Visibility helps to transforms the supply chain from a series of isolated steps into connected, transparent processes that help organizations respond quickly to operational challenges and market opportunities.

At a time when supply chains are global and markets are volatile, being able to see and respond to change isn’t just a competitive advantage; it’s a must-have for survival and growth. Trend-spotters are winning the supply chain management game with next generation cloud-based supply chain solutions, while companies throttled by disconnected legacy systems and analytics applications are falling behind quickly.

Without real-time data on inventory levels and supplier capabilities, for example, identifying potential gaps, adjusting sourcing strategies, and tweaking production plans is nothing more than a guessing game. And as we all witnessed during the pandemic, that guessing game can turn into a liability quickly when outside forces take over the supply chain.

Rewind the clock a bit and its clear why supply chains fell prey to the pandemic-driven disruptions. Most business models relied on local production until globalization took hold and organizations started thinking and acting “leaner” when it came to inventory. Concurrently, the patchwork of legacy software systems that most companies relied on became increasingly disconnected and disparate.

Getting Global Supply Chains Back on Track

When the pandemic turned supply chains on end, companies scrambled to reshore and gain better control over these vital networks. It wasn’t enough to just be lean; organizations also had to be resilient. The pendulum swung in the opposite direction as inventories were fattened up and more attention was paid to being able to fulfill orders (versus just keeping inventory costs minimized).

And so, the race was on to improve end-to-end supply chain visibility. However, for most organizations that end goal was out of reach. One of the root problems? Legacy systems that were put in place to support lean supply chains but lacked the flexibility to offer insights for changing demands and requirements due to increased complexity and shifts in global supply chains. These solutions are now ripe for modernization in a world where customers not only expect their orders fast, but they also want to track those orders every step of the way.

PartnerLinQ not only helps companies solve these fundamental problems, but we also help them achieve the visibility goals that were previously out of reach. It starts with a unified data repository that is harmonized for the specific enterprise, and that connects all the systems the company has in place — including those aging, legacy systems that would otherwise create drag in a business environment that demands agile and flexible supply chains.

Companies also need to know that their data is secure, safe, and kept confidential. They don’t want their data residing in a “public” system that’s shared with others. With PartnerLinQ, companies know that their data resides on a private platform and that it’s never treated as public data. This is an important consideration in a world where new cybersecurity threats emerge daily.

An Elastic, Cloud-Native Solution

Because PartnerLinQ is elastic and cloud-native, the infrastructure behind it is both resilient and reliable. It can scale to any level in performance and manage all types of data. That data is both connected and harmonized in a way that ensures near-real-time visibility for business users who need analytics, reports, and dashboards that support good decision-making.

We recently worked with a large transportation company that has about 20,000 trucks along with data scattered across numerous data lakes and stores. Getting reports and analytics for efficient decision-making was nearly impossible — and by the time data was made available, it was too late to do anything meaningful with it. After implementing PartnerLinQ’s platform, the company was able to consolidate and harmonize these data sources with a robust canonical data model. As a result, PartnerLinQ improved the company’s access to critical information for making better decisions with improved reporting and dashboards to enhance its overall supply chain visibility.

This is just one example of how PartnerLinQ’s cloud-based platform helps organizations improve the visibility and efficiency of their supply chains. All these improvements translate into top-line cost savings, better asset utilization, and improved bottom lines. By acting as a conduit between different systems and partners in the supply chain, PartnerLinQ creates a seamless information flow and a clear, reliable snapshot of activity that fosters faster reaction times across these vital networks.

Jawad Khan, CEO & Founder, PartnerLinQ Inc.

Jawad Khan is the founder and CEO of PartnerLinQ. As the innovative force behind PartnerLinQ, Jawad guides the company in reshaping digital connectivity and collaborative intelligence within the extensive supply chain sector. His leadership philosophy is deeply rooted in ensuring that supply chains are not merely reactive but strategically positioned to respond to perpetual shifts in business demands swiftly and efficiently.

Highly configurable technology platforms help companies achieve their visibility goals, collaborate with business partners, and eliminate manual work.  

Most legacy supply chain management platforms currently in place were installed decades ago. These monolithic systems served their purpose, but they haven’t kept up with the demands of the modern supply chain. They’re not configurable, they can’t integrate with third-party applications, and they require a lot of manual intervention. 

The challenges of using legacy systems don’t end there. Updating these platforms with the latest “bells and whistles” is expensive and, in many cases, not even possible. These solutions were built to do everything, which unfortunately means they don’t do any one thing very well.  

