has become prevalent in recent years due to its relatively straightforward and cost-friendly implementation. A cloud-based B2B integration suite gives you integration benefits without the capital expenditure and resource-intensive processes that come with owning and running in-house installations.
Cloud B2B integration solutions are hosted by third-party vendors and accessed via web browsers on a subscription basis. A cloud-based suite integrates with your internal applications to autonomously fetch and convert business data into the formats required by specific partners.
Although cloud-based B2B integration offers attractive convenience and cost-saving benefits, it comes with considerable trade-offs in flexibility and control. For instance, a cloud-based integration suite gives the vendor full access to your data, which could expose your business to security vulnerabilities.
On-premise B2B Integration Solution
An on-premise integration suite sits on your internal IT equipment - your servers, databases, and networks. Therefore, your business is responsible for the initial procurement of hardware and software licenses, as well as installing, configuring, hosting, maintaining, securing, and scaling infrastructure in-house.
On-premise B2B solutions are ideal for companies who wish to retain complete control over their data or require direct, customized partner integrations. These suites also offer high-speed data transfer and throughput capacities to accommodate the access, processing, and sharing of large volumes of complex data in real-time.
However, deploying and maintaining on-premise B2B interaction tools requires significant time and financial resources. Additionally, the suites are restricted to independent, on-premise data centers, which could pose a problem if your company expands or relocates in the future.
Hybrid B2B Integration Solution
Hybrid B2B integration combines the flexibility and control of an on-premise solution with the convenience, scalability, and low costs associated with a cloud-based platform.
A hybrid integration suite sits on your internal network and provides secure cloud connections. Therefore, if your enterprise has a far-reaching supply chain, you can maintain real-time communication with global partners while retaining control of your core information assets.
A hybrid approach provides the best of both worlds by taking advantage of cloud technology without giving up complete control or requiring significant capital investment in a standalone solution. However, to make the best use of hybrid integration, you must carefully define which data assets and transactions can be accessed and processed in the cloud and which ones are too sensitive to leave on-premise servers.
How Can Your Company Benefit from a B2B Integration Suite?
A B2B integration suite can profoundly improve the performance of your supply chain. Below are five notable benefits to expect from an integration solution.
Reduced costCompanies routinely spend up to 3% of their total revenue on supply chain-related transactions like order processing, shipping, invoicing, inventory management, and customer service.
A B2B integration suite eliminates the need for most manual processing by directly connecting your enterprise applications with B2B partners' systems and automating the flow of data and documents. As a result, you can benefit from reduced errors, higher productivity, and less pressure on valuable resources, all of which reflect positively on your bottom line.
Increased efficiencyFriction costs money, and inefficiencies introduced during order processing, purchase requisitions, delivery, receipt of goods, and invoices can add up quickly.
A B2B integration suite reduces the need for slow and error-prone paper-based transactions like faxes or scanned documents. It also maximizes the use of shared data such as purchase orders, invoices, shipping docs, or bills of lading by automatically routing them to their intended target application.
Improved data quality
Maintaining data quality throughout the supply chain can be challenging. Because companies use different internal data management systems, data often gets copied, exported, moved, or lost in translation during handoffs between partners.
A B2B integration suite allows you to capture and route data automatically, eliminating the need for manual interventions and promoting a standardized flow. It also uses a single platform to create central repositories of accurate, up-to-date data that all partners can access without losing fidelity or consistency.
Enhanced visibility and control
Today's enterprises are caught in a perpetual tug-of-war between fulfilling customer expectations and cutting costs. While striking a balance is no easy feat, knowing how every element of your supply chain is performing at all times can help you anticipate challenges and make timely, effective adjustments.
A B2B integration suite gives you real-time intelligence about the state of your supply chain by integrating your enterprise systems with your partners' and suppliers' data. As a result, you can access transactional and operational information as events happen rather than waiting for historical reports.
Real-time global connectivity
Thanks to widespread connectivity, the business scene has become more complex and global. Even small and medium-sized enterprises are now connecting with partners from different locations.
However, a diverse partner network creates the challenge of ensuring that all data is captured, routed, and accessed correctly. A B2B integration suite can simplify the process by facilitating secure, cloud-based data exchange with vendors, customers, and service providers, regardless of their location. It also lets you centralize interfaces to different systems so that your partners can access the same set of accurate data whether they connect through your intranet or directly over the Internet.
