B2B Data Integration and Transformation Blog

There are many factors that drive companies to take on a B2B integration project.  Below, I outline the major factors that our customers have told us over the past year.

ERP Implementation

A company's ERP system is the core of their business processes.   In order to utilize the investment, it only makes sense to extend its value by interfacing with internal and external systems and partners.  Maybe your company converted from an existing ERP, which will require new interfaces to the EDI or integration platform or you just implemented an ERP system and you need to start from scratch. 

Yes we are really still talking about this...

While this topic has been the subject and focus of many Blog articles, a recent survey shows there is still so much progress that can be made.  For those that have made the investment in EDI / integration infrastructure and who have trading partners that have done the same, what are the obstacles that prevent paperless invoicing and payments???

Let's take a look at the situation...

IDC, a leading technology research company, recently published the “Worldwide Business-to-Business Integration Gateway Software 2014 Vendor Assessment”.  In the vendor assessment they included Axway, EXTOL, IBM, Informatica, OpenText GSX, Oracle, SEEBURGER, Software AG, and TIBCO.  They focused on these nine vendors that have products or suites that support comprehensive trading partner collaboration.  While they outline specifics for each software vendor, they also had some general findings with regard to ROI and what to consider when you’re exploring your options.

Have you ever been confused about what all those acronyms mean?  I have, and I've been in the field for 20 years!  

Below is a simple infographic that gives an explanation of some of the more common terms and classifies them into categories to, hopefully, make things easy to understand.  I will be adding and tweaking this over time to encompass a broader range of terms.

Two recent events prompted some reflection on Electronic Payments, you know. Financial EDI.

We were recently asked by a client how they might take greater advantage of their B2B Integration investment.  In addition to reducing integration tool overlap, utilization of AS2 and mail boxing communications, and utilizing your integration suite as an Enterprise Service Bus, I tend to gravitate also towards lower hanging fruit like FEDI.  This is of course due to my past life as a Product Manager in Corporate Treasury Management.   Managing the Bank's Financial EDI offering was among the products for which I was responsible.  In those days, and until somewhat recently, only a very small fraction of the EDI capable made payments electronically...EDI or ACH.