One of the major questions being asked by those considering the adoption of b2b commerce is enterprise integration. One of the leading firms in this area wonders how companies with different information technology systems and business requirements find a way to exchange information over the Internet.
eFreight points out that simple integration between back-office applications and Web-based services of public exchanges costs millions of dollars and that many companies have invested fortunes just to integrate intra-enterprise systems to be in a position to utilise corporate buying and selling.
It points out that the problem gets even more difficult when you consider the requirement to bring multiple divisions within a company together to interact with overlapping groups of customers and suppliers. This creates a complex, many-to-many set of relationships that is virtually impossible to manage with conventional systems.
According to eFreight, the Private Trading Exchange (PTX) is a completely new approach to solving this problem as it provides an internet platform for b2b selling and buying applications designed for inter-enterprise collaboration, particularly with suppliers and customers.
Basically, a PTX streamlines and improves efficiency in existing trading relationships, including those with resellers, distributors and logistics providers. The PTX is about doing business in the Internet age: it`s about helping employees design, negotiate, buy, sell and communicate over a vast network.
AMR Research estimates that $5,7 trillion (R47 trillion) in commerce will be transacted via the Internet by 2004, meaning that few companies can afford to miss out on being part of this marketplace.
A major advantage of the PTX is that it insulates companies from the many changes that will take place in b2b commerce over the next few years, leaving the PTX platform providers to grapple with changing development.
AMR Research expects that a few leading software providers, including Oracle, i2 Technologies, Ariba and Commerce One/SAP, will form the core of an ecosystem of PTX platform providers. It says that a network effect will occur around this core as other application and enterprise integration providers build their software to work on one or more of these platforms.
Additionally, the market can expect the PTX platform vendors to expand their product portfolios through acquisition, such as Ariba`s recent interest in purchasing Agile Software.
In effect, it is expected that the platform providers will create de facto standards from which systems integrators and other software vendors, such as logistics exchanges, strategic sourcing, enterprise application integration, and content management providers, can build their products.
AMR believes that every enterprise with revenue exceeding $1billion (R8,25 billion) should build a PTX. Even so, if only one-third of companies heed this advice, the PTX will create the largest application software market ever, according to eFreight.
Get ready for the next software wave!
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