Examining Trading Partner Communication
October 22, 2008 - We've been hearing for years that success requires a balance of people, process and technology. Yet, as processes and technology get more complex, we sometimes forget that the way people interact with them also needs to keep pace. When CGT teamed up with Rollstream to take a closer look at trading partner communication, we found that the sheer number of interactions is quite high, and most companies feel that they could increase efficiency and save money by improving the way their employees and systems interact with trading partners.
Our research revealed that 45 percent of those surveyed have more than 50 people in their organization communicating with trading partners to manage the business with those companies. To complicate matters, 64 percent said they communicate with those trading partners several times a day. When you start to do the math, the complexity emerges.
In addition to the human-to-human interactions with trading partners, there are many automated interactions that are performed by technology applications that have been implemented. Because of the numerous mergers and acquisitions in the consumer goods industry over the years, the number of systems tends to be higher than other industries, despite the efforts of many companies to standardize or at least reduce the number of applications they use. When we look at the systems used to manage trading partner data, we see that this trend still holds true. Our research revealed that 39 percent of our respondents use five or more systems to maintain and manage trading partner contact data, including key documents, contracts and operational compliance information. A total of 16 percent reported four systems were used, and 35 percent use three systems to manage this data.
Another factor to consider is the time required to manage trading partner contact information; two-thirds of our respondents report it takes them more than 10 days to register and onboard a new trading partner, with 22 percent of them taking over a month. Yet, once trading partners are onboarded, the effective use of that data is still questionable. When asked about the availability and accuracy of that trading partner contact data, only 15 percent of our respondents claim to be very satisfied, 52 percent are somewhat satisfied, and a full 30 percent are somewhat dissatisfied.
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