This presentation highlights some of the key B2B related challenges facing companies who may have been through a period of divestiture. It helps to highlight some of the issues relating to the ongoing management of B2B infrastructures and trading partner communities following divestiture. The presentation then goes on to discuss how B2B Managed Services can help maintain business continuity during a period of restructuring. Updated May 2014
The global economy is going through an unprecedented period of change. The turmoil in the housing markets, the banking industry and now the automotive industry is leading various governments to step in and provide financial aid to companies in these industries to help them through the recession.Many of these companies are being forced to sell off parts of their business and in some cases entire companies in order to raise much needed capital to see them through the period of downturn. In many cases governments are insisting that companies restructure in order to receive the bail out funds being offered to them.Under previous ownership by the parent company, the divested operation may not of had the management support or financial backing to make any structural changes to their operation. Divesting operations allows companies to rethink their corporate strategies and position themselves for future growth once the economy starts to pick up again.Divestitures provide the ideal opportunity for companies to re-evaluate IT and B2B strategies and re-focus on core competencies
Divesting an operation can be complex, especially if the proposed divested operation is fully integrated to the parent company’s business processes, B2B and IT infrastructures. The divested operation will not only have to look at how they will seamlessly remove offices, manufacturing plants and perhaps distribution / retail networks but they will have to work out how to extract core business and IT systems such as ERP, CRM and B2B systems. Quite often the parent company will allow the divested operation to take a copy of IT systems, often referred to as clone and go but they will stipulate that the divested operation will have to be self sufficient within a 6 to 12 month time frame. In some cases the divested operation could face penalties if they are not off of the parent company’s systems within the so called transition period. So there is an incentive here for the divested operation to be up and running as soon as possible.
Following the divestiture of a company, there are three possible directions a company could take for managing their future B2B requirements:They could continue to use existing B2B platform – for many divested operations this would probably be the easiest option for them to go for. However the complex nature of extracting the B2B platform from the parent company and continuing to manage trading partner relationships etc, all within a fixed transition period of possibly 12 months can make this a difficult option to follow.They could introduce a brand new platform or adopt platform from new owner – the divested operation could decide to adopt the B2B platform from their new owner or they could go ahead and implement a totally new B2B platform by themselves. Either of these options will mean severe disruption to the divested operation’s business processes and trading partner relationships.They could outsource the management of the entire B2B platform to a trusted partner – during a divestiture, a company should be focussing on core competencies and ensuring that business processes are operating smoothly during the transition period. Outsourcing the management of a B2B infrastructure, including the ongoing management of trading partner relationships should be seriously considered by the divested operation.
This slide highlights the main B2B activities that will have to be managed during a divestiture. This list was compiled through reviewing a number of divestiture related Managed Services deals that GXS has won over the past few years. Even though each of these is equally as important to many companies, document mapping is often the most common area that companies look to outsource, mainly due to the fact that B2B or mapping skills will likely remain within the parent company following a divestiture process. Document Mapping – potentially hundreds of document maps will need to be transferred from the parent company to the newly divested operation ERP Integration – ERP integrations from the parent company will have to be re-established in the new operation Trading Partner Management – trading partners will need to be managed during and after the divestiture has taken place Global B2B Support – Loss of support from a parent organisation means that global B2B support services will have to be provided to maintain global trading capabilities Legacy Platform Upgrade – could provide the ideal opportunity to introduce new B2B technologies to the divested operation
Following divestiture, companies have one of three options with respect to document maps and as explained on the previous slide, it is highly probable that mapping skills will remain within the parent company rather than the divested operation. Transfer Existing Maps – To migrate the existing maps from the parent company into the divested operation ‘as is’ Transfer & Modify Maps – To migrate the existing maps from the parent company and modify maps as required to suit the divested operation’s new business processes Develop New Maps – The divested operation may decide to take the opportunity to start from a clean sheet and develop totally new maps. This provides an opportunity to consolidate and streamline B2B processes Either option will mean significant disruption for the divested operation
ERP platforms can be difficult to manage and integrate to a divested operation’s B2B platform. Once again, personnel with ERP related skills may remain within the parent company’s IT group The divested operation may need support to manage the integration of global ERP instances to their B2B platform The divested operation may see separation from the parent company as an opportunity to develop a fully integrated ERP/ B2B platform for the first time
Following a divestiture, companies may see this as an ideal opportunity to upgrade from legacy B2B platforms and technologies Upgrading to new technologies allows the divested operation to develop a flexible B2B platform that can grow as the company grows It provides an opportunity to develop a more robust B2B platform with increased availability and reliability Divested operations will be looking to introduce new B2B technologies to realise significant operational efficiencies across the extended enterprise
Following divestiture it is important to maintain continuity with trading partner relationships. Suppliers will want to be re-assured that support and relationships will be maintained during a divestment process The divested operation will need to work out a strategy for managing trading partners in different locations around the world If the divested operation introduces a new B2B strategy then this will have to be communicated to the trading partner community. Trading partners may need to use new communication protocols or document standards as part of the new B2B infrastructure. Trading partners will require ongoing training, development and support with the divested operation’s new B2B platform
Providing global B2B support for all users across an extended enterprise can often be the most difficult area to manage following divestiture For global operations, 24x7 multi-lingual support will be required across multiple time zones The divested operation will need to manage regional document, connectivity and industry specific B2B standards around the world Providing support for new B2B processes or EDI document types needs to be managed effectively to avoid disruptions across the extended enterprise
This slide highlights the key features of the GXS Managed Services platform. In the case of Michelin’s Managed Services platform, GXS manages everything to the right of the red dashed line, ie all external connectivity to trading partners and all document translation requirements.GXS’s B2B Managed Services is a strategic partnership that empowers your business with the most comprehensive technology to automate and streamline your B2B e-commerce transactions, combined with the best people and processes for managing your B2B programs and connecting with your entire trading community—no matter the location, size or B2B technical capabilities of your business partners. B2B Managed Services include: Global Systems Management—GXS performs all day-to-day management of the B2B infrastructure, including systems health monitoring, data backups, network management, systems administration, database management and application support. Visibility and Alerting—Gain enhanced visibility into your B2B transactions utilizing a comprehensive suite of Software as a Service (SaaS) products that provide better visibility and collaboration between customers, suppliers and business partners. Services consist of business activity monitoring for error alerting and reporting, usage reporting, document and acknowledgement tