B2B Data Integration and Transformation Blog

This is the time of year that I spend talking with a lot of Remedi clients about how they are wrapping up 2016 and what their initiatives are for 2017.   I have noticed that these conversations over the past couple of years have changed from being a purely technical conversation with people mainly from our clients' IT departments to a more strategic conversation involving people from various areas of our clients' organizations including IT and lines of business.   Today, more and more of our clients are interested in how their data integration environments can become game changers within their organization.

We are often asked this question by the integration professionals with whom we speak.  The question is not usually posed in the manner in which this Blog is titled, but something like the following...

"Based on the discussion of our EDI/integration tools, our ERP and other integration points, and our technical capabilities as an organization, where are we as compared to our peers?"

Other variants of this question include:

I am continuing on my integration ladder with flow.  My series started with Mapping - A Key Component Of B2B Integration, and continued with Transform And Translate - A Key Component Of B2B Integration, Communicate (Part 1) - A Key Component Of B2B Integration, and my last post, Communicate (Part 2) - A Key Component Of B2B Integration.  

Some of you may know about the Pinta Island tortoise, who was the last known individual of the subspecies.  In his last years, he was recognized as one of the rarest creatures in the world.  You may be aware that he was a symbol for the conservation efforts in the Galapagos Islands and was known as “Lonesome George”.  George was well recognized all over the world and unexpectedly died at the age 100.

When exchanging electronic documents between business partners, there are popular standard protocols which most organizations can support.  Protocols such as FTP, SFTP, AS2 and a few others are the most common.  Just as we have talked about software modernization, internet protocols are evolving as well.