What is the Difference Between a B2B Integration Suite and an EDI System?
Although EDI has been a popular means of connecting supply chain partners for decades, companies are gradually moving away from the traditional EDI model in favor of more modern data-capture, management, and sharing solutions.
If you are considering moving from an EDI solution to a comprehensive B2B integration suite, you might wonder why the upgrade is necessary. Here are three notable differences between EDI platforms and B2B integration suites that make the latter a more valuable investment.
Flexibility
EDI systems are hard-coded to accommodate only predefined data formats. As a result, they are ineffective at absorbing the heavily customized information exchanged between partners in today's world, where organizations have unique requirements and transactional demands.
Conversely, B2B integration suites combine EDI with open APIs, enabling them to work seamlessly with diverse on-premises and third-party applications. Their 'plug-and-play' capability lets you connect quickly with partners while reducing development time and costs associated with implementing new capabilities across the enterprise.
Performance
EDI systems excel at processing large batches of regular transactional data across predefined processes. However, they struggle to support the type of real-time data exchange that today's digital enterprises require, primarily because they are configured on a per partner basis and typically serve one company at a time.
In contrast, B2B integration suites can spread workloads across multiple components, allowing them to fetch, route, and process data in milliseconds.
Scalability
EDI systems are built for long-running transactions and handle hundreds or even thousands of messages a day. However, their transactional capacity significantly drops when processing more than a set number of messages each day.
In contrast, B2B integration suites operate on a pay-as-you-grow model, which lets you increase capacity seamlessly without having to make significant IT investments. This scalability is critical for rapidly expanding enterprises, which must be ready to accommodate new, unpredictable business processes.
As a data exchange protocol, EDI is still widely used today, and its prevalence will continue for years to come. Nevertheless, with companies looking for more flexible and scalable data exchange methods, B2B integration suites are becoming the preferred standard. With a comprehensive B2B integration solution, you can create a more cohesive supply chain and stay competitive in a challenging business environment.
Five Must-have Capabilities for Comprehensive B2B Integration Suite
While early integration solutions merely facilitated digital document exchanges, modern-day B2B integration platforms offer more comprehensive feature sets, such as user management features, connections to third-party applications, and support for multiple operations.
Implementing a proper B2B integration suite starts with evaluating the capabilities on offer and how they match your requirements.
Here are five essential features to look for in a comprehensive B2B integration suite:
Expandability and Scalability
When your business grows, your comprehensive B2B integration suite must do so as well. Therefore, expandability and scalability are two must-have features. Expandability means that you can expand feature usage as you grow your business, while scalability means it is easy to add or remove users, functionalities, and integrations when required.
Future-proof Technology
Your B2B integration suites must be equipped to accommodate new business processes. So, choose a service provider that recognizes current pain points and is focused on making the technology future-proof.
Integrating Legacy Technology
Unless you are ready to overhaul your systems and remap business processes from scratch, your B2B integration suite must facilitate integrations with legacy technology.
Ensure your B2B integration platform offers all necessary APIs and SDKs, as well as data translation capabilities, such as XML mapping (XSD) and message transformation (SOAP), to ensure tight integrations with both legacy and current systems.
Process Automation
Automation saves time and money. Therefore, prioritize a solution that offers both event-based and scheduled automation.
Event-based automation means that an event will trigger a specific process. For example, if a customer submits a purchase order, the system automatically notifies the warehouse to make the necessary arrangements.
Integrating a Variety of Data
Gone are the days when the enterprise only had to deal with structured data. Today, you also need to accommodate unstructured information in forms like images, audio, and video.
Therefore, choose a B2B integration solution that can handle a wide variety of data, whether structured or unstructured, large or small, on-premise or remote. The more adaptable the suite, the more value it will derive from data.
Refine Your Supply Chain Processes With A Comprehensive B2B Integration Suite
Being a successful company means being able to stay competitive. The key to staying ahead of the curve is an efficient supply chain that uses technology as a vehicle for growth. By choosing a B2B integration suite with the right capabilities, you can keep your business running like clockwork, increasing productivity and boosting your bottom line.
As a global leader in enterprise integration services, Remedi has extensive experience delivering comprehensive B2B integration, and we are committed to helping you acquire and get the most out of your solution.
Contact Remedi today, and let us work together to deploy the B2B integration option that will take your supply chain to the next level.
