B2B Integration and Collaboration

Jesse Hopps

Small to Mid-Size Enterprises

Aberdeen benchmarked the involvement of 62 small and mid-size companies regarding B2B integration and collaboration initiatives with a specific emphasis on their trading partner recruitment, enablement, ongoing maintenance, and performance measurement related activities. Seventy-five percent (75%) of these respondents indicate that B2B integration and collaboration is a strategic initiative in their company. This sector insight will explore the specific challenges, actions and capabilities that SME organizations are investing in.

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Figure 2 indicates the top actions being taken by SMEs in response to current pressures. Increased collaboration with suppliers and the integration of partner facing processes with internal business processes are the top two areas of focus for SMEs. It is surprising to note that the increased collaboration with customers is not in the top two. Given the majority of SME survey respondents (60%) are at least two levels removed from the end customer, it may be expected that the need for customer collaboration will be the top most action. The reason why this may be the case is that SMEs do not have a lot of control over customer collaboration initiatives. They are more likely to have the ability to influence suppliers.

How Demand Metric Can Help

If you need to improve relationships with your suppliers, or to integrate partner facing processes, check out the following templates:

360 Degree Supplier and Vendor Evaluation Template

Vendor Consolidation Guide

Partnership Objectives Template

Partnership Evaluation Tool

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