Supply Chain Digitization, Part II: Benefits of Outsourcing Your B2B Integration Solution

Building and maintaining an efficient B2B integration infrastructure can be a major challenge. Most companies struggle to find the balance and confidence to take their legacy B2B integration in-house applications to a managed services model. However, with the right solution and technology partner, you can thrive and realize the immense value of a modern B2B environment.

In Part I of our “Digital Supply Chain” series we focused on how to take advantage of the supply chain mega-trends, challenges, and opportunities surfacing in 2023.

For Part II, we’ll explore how a B2B managed services solution can help you transact business more effectively with your trading partners, gain efficiency, and realize a slew of important benefits.

How companies do business is changing right before our eyes. As organizations continue to realize the benefits of digitalization, more and more are turning towards B2B managed services. In fact, according to a recent report, the global managed services market size was valued at $239.71B in 2021 and is expected to reach $680.08B by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 13.8% between 2021-2030.

Many are discovering that it’s not only more cost-effective to offload their B2B platform into the hands of a trusted provider backed by digital technology, but it also enables them to grow their business by freeing up time and resources to focus on their core competencies.

What Makes Up a B2B Managed Services Solution?

Switching to a B2B managed services provider can carry a significant risk if you don’t land with a vendor who is proven, experienced, and flexible. Providing a complete, reliable, cost-effective solution is the baseline. That’s the minimum you should expect, but the right solution will offer much more than just B2B. Providers differ significantly in the breadth of their services and the functionality they offer:

Features of a Best-In-Class B2B Managed Services Solution

• Trading Partner Management
• Translation Services
• Integration with XML, X12, EDIFACT, HL7, RosettaNet, Tradacoms, and other custom standards
• Logic/Business Processing
• Alerts, Exceptions, and Monitoring
• Visibility/Analytics

Utilizing B2B managed services can have several major advantages. Here are the all-encompassing benefits you should expect to achieve:

Reduced & Predictable Costs

An in-house B2B application can be costly. You have to account for resources for day-to-day operations, ongoing development, disaster recovery, and system upgrades to remain current with the latest technologies and integration methodologies. B2B managed services can save you the overhead of implementing and managing these services and empower you to leverage your partner’s economies of scale at a fraction of the cost of an in-house solution. With the right partner, costs will be flexible based on usage and you can dedicate the time, money, and resources you once allocated for in-house B2B management toward growth and day-to-day business efforts.  

Increased Efficiency

Managing your B2B environment, onboarding trading partners, and dealing with support issues and updates is a 24/7 job. A managed services approach takes care of all this for you so, in turn, you can focus on what matters—your business. Leave the maintenance, support, and updates to them, and minimize your staff and partner onboarding time. With a best-in-class B2B managed services solution you can expect to:

• Reduce trading partner onboarding time
• Reduce transactional errors
• Improve customer satisfaction

Improved Visibility

Supply chains by nature are siloed within most organizations. A good B2B managed services solution will help you break down those siloes, serve as the source of truth, and make data visible and actionable for both you and your trading partners. It will (should) provide real-time analytics and reporting for full supply chain and operational visibility. This will enable you to adapt quickly, ensure you’re meeting KPIs and customer expectations, and identify areas for improvement while remaining proactive. 

Enhanced Flexibility & Scalability 

Outsourcing your B2B can help you adapt in real time—without the overhead of adding or scaling down infrastructure and personnel. Coupled with the right cloud-based managed services provider, you will be able to scale transparently and leverage both traditional and modern B2B standards to suit your diverse client and supplier base. When a disruption does occur at least B2B won’t be something you have to worry about at a moment when there will surely be many other demands on your mind from other areas of the business. 

Maximized Data Quality

It goes without saying that manual B2B processes increase the chance of human error–a misstep that can be extremely costly for an organization. B2B managed services can improve the quality of your data by ensuring its accuracy before it’s transmitted to your other enterprise-wide applications. As a result, you no longer have to worry about the financial and operational ramifications of inaccurate data and can rest assured that your system will handle all your business processes automatically. 

How Syncrofy Integration Cloud Can Help

At CoEnterprise we created Syncrofy Integration Cloud based on the decades of proficiency and project expertise of our innovative and dedicated team. It was built from the ground up–on the cloud in containers–to handle any B2B connectivity, data type, and enterprise integration at scale across all industries. With Syncrofy Integration Cloud, you’ll get access to experts with deep industry expertise, award-winning customer service, 24/7 support, and cost-effective solutions with minimal disruption to your business. 

Syncrofy Integration Cloud utilizes industry-leading technology to enable a proactive, collaborative approach to your B2B relationships—freeing up your in-house resources to get back to doing what they do best. And with cutting-edge business visibility tools, real-time analytics, and advanced reporting capabilities, it empowers you to measure your progress and identify improvement areas to meet KPIs and exceed your business goals.

Ready to take the next step? Reach out to schedule a free consultation to discuss your B2B environment and the benefits of moving to managed services.

Let us help you realize the value of a modern B2B/MFT environment at a lower total cost of ownership.

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If you think a managed services approach might be worth exploring–or if you just want to learn more about Syncrofy Integration Cloud, let’s chat. Click here to drop us a line!