sap information interchange ondemand e-book

Top 10 Benefits of Business-to-Business Integration with SAP Confidently connect, transact, and collaborate with global business partners

Tame global supply chain networks Connect, collaborate, and transact with customers and supplier

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Businesses are more reliant on their network of partners than ever before. Managing these increasingly complex networks isn’t easy. You need to be able to collaborate and exchange information with a whole range of suppliers, distributors, manufacturers, vendors, partners, banks, government departments, customers, and more.

The question: How to manage your network, quickly, easily, and affordably, without the need for expensive, complex point-to-point interfaces? The answer: the SAP® Information Interchange OnDemand solution, a managed service option.

Here are the top 10 reasons why.

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“When organizations decide to adopt or change their approach to B2B integration, outsourcing B2B integration to a managed services provider is the fastest-growing option. IDC anticipates that the managed services option will account for 25% of total spending on B2B integration by 2015, compared with less than 8% in 2006 when these offerings first began to be viable.”

IDC White Paper, sponsored by SAP: SAP Customers Move to Managed Cloud Services to Cut Costs and Improve Efficiency of B2B Integration, May 2012

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“The top reasons for shifting to a managed services model are to reduce costs, to improve efficiency and to support a larger standardization initiative. More than two-thirds of businesses that make a decision to move to managed services identify compatibility with their ERP application as a key requirement.”


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1. Cut the long tail of enterprise resource planning (ERP) projectsExtend the value of your IT investment

SAP Information Interchange OnDemand integrates directly with SAP software, such as the SAP ERP application, SAP procurement solutions and the SAP Supply Chain Management application.

As a result, you avoid the implementation and upgrade delays caused by lengthy business-to-business (B2B) integration projects.

Documents created in your back-end SAP software are automatically translated into universal meta format and then into the appropriate partner format, saving you substantial time and effort.

A large number of ERP projects are delayed by B2B integration – causing backlogs that hamper future growth.

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2. Extend your business processes without a big expenseReduce the cost of integration with business applications

SAP Information Interchange OnDemand extends your business processes to your network of partners, delivering a seamless flow of information between your applications and your partners’ systems.

With fewer interfaces to develop and maintain, your business processes can move faster, enabling you to extend their reach farther than ever before.

Plus, the streamlined onboarding lets you quickly start trading with anyone in the rapidly expanding network that currently stands at 60,000 companies. And if one of your partners isn’t already connected to the SAP business network, they can be added in just a few days.

“Companies also cite the need for fixed costs covering transaction volumes and trading partner management as well as the ability to manage a greater number of partners and document types without the need to increase their current B2B integration budget.”


SAP Information Interchange OnDemand eliminates the need for developing and deploying point-to-point interfaces. As a result, you benefit from substantial cost reductions and prescribed standards.

Using partner profiles, you can quickly connect with anytrading partner, anywhere in the world, and instantly exchange electronic documents, regardless of theirstandard.

This eliminates the complexity of multiple interfaces and helps you consolidate multiple gateway solutions or providers. It also simplifies and accelerates the process of upgrading and consolidating ERP systems.

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3. Reduce complexityConnect once, exchange with any

24 standardized process interfaces replaced 515 point-to-point mappings at a global health care company.

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“…simple B2B processes that today require a lot of integration work could become as easy to integrate as picking the name of a company from a list and buying the capability.”

Gartner: The SAP Acquisition of Crossgate Has the Potential to Rock B2B Markets, 1 March 2012

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With SAP Information Interchange OnDemand, you don’t have to worry about purchasing hardware and software licenses – or system management resources.

Instead, the solution is delivered as an easy-to-deploy, subscription-based, fixed price, managed service. So all you need to do is connect and start using it.

SAP runs the application so you can focus your time and effort on collaborating with your partners and improving your business.

4. Take advantage of the cloudNo hardware, software or resources needed

“As cloud computing moves beyond the sharing of IT resources it starts to open new opportunities around the sharing of data and B2B collaboration.”

Forrester Research, Inc.: The Changing Cloud Agenda, April 24, 2012

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Cloud-based, on-demand B2B networks simplify the landscape by eliminating point-to-point integrations.

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Because adding new partners is so simple and fast with SAP Information Interchange OnDemand, you can rapidly expand your business network. You can also extend it to include people-to-people business and social collaboration.

As a cloud-based solution, SAP Information Interchange OnDemand will scale to meet your needs, no matter how many partners and transactions you generate in the future. As your ERP footprint grows, the solution remains tightly integrated and maintains the efficiency of your business processes. Plus, SAP is committed to continually evolving the solution to accommodate the latest technology innovations.