As the name suggests, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems may be good financial and operational management tools across a compant, but they weren’t designed to manage the increased complexities of modern global supply chains. That didn’t stop ERP platform solution providers from adding a range of capabilities or otherwise acquiring other solution sets — from transportation management systems (TMS) to warehouse management systems (WMS) to order management systems (OMS) — to their software suites.  

Customers, wanting all-in-one systems, often adopted those functionalities as they were introduced, never evaluating, or considering other options by assuming simplicity with one platform. However, this approach too often results in rigid IT infrastructures for which changing one requirement requires adjusting everything else, too.  

Breaking Down Supply Chain Visibility Barriers 

While cloud ERP systems in the last couple of years have increased, on-premises solutions are still dominant within many organizations. On-premise legacy systems also weren’t designed for external collaboration — something every company needs but not all have. Where a TMS may have been built to connect with external carriers and transportation providers, on-premise WMS was designed to manage what was happening within the four walls of the warehouse.  

The notion of external business partners being able to “see” one another’s inventory positions, and then use the data to help get customer orders delivered within two or three days, wasn’t available when most ERPs were being developed. This is just one visibility gap companies today deal with daily.  

The good news is that organizations can close these gaps and future-proof their supply chains with a highly configurable technology platform. PartnerLinQ helps companies establish a common data foundation incorporating a semantic layer for every industry (including specific products, hierarchies, and transportation routes).  

Once that foundation is established, we build out the platform with the customer’s unique needs in mind, using the technology already in place and the outside applications needed to get everyone working from the same playbook. By providing that critical connectivity layer, PartnerLinQ helps companies break through the barriers of their monolithic business systems and leverage the power of modern, advanced technology.  

Connectivity barriers don’t exist only within your four walls. For that reason, PartnerLinQ creates strong connections with all third parties you need to communicate and share data with, including your business partners, customers, and software applications. The ability to integrate with these entities is a critical step to gaining full end-to-end supply chain visibility and collaboration.  

Adaptable, Flexible Architecture

PartnerLinQ offers the architecture, tools, and data companies need to connect with all internal and external stakeholders. We also offer a no-code/low-code environment that vastly speeds up implementation times and lets each person within the supply chain configure, maintain, and optimize the connections on their own.  

As a cloud-native application, PartnerLinQ’s platform is vertically and horizontally scalable right out of the gate. The same can’t be said for many other supply chain integration platforms on the market today. With PartnerLinQ, you can scale from hundreds to millions of transactions per month without having to make changes to your system.  

A Supply Chain that Stands the Test of Time 

In this rapidly evolving business landscape, the right digital strategy is no longer a luxury — it’s a must-have. Organizations that fall behind in this area risk losing customers, market share and revenue to competitors investing in their digital strategies.  

Being tied to a monolithic software platform can impede your supply chain visibility, partner collaboration, and long-term growth prospects. With PartnerLinQ in your corner, you can get all your data into one, accessible place. You can adjust on the fly as your company grows. And you can develop a future-proof supply chain that withstands the test of time. 

To learn more about how PartnerLinQ can help you future-proof your B2B enterprise, contact our team today.

Ahmed Samnan Raza, CTO & Co-founder

Ahmed Raza leads a dynamic team dedicated to shaping a robust, next-generation SaaS platform catering to customers across diverse industries. With his firm belief in driving continuous innovation, Ahmed’s team is on a mission team to ensure that PartnerLinQ platform remains at the forefront of business technology evolution. With a wealth of experience, Ahmed previously served as the Vice President of Product Engineering at Visionet Systems, Inc. His journey with the PartnerLinQ began at its inception, and over his 18-year career, Ahmed has played a pivotal role in a wide array of digital transformation projects spanning various segments of the supply chain industry. This includes impactful contributions to sectors such as retail, consumer goods, apparel/footwear, transportation, and food & beverage, among others.

We all agree to the fact that in today’s fast-paced, interconnected business environment, seamless data exchange is critical to staying competitive. For organizations who handle vast amounts of transactions, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) has been an important method for automating communications between business partners. It is instrumental in reducing errors, accelerating transaction time, and eliminating manual processes. This, in turn, makes it indispensable for industries.

Having said that, not all EDI solutions are created equal. EDI Value-Added Networks (VANs) play an important role in ensuring that these electronic documents are securely transmitted between businesses.

