OpenText
B2B Integration and Analytics for Modern-Day Supply Chain

The global nature of businesses has mandated organizations and their trading partners have a consistent communication channel across their extended supply chains. In this regard, B2B integration between an organization and its suppliers, logistics providers and other stakeholders is imperative in order to undertake the competitive journey in this customer-centric market. Upon acquiring GXS, one of the premier companies specializing in B2B integration and managed services, OpenText [NASDAQ: OTEX] strengthened its leadership in the Enterprise Information Management (EIM) space supplementing the OpenText’s EIM portfolio with GXS’s market leading Trading Grid integration platform and cloud-based B2B integration services. “The combination served to extend GXS’s B2B integration solutions, adding deeper process management and rich analytics capabilities,” said Marco de Vries, Senior Director, Product Marketing, OpenText.

By outsourcing the complex work that is required to ensure that all the systems and trading partners are connected to an experienced partner, OpenText’s clients can focus more on their core business. “Supply chain inefficiencies, new trading partners, proliferation of B2B protocols, and backend system changes continue to drive complexity and cost,” says de Vries. OpenText’s B2B Managed Services offering takes care of all the work from educating partners to incorporating changes in protocols. Additionally, “Leveraging OpenText Trading Grid integration platform, our customers have enhanced data security and process visibility, gaining comprehensive insights on the whereabouts of goods moving through the supply chain,” states de Vries. This insight is essential to make better decisions about emerging opportunities and risks in the supply chain. OpenText Trading Grid also offers Cloud-based service extensions, such as OpenText Active Orders, to provide deep visibility into the Procure to Pay (P2P) process, from orders, shipping and receiving, to invoicing and payment. “By automating supply chain processes and having customized business rules, we empower our clients to manage by exception,” informs de Vries.

de Vries emphasized that the Internet of Things and Big Data are the latest hot trends that will benefit supply chain leaders, yet threaten supply chain laggards. By automating and connecting feeds to more devices, manufacturers have the opportunity to gain more insight than ever about their products, how they are used, and what experience they are delivering to customers.

That requires data integration and data sharing across the supply chain. OpenText B2B integration services can help put information to use in a meaningful way.

By automating supply chain processes with customizable business rules, we empower our clients to manage by exception

An exemplary to substantiate de Vries’ comments is Alstom Power, Inc. The company was facing challenges in harmonizing business processes and tools globally, supporting multiple languages to scale globally, while maintaining existing productivity and customer satisfaction. Alstom choose to outsource their B2B platform to a OpenText, thereby eliminating risks to their customer service levels as well as providing a 24/7 support in a single cloud-based platform. OpenText B2B Managed Services gave Alstom the ability to support global trading partners, staying up-to-date with the latest technology and standards, and ensuring high service availability that minimizes Alstom’s business risk. OpenText Active Orders provided an option for Alstom’s suppliers that were not ready or able to implement traditional EDI. After implementing OpenText B2B Managed Services, productivity and customer satisfaction levels improved. With their small and medium size suppliers using Active Orders, Alstom exchanges approximately 2,000 transactions a month, including original orders, changes, incoming goods received, deliveries, shipment notifications, invoices and acknowledgments.

Key directions for the firm are deeper supply chain analytics to keep a tab on order confirmation, delivery of products, and satisfaction of customers. Sharing about the future prospects of the company, de Vries says, “We will develop richer analytics solutions for easy traceability, credibility of operations, and material movement. Analytics will help us to be more focused on identifying issues and taking proactive action, prior to any incident.”