Reducing complexity in multi-enterprise collaboration

Robert Spiegel -- Supply Chain Management Review, 3/22/2007

Vendors that provide collaborative commerce services are putting a new emphasis on taking the complexity out of collaboration. In the research brief, "Reducing the Complexity of Multi-Enterprise Collaboration," John Fontanella of AMR Research finds that the majority of collaboration vendors have designed platforms to facilitate data integration of any type. Many can now configure rules and workflows to meet unique collaborative requirements for their customers and their customers’ business partners. The majority of collaboration vendors have also added applications that can be shared by all members of a trading community.

To further keep a complicated process manageable, those vendors now allow the digitation of a broad range of interactions among trading partners, including orders, plans, logistics, supplier management, settlement, and design, quality and performance management. Fontanella also notes that the entire category of collaboration providers is headed toward offering managed services in which day-to-day responsibility for the management of integration, timely and accurate transmission of data, on-boarding and security if the responsibility of the collaboration service provider.