IBM Sterling B2B Integrator For B2B Collaboration

IBM SoftwareIBM Sterling B2BIntegrator forB2B CollaborationIBM gives you improve control beyond the edge ofyour enterpriseExecutive summaryOverviewIn this solution overview,you will learn: Marketplace momentum is gained as youshift your focus outward Today’s complex and diverse businessenvironment favors those who effectivelyintegrate with their business partners Compliance to regulations, customermandates and industry standards ispossible with minimal disruption tocurrent systems and processesAn increasingly competitive global marketplace is driving businesses toadapt their corporate strategies and tactics faster than ever. IT systemsthat can not only cope with these changes but actually accelerate theiradoption will become increasingly valuable in today’s dynamic businessenvironment. IBM Sterling B2B Integrator makes it faster and easierto build, deploy and manage B2B solutions across diverse businesspartner communities. Sterling B2B Integrator is a component ofIBM Connectivity and Integration.Grow beyond the edgeBusiness leaders recognize that today’s opportunities for profitablegrowth lie at the edge of the enterprise, where your organization makescontact with its community of business partners. After years of investingto build up your internal IT infrastructure, it is time for you tocomplete the picture by extending and integrating your existinginfrastructure into the expanded value chain outside your enterprise.The ability to capitalize on this new growth opportunity is whatdistinguishes winners from mere survivors in the highly competitiveand rapidly evolving global economy.But how do you enhance your reach, vision and control at – and beyond– the edge of your enterprise?Diversity is the realityToday, almost every business operates in a complex businessenvironment within an extended value chain, composed of customers,suppliers, partners, distributors and even competitors. Among all of thechallenges you face in this demanding situation, diversity is one of thetoughest and most persistent. In the B2B world, businesses areconstantly facing roadblocks from partner diversity, system diversity,standards diversity and geographical/cultural diversity.

IBM SoftwareFor example, your business partners may be large or small,strategic, or commoditized, already equipped for secureInternet-based trade or still collaborating through faxes ande-mail. Marketplace advantage goes to those businesses thatcan effectively bring more of their business partners into thefold by offering secure, real-time integration of processes andinformation, virtually regardless of partner size or capabilities.Benefits Boosts visibility into and across yoursupply and demand chains Helps secure your B2B communicationsbetween diverse systems andapplications across your partnercommunities Streamlines business processes insideand across your enterprise boundaries Connects to virtually all of your businesspartners, despite differences in size,geography or choice of technologyCompliance is the new agendaAs if adapting to a diverse environment weren’t challengingenough, you must accomplish this task while meeting thedemands of an increasingly stringent regulatory environment,satisfying complex customer mandates and maintainingcompliance to new industry standards and best practices.The bottom-line consequences of failure are sobering: fines,damage to your company’s reputation, penalties for servicelevel lapses – even lost business.Moreover, you need to find a way to ensure compliancequickly, with minimal disruption of current systemsand processes.“ Our supply-chain customers have demandedincreasingly short turnarounds from thetime they place an order to the time ourproducts must be in their warehouse or ontheir shelves. So it’s very important that wehave a very robust and nearly real-timesystem, and Sterling B2B Integrator hashelped us do that. Orders are now hittingour ERP system much more quickly,allowing us to improve service levels andincrease productivity in our ordermanagement area.”–   Systems development manager from a manufacturing company2

IBM SoftwareThe IBM solutionoperational responsiveness by providing users with the abilityto access and respond to Sterling B2B Integrator processinformation and status virtually anywhere.IBM is proud to introduce Sterling B2B Integrator for B2BCollaboration. Sterling B2B Integrator makes it faster andeasier to build, deploy and manage B2B solutions acrossdiverse business partner communities.Safeguard your communicationsReal B2B integration makes usable information available toyour business partners – but it must also apply the bestsecurity practices and standards at every step along the way.Sterling B2B Integrator provides stringent safeguards forcrucial business information while bridging diversecommunications systems, connecting disparate applicationsand helps to securely extend your reach across organizationalboundaries. Fail-safe security is critical, given the increasingsensitivity of customer information, growing privacy concernsand heightened accountability requirements.Boost visibilitySterling B2B Integrator provides the integrated, timelyvisibility into processes that both you and your trustedbusiness partners require – and helps you streamlinemountains of real-time information quickly enough to guideinformed decisions. A truly integrated approach to B2Bintegration must address your needs for usable information –information delivered while you can still act on it, routedautomatically to the necessary people, and put into contextwith the proper analytic tools.Streamline processesIn the interconnected global economy, no business is anisland. Because effective collaboration across enterpriseboundaries is now the key to success, you gain the competitiveadvantage if your business processes are automated,streamlined, integrated and coordinated with those of yourbusiness partners.Sterling B2B Integrator is mobile enabledSterling B2B Integrator capabilities have been extended tomobile digital devices. IBM Sterling B2B Integrator Mobileprovides monitoring and management of Sterling B2BIntegrator processes and status from a mobile digital device,including system status, database growth, and average businessprocess wait time. This mobile application improvesBusiness Process ManagementApplication StudioIntegration and TransformationVisibilityCommunications and SecurityCommunity Management:Sterling B2B Integrator for B2B Collaboration addresses key multi-enterprise collaboration needs3