5. Grow progressivelyExpand quickly as partners and transactions grow

“65% of best-in-class companies indicate they have the ability to collaborate with a network of key suppliers versus 21% of laggards.” Aberdeen Group. B2B integration and Collaboration: Strategies for Building a ROI Business Case, June 2011

“It used to take days, sometimes weeks, to add new partners to our network. With the SAP solution, the same process now takes only a few hours to accomplish.” Giacomo Coppi, Director of Worldwide Channel Partners, Artoni Trasporti S.p.A.

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With a fixed price, subscription-based pricing model that’s based on the number of partners you connect with, you always know how much SAP Information Interchange OnDemand will cost.

No more time and material projects to build point-to-point interfaces. Now you can reliably budget for operating costs short- and long-term, without costly surprises.

Interface maintenance costs are eliminated too, because partner profiles are automatically updated when they change. That’s a double saving.

6. Keep costs low and predictableEliminate expensive, time-wasting surprises

“…pervasive, low-cost connectivity to the Internet has lowered the barrier to entry for enter prises of all sizes, enabling them to con nect electronically with counterparts for a fraction of the cost of a traditional EDI system.”

SAP Thought Leadership Paper: Creating Community Within Your Business Partner Network, 2012

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“Analysts find that on average it takes over 37 days to integrate a single business partner, at a cost of more than US$15,000 per partner.”

Aberdeen Group, The Cost of Process Integration, 2006

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7. Benefit from a comprehensive visionCollaboration is easier now and in the future

SAP Information Interchange OnDemand is more than a product; it is part of a vision.

SAP aims to simplify integration-intense processes by making them as easy as selecting a company from a list and then buying the connection capability. That’s how you will benefit the most.

It’s a powerful vision for connecting, transacting, and collaborating more easily. And it’s already happening with a business network that provides insights, and helps you predict and mitigate future risk.

“In many cases, enterprises are identifying inadequacies in their ability to see what is actually happening to transactions processed through B2B integration. The urgency to gain and provide visibility across a supply chain is a major factor causing B2B reassessment.”


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“Collaboration does not jeopardize competition but actually streamlines work processes, making them more effective and reducing information risks and costs.”


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8. Stay compliantConnect once, comply with many

Many industry trading partners demand specific e-commerce formats. This makes multiple B2B connections difficult to build and maintain, when you need to establish hundreds of mappings to accommodate your trading ecosystem.

With SAP Information Interchange OnDemand, however, you only need to connect once. The built-in best practices help you automatically comply with changing government and partner mandates for e-commerce. Now that’s simple!

“Customers select SAP Information Interchange OnDemand because they like how easily the canonical model handles partner mapping. They like the fact that SAP takes responsibility for managing and maintaining partner maps as its own asset. They also like how SAP manages these maps, creating the possibility of a network effect that allows them to affordably add trading partners, and they like the compatibility with SAP applications.”


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9. Join a thriving ecosystem

The range of products, services, and problem solving available to you is expanded with the extensive SAP ecosystem of partners and customers.

With SAP’s 10,000 partners, over 88,000 Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) customers and 2,000,000 Development Network Community members, you can quickly access the industry-specific expertise and technical know-how to meet your business challenges.

“Together with their business partners, CIOs should identify B2B processes that could benefit from cloud collaboration services and build an ecosystem of industry and IT partners that are able to build and operate such a collaborative business platform.”


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“Thanks to the integration by SAP Information Interchange OnDemand, we can provide more transparency and more information to the market, making our company able to provide global services and operational services that are very time sensitive.”

Giacomo Coppi, Director of Worldwide Channel Partners, Artoni Trasporti S.p.A.

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10. Keep support localThe global company that’s always close to you

At SAP, we don’t just offer you a great on-demand product. We back it up with comprehensive support services that minimize your startup efforts and maximize your return on investment. Monthly reports document service KPIs on system availability, volume statistics, incident statistics, and trend analysis.

Plus, as a global company with customers in over 80 countries, 24x7 service and seven global support centers, SAP can deliver support wherever you and your partners need it.

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“In discussions with enterprises that have made the shift to managed services, IDC found that labor costs per trading partner can be reduced by 35% and services and infrastructure costs can be reduced by roughly 20%. When there are growing numbers of trading partners to onboard or new document types to support, productivity gains can exceed 20% per trading partner.”


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Animated video Get an overview of the benefits of SAP Information Interchange OnDemand in just two minutes.

Gartner report: The SAP Acquisition of Crossgate has the Potential to Rock B2B Markets Gartner has evaluated the impact of SAP’s acquisition of Crossgate. Find out what it means for your company.

Video: Artoni – Network EfficiencyWatch how Artoni is streamlining its entire logistics network with the help of SAP Information Interchange OnDemand. Solution brief: Collaborate and Connect with Business Partners for Commerce from SAPDiscover how you can access and connect with an ever-growing community of global businesses.

Find out how SAP Information Interchange OnDemand can help your company. Learn more with these resources:

© 2012 by SAP AG.

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sap information interchange ondemand e-book

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