Today’s business environment demands connected, fast, and efficient business systems. Here’s how to ensure your business doesn’t fall behind.
Efficiency is king in today’s fast-paced business world, where even minor hiccups or roadblocks can impair good business-to-business (B2B) collaboration and put all trading partners at a disadvantage. For this and other reasons, frictionless B2B connectivity has become the game-changer for companies that want to streamline their operations, strengthen their trading partnerships, and stay competitive.
“By leveraging technology and high-touch services, companies can remove the obstacles that slow communication, unlocking a frictionless B2B experience across all trading partners.”
Unfortunately, legacy and point software solutions that don’t “talk” to each other are a major impediment to frictionless B2B connectivity. Many of these systems have been in place for decades, so they can’t leverage the power of the cloud or integrate easily with other platforms. Companies are forced to use spreadsheets, email, and other manual approaches to fill in the “data gaps” created by these aging systems.
The current labor constraints and rising salaries further exacerbate the problem, as does the brain drain that happens when veteran workers — those familiar with the legacy systems — retire and take their knowledge with them. When a vendor decides to sunset an older system and cut off further upgrades, their customers have a tough decision in front of them: modernize their core operating systems or risk getting left behind.
A Strong Partner in Your Corner
At PartnerLinQ, we understand the conundrum that companies face when the time to upgrade or completely replace age-old systems rears its head. With technology advancing rapidly, and cloud technologies dominating the software landscape, it’s now a matter of “when” (and not “if”) this day will come.
More companies are making this move. FMI reports that the supply chain management market generated nearly $26 billion in revenue in 2023 and is on pace to reach $78.5 billion by 2033. That has smart companies putting more effort, time, and investment into their B2B networks.
By leveraging technology and high-touch services, these companies can remove the obstacles that slow communication, unlocking a frictionless B2B experience across all trading partners.
Here are four ways PartnerLinQ helps companies do this without having to rip and replace their current business systems:
Lightning-fast launch. We’re all about reducing complexity while also giving companies a wide array of capabilities to choose from. Using prebuilt connectors to many different applications, we can integrate your new system quickly and drive a rapid time-to-value. While there will always be some degree of configuration complexity given an individual customer’s requirements, our goal is to minimize the complexity and challenges often associated with new software implementations.
White glove service. You expect an elevated level of care and attention to detail when you opt for any VIP package, and we feel the same level of service should apply during your software implementation. PartnerLinQ’s white glove offering includes a dedicated onboarding service agent and a full menu of services. We take that burden off our customers’ in-house staff members and let them work on more important projects. We also provide the processes and templates — many of which are built into our platform — that help companies quickly target and connect with 100% of their trading partners quickly and efficiently.
Automation that saves time and money. We’ve worked with a wide range of companies and have experience across most industry sectors. We’ve helped a lot of trading partners create frictionless B2B connectivity and have a comprehensive, in-depth repository of knowledge that we can apply across all engagements. It’s become somewhat of a “rinse and repeat” process that doesn’t involve a ground-up approach for every new customer or trading partner. This level of automation saves our customers time, money, and hassle that would otherwise be spent attempting to build out their B2B partner networks from scratch.
Post implementation is only the beginning of a partnership. We know the software journey doesn’t end at the go-live stage, and you need solid post-sales support and service to ensure your investment translates into long-term success. Whether you have a robust internal IT team or not, we provide 24/7 support and monitoring to ensure that your B2B connectivity truly stays frictionless. PartnerLinQ uses sophisticated alert notification technologies and automation to keep you informed around the clock while proactively addressing any issue across the span of our relationship.
See Frictionless B2B in Action
With PartnerLinQ’s platform in place, companies quickly begin to see the rewards of truly frictionless B2B connectivity. For example, we recently worked with a company that needed to onboard 700 trading partners within five months. It had been using a legacy platform for five years and still couldn’t migrate about 20% of its customer base. We were up to the challenge and, after onboarding 50 to 100 trading partners across a multi-week cycle, our customer got the frictionless B2B experience it was previously lacking.
Even better: Since implementing PartnerLinQ about two years ago, the company has seamlessly doubled the number of trading partners it works with. This is just one of the many examples of how organizations can use technology and high-touch services to develop and maintain frictionless B2B connectivity in a world that demands it.
To learn more about how PartnerLinQ can streamline connectivity across your B2B enterprise, reach out to our team today.
Kerry Fogarty, SVP, Client Success
Kerry Fogarty is a Senior IT executive with a proven track record in driving global IT initiatives and business value impact through technology adoption. With his extensive experience as a VP of Enterprise IT and the Office of the CIO in iconic brands like Liz Claiborne, Fifth and Pacific, Kate Spade, and Tapestry. Kerry brings a wealth of deep industry supply chain knowledge and expertise to the PartnerLinQ, Inc., leadership team. In his current role as SVP Client Success, he is dedicated to ensuring customer success through the deployment of PartnerLinQ, the industry’s premier supply-chain platform, complimenting it with toptier consulting and support services.