IBM SoftwareSterling B2B Integrator enables you to more easily extendautomated processes across enterprise boundaries, virtuallyregardless of your business partners’ differing connectivitytechnologies, policies, procedures, preferences and priorities.All organizations have the need to onboard and continuouslymanage changes for multiple trading partners.Advanced mailboxing offers document repositories accessibleonly to specific users and applications. Perimeter securitykeeps Internet threats at bay, while policy-based file transferaids traceability and manageability. Sterling B2B Integrator’ssecurity features and communications capabilities help youmore quickly and easily meet compliance requirements,reduce the risks of fines and penalties and help assure thesafety and reliability of your data assets – both inside andoutside your organization.IBM Sterling Community Manager, a module of SterlingB2B Integrator, onboards and manages trading partners morequickly and efficiently, while using fewer of your existingresources, to continuously drive business growth.Integration and transformation – Encompasses a datatranslation/transformation engine, a rules-based intelligentrouting engine and graphical mapping tools that supportalmost all mainstream EDI and XML standards. A true B2Bintegration hub, Sterling B2B Integrator also offers morethan 300 pre-built adapters that enable you to readilyintegrate with virtually any partner application, includingalmost all major ERP and messaging systems. With such acomprehensive integration and transformation engine, youcan better leverage the value of your existing IT infrastructureand applications.Adapt to diversityThe success of your integrated business-partner community isjudged largely on how many of your partners, virtuallyregardless of their sizes, are electronically connected to thecommunity. Your ultimate B2B goal is for all your businesspartners and customers to experience that doing business withyou is easy. Sterling B2B Integrator is designed to enable youto seamlessly orchestrate global supply chains and partnercommunities despite differences in partner size, importanceand type. In an era of ongoing industry consolidation, whenthe ability to embrace change is increasingly important,Sterling B2B Integrator has the agility to keep pace with theshifting requirements of your partner community.Business process management – Coupled with an intuitivegraphical business process modeler and a robust run-timeprocess execution engine, the business process managementfunctionality in Sterling B2B Integrator enables you to design,deploy, update and execute collaborative business processesfaster and more reliably. Out-of-the-box process templateswill greatly speed up your process development cycles and letyou build on our industry experience. A nimble and flexiblebusiness process management capability will enhance yourcustomer retention and loyalty, open new sales opportunitiesand create new supplier options.How it fits togetherSterling B2B Integrator encompasses six key areas of B2Bfunctionality in one of the only integrated platforms formulti-enterprise collaboration available today: Communications and securityIntegration and transformationBusiness process managementCommunity managementVisibilityApplication extension and customizationCommunity management – Simplifies trading partnermaintenance by leveraging existing data and providing out-ofthe-box onboarding templates, standardizing the onboardingprocess and requiring less staff commitment per partner.The centralized application offers a single view across multiplecommunities to reduce trading partner administration.Communications and security – Offers comprehensive datasecurity capabilities with encryption, user administration andsecurity-rich perimeter network traversal, including anexternal LDAP authentication option. Supports security-richInternet communications protocols, such as S/FTP,HTTP/s, SSH, AS2, AS3 and Connect:Direct . Features acomprehensive trust-management system, as well as rolebased user access.Sterling B2B Integrator provides community tools to informboth you and your partners on what’s happening within yourtrading community. Sterling B2B Integrator’s communitymanagement extends collaborative power to a broad range ofpartners within your entire trading community. A well-oiledcommunity machine directly translates to faster growth andbigger profits for your business.4