Ecosystem Integration Overcomes Supply Chain Disruption

As companies throughout the globe shape contingency plans in response to COVID-19, from suspending employee travel to cancelling events and conferences, the need for centralized integration has never been more critical for the world’s supply chains.

It’s no surprise - cloud and post-modern ERP systems are proliferating, and like never before companies’ supply chains are being impacted by disruptions outside their control. To navigate the rapidly changing digital world, ecosystem integration provides seamless interconnectedness across a company’s external ecosystem of customers, suppliers, and business partners. Going one step further, inside an internal ecosystem of business applications such as CRM, WMS, and TMS, the right platform enables frictionless business processes, such as order to cash and procure to pay.

A supply chain disturbance, such as the one companies are facing now with COVID-19, can cause drastic supplier disruption and impact business continuity. Customers are understanding – to a point. While a delay here or there is to be expected, an enterprise is only as good as the customer experience they are delivering.

Companies without a centralized integration platform are being forced to deftly realign their supply chains dynamically in order to compete in the face of adversity. In fact, according to McKinsey, companies should be taking steps to stabilize their supply chains, including forward-looking planning for “how to manage a supply market with unusual spikes in demand, as supply comes back.”

True, end-to-end visibility throughout the supply chain isn’t simply a luxury, in times like these it is critical and fundamental for success. Without that visibility, companies in manufacturing, wholesale, and logistics are putting critical business processes like these at risk:

• Order to Cash: The most critical business process that increases revenue, decreases operational cost, and reduces business risk
• Procure to Pay: Especially important for manufacturers and retailers in order to ensure supply chain continuity at the lowest cost and of the highest quality
• Load Tender to Invoice: A mission critical process for logistics companies to accept load tenders efficiently as well as fulfill them on time

Eliminate Complexity 

Having the ability to span on-premise and multiple clouds, whether its Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google, provides companies the flexibility and scalability they require in the face of adversity. Centralized integration offers intelligent agents that are deployed remotely on-premise to guarantee an unparalleled amount of visibility.

Cleo’s recently released 2020 State of Ecosystem and Application Integration Report could not have come out at a better time for enterprises. The promise of ecosystem integration as a strategic value driver is such that 98% of those surveyed indicated that they would expect to gain value from an ecosystem integration approach. Legacy integration problems are impeding revenue and costing companies an average of over $100K a year, and some businesses more than $1 million annually. Add a supply chain disruption, such as COVID-19 into the mix, and that number could grow astronomical.

Cleo Integration Cloud is the only true business process integration platform that delivers EDI and API based integration together. By blending self-service integration with managed services on top of a prebuilt series of templates and connectors, rapid deployment is simple and efficient. Companies no longer need multiple solutions to achieve end-to-end ecosystem integration.

Eliminate the complexity that often comes when orchestrating end-to-end integration workflows. Consolidate all B2B integrations into a single platform while accelerating trading partner onboarding and application integration. Persona-based dashboards provide that aforementioned visibility, while allowing companies to support digital transformation trends as they evolve.

The future is unknown, but that doesn’t mean you can’t maintain control over your supply chain. With the right integration partner by your side, despite any turmoil that might arise, from COVID-19 to tariffs, enterprises can continue to deliver the supreme customer experience that they always have.