In this blog, we’ll look at the leading EDI VAN providers, with a special focus on why PartnerLinQ has emerged as a market leader in EDI services.

Understanding EDI VAN providers

Even before we dive into why PartnerLinQ is a market leader, it’s essential to understand what EDI VAN providers do. It is a centralized hub that allows organizations to exchange EDI documents with multiple trading partners. Services such as document routing, data validation, and compliance monitoring are offered by VAN providers. In this way, it makes sure that the business-critical data flows smoothly, and accurately across different organizations.

Some of the leading EDI VAN providers in the market include:

IBM Sterling B2B Collaboration: IBM Sterling has been a top choice for large enterprises needing EDI solutions as it is known for its security and compliance.

OpenText Trading Grid: OpenText is a cloud-based B2B integration platform that provides global trading partner connectivity.

TrueCommerce: It offers a scalable solution for small-to-mid-sized businesses, with easy-to-use EDI tools.

Why PartnerLinQ leads the EDI VAN market?

Even though all the above players offer strong services, PartnerLinQ has emerged as a leading player by solving key challenges faced by business when managing EDI systems.

Here is why PartnerLinQ has emerged as one of the leaders when it comes to leading the EDI VAN market.

1. Comprehensive EDI solutions for modern businesses

The biggest USP of PartnerLinQ is that it offers a cutting-edge platform that integrates traditional EDI with modern data exchange solutions. This feature of PartnerLinQ makes it the organization of choice for companies that need both legacy support and forward-looking capabilities.

PartnerLinQ, unlike other VAN providers, incorporates APIs and real-time data exchange, enabling businesses to meet the needs of modern supply chains.

PartnerLinQ ensures businesses can operate efficiently and remain agile, even in the face of shifting market demands.

2. Cloud-native, scalable architecture

Traditional EDI VANs rely on on-premises infrastructure. However, as PartnerLinQ is built on a cloud-native architecture, it not only reduces the need for costly hardware and complex maintenance, but it also makes it scalable. PartnerLinQ ensures that updates are rolled out continuously, without disrupting daily operations.

3. Real-time visibility and tracking

Lack of visibility into data flows is one of the biggest challenges that businesses face when using EDI. Even now, a lot of VAN solutions use outdated batch processing. It has a tendency of leaving businesses in the dark about transaction statuses.

With PartnerLinQ’s real-time visibility and tracking features, businesses can monitor document exchanges in real time. This, in turn, empowers decision-makers to respond proactively to issues, preventing delays.

4. End-to-end supply chain connectivity

EDI systems are often siloed. However, PartnerLinQ integrates EDI with other supply chain management tools, ensuring connectivity across the entire supply chain. With PartnerLinQ, businesses can connect with suppliers, distributors, and third-party logistics providers (3PLs) on a single platform.

Conclusion: Why PartnerLinQ is a market leader

In today’s business world, where changing market conditions and customer demands are important, PartnerLinQ stands out as a next-generation EDI VAN provider. With its cloud-native architecture, and analytics, PartnerLinQ provides businesses with a comprehensive solution.

If you're looking to enhance supply chain operations, PartnerLinQ is your EDI provider of choice.

Time is money in the fast-paced business-to-business (B2B) world. Each day a new B2B business partner isn’t onboarded and transacting with your company means one more day of lost sales and opportunities.  
Clunky, manual onboarding processes also keep new partners from tapping into the amazing new alliance they’ve formed. Instead, they watch from the sidelines as you jump through your onboarding hoops. 

“Fast partner connectivity is a predominant factor for growth in the B2B business landscape,” says Kerry Fogarty, SVP of Client Success at PartnerLinQ. “The faster you can get new partners up and running, the sooner you’ll be able to maximize the return on your partnership investment.” 

Why You Need a Frictionless Onboarding Process  

Complex, manual partner onboarding processes consume too many internal resources. They also delay time-to-market and force new B2B partners to “stand by” while you get your house in order. A smooth onboarding process, on the other hand, reduces administrative burden and lays the foundation for a strong, lasting partnership.  
By investing in tools that automate everything from data migration and training to user provisioning — all wrapped in a white glove service package — organizations can create a frictionless onboarding experience that benefits all parties.  
Consider these wins, achievable across the life of the partnership: 

• Improved efficiency.
• Faster time to market.
• Streamlined connectivity 
• Quicker communications
• Improved data exchange across partners.

Keeping the Data Flowing 

Because PartnerLinQ integrates directly with over 70 popular software applications like Microsoft, Dynamics, SAP, Salesforce, and Magento, all data can flow seamlessly across these platforms, giving companies a single, unified pool of data to work with.  
PartnerLinQ’s tailored service approach takes it one step further by managing communications across trading partners. “We provide a dedicated onboarding service agent who takes the burden off our customers’ in-house staff,” Fogarty explains. “By managing this on their behalf, we can target 100% of their training partners.” 

Throwing the Switches 

For a company that is replacing a legacy integration platform, PartnerLinQ manages the communication, scheduling, configuration, testing, and deployment for all existing and new trading partners.  

“We act on our customers’ behalf, letting their partners know about the platform switch and managing all of the related intricacies that go into it,” Fogarty says. “The day we go live, we throw switches and everything is up and running on our platform across the board. This significantly compresses the time-to-value.” 

Get Frictionless B2B Onboarding 

Streamlining integrations can have a significant impact on a company’s bottom line. Take this example: A transportation company spent about five years attempting to migrate 20% of its customer base to a new platform. What’s more, onboarding each new partner took more than 100 days apiece. 
By switching to PartnerLinQ, the company was able to speed up the integration considerably. It began onboarding anywhere from 50 to 100 trading partners twice a week in a multi-week cycle. The company can implement a new trading partner in five days or less. And it doubled the number of trading partners it works with because it’s no longer bogged down by manual, legacy processes. The company has gained significant market advantage and enjoys stronger business partnerships as a result. 

“As more companies take advantage of these types of seamless integrations, they can respond much more swiftly to market changes and shifting customer demands,” Fogarty says. “They can also keep up with and even get out in front of their competitors.” 

It’s Time To Build a Frictionless Journey 

A fast, seamless B2B partner onboarding experience helps organizations unlock the full potential of their partnerships right from the start. Isn’t it time you replaced your outdated onboarding methods with a frictionless journey that sets everyone up for success? 

To learn more about how PartnerLinQ can improve partner onboarding, 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.

Why do Most EDI Practices Struggle to Onboard New Trading Partners 

Clearly one of the biggest challenges businesses have with successfully executing an EDI integration strategy is the onboarding of new trading partners. This challenge appears regardless of network or affiliation and whether the solution is an everything-to-everyone VAN or a simple service.  

The fact is that most Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) solutions including those recommended by a partner, an ERP provider, or a marketplace are still onboarding trading partners the same way as they’ve been doing for years; and if nothing changes in the practice, then nothing changes in the process and the same issues persist. 

Why is that? 

Many initiate the painful and often disappointing cycle of partner onboarding with their legacy product driven by internal needs. EDI service providers, in many instances, possess multiple legacy products and a pressing need to market an updated product or service subscription. The initial internal conflict within the service organization makes these providers slow to respond to requests for new trading partner requests  

Additionally, they are often less inclined to deviate from established procedures, hindering much-needed changes to their practices. It is worth noting that at this stage, the practice is inundated with new and inexperienced resources. This poses challenges in adapting to evolving demands and adopting innovative approaches within the dynamic landscape of EDI.  

Moreover, change is one of those necessary ingredients for survival in an ever-changing world, which includes newer ways of doing things even with legacy products. Much like fashion, change never goes out of style, and without integrating change into legacy or even antiquated platforms or practices, businesses simply cannot respond to modern EDI integration requirements that are needed in the market today. 

Much of this change starts with the ongoing challenge of partner onboarding. The complexity of onboarding new trading partners begins with the EDI solution and how that solution has enabled change from the point where the solution team first encounters that next trading partner. Then there is the issue that companies leveraging EDI with their business partners cause based on a reluctance to provide precise directions by way of EDI specification documentation or samples in a sort of public forum.  

Maybe companies do not know what their trading partner profile looks like or how to demonstrate it or just maybe they have never gotten around to producing or updating their specification document. In any case, keeping important EDI information behind a firewall and away from public view until the point where the opportunity to connect has arrived is certainly counterintuitive to making business work. Whatever happened to giving a partner a heads up? 

Don’t Make Enabling Your Partner Hard: Two Recent War Stories

Here are two recent customer examples that demonstrate how businesses are making it harder than it should be; the first example is an internationally recognized mid-market meal-kit foodservice provider and the second, two well-known fashion and apparel dynasties.  

Pay Attention to Details  

Let us begin with the first with one, an internationally known publicly traded mid-sized foodservice provider. In this example the food service provider’s business partner contacted PartnerLinQ asking how they could connect with them via EDI. As experts in the space, we naturally understood both the transactions and the steps needed to enable the EDI connection, so we set out on the path outlined by our customer’s business partner, which according to their web site, was to contact their EDI solution provider via a posted email address. So, we did just that.  

Four weeks and dozens of emails later PartnerLinQ escalated the latency to our request to the business partner’s sales team, requesting a personal contact to get the ball rolling. During this process we also had to wait for the specification and sample documents to be forwarded to us to confirm, since there were no postings or even publicly displayed documents of any sort, not even an email address. Due to this oversight both our customer, the foodservice provider, and their business partner would not gain any benefit from using EDI for yet another month, further delaying any ROI that could be derived. 

Making it Easier to do Business 

The second example is a well-known German shoe manufacturer, who produces and sells a particular brand of sandals and custom casual shoes known the world over. The problem arose when their business partner, a global footwear company that is home to a diverse portfolio of loved and admired brands and ferocious about fit, encountered an unexpected EDI connection issue more than a year after they switched their EDI systems to a new provider. 

The business partner’s new EDI solution provider in this case was reluctant to fix the problem, even to the point of near refusal in remediating the connection issue. The reason provided was that the remedy fell outside of the classic remediation process. This same EDI solution provider doubled down on their refusal to fix the problem even after when one of the parties introduced options into conversation in an attempt to resolve the issue.  

This impacts my business…how do we fix it? 

While these examples do not necessarily represent how everyone approaches EDI onboarding, best practice stipulates that your team is always responsive to email even when text is not received as intended.  

After all, a global understanding of a ‘global standard’ is rather uncommon knowledge and EDI specifications no matter how precise they come are not proprietary. Many of the largest retailers and suppliers understand both, and make it their business to get connected, and in terms of specifications, make this information public. 

The second part of these stories and the reason for writing this blog post is to help you get over, under and around such obstacles. Keeping your eye on the goal is critical and recognizing obstacles so they can be avoided in the future comes in a close second.  

Things to Consider in selecting a business partner or EDI solution provider  

As you look into your EDI strategy for 2024, below is a list of those obstacles and what you can do to avoid them.  

1. When looking to engage with a new business partner, look at their EDI profile and where they keep their EDI specifications. If these instructions are not clear or you cannot even find them, ask the business partner for their EDI profile or EDI specifications before you start down the engagement path. For a great example of what a good EDI profile looks at Burlington or Macy’s profiles. Bottomline, if a prospective partner is giving you a hard time or is making it difficult to even get this information, you might want to consider putting another partner ahead of them. 
2. When dealing with a business partner whose point of contact is a solution provider causing delays rather than expediting integration, it is advisable to document the incident and the provider involved. This proactive measure is essential not only to address the immediate setback but also to safeguard against selecting them as your EDI solution. By doing so, you can effectively sidestep a significant obstacle on your journey toward achieving your goal. 
3. When you are talking to a new EDI solution provider, the first question they may ask you will be a good indication of what they do. So, if they ask about your volume and not your transactions or where you find issues, it is a good sign that they need to sell a subscription and are not as interested in solving your connectivity issues, or helping you grow your EDI practice as you might think. 
4. When engaging with an EDI solution provider, inquire about their methods for comprehending the unique operations of each trading partner. If their predominant responses revolve around ‘network’ or ‘history,’ it often signifies a dependence on legacy systems rather than fostering a dynamic culture of continuous improvement. For your EDI practice, which demands meticulous attention to detail at this stage of maturity, such a commitment to embracing change becomes crucial. 

Committed to Making it Easy  

These war stories represent just a glimpse into the myriad experiences we have encountered in our journey, each contributing to our ability to diagnose problems effectively and apply best practices. At PartnerLinQ, we are dedicated to simplifying complexities.  

We have been studying our EDI customers and competitors and recognize that digital agility between business partners is what most Multi Enterprise Collaboration Network customers want. Removing friction caused by multiple formats and connections is where we began. Beyond EDI, we’ve added an AS2 solution, an API Layer for Commerce Channel connections and included the ability to connect with a broad ecosystem of Commerce Platforms, Marketplaces, B2B Portals, Social Channels, Credit Cards, and Shipping Solutions  
We are committed to making it easy and if you would like to explore your options with a PartnerLinQ Expert, we are happy to help and there is no obligation. Contact us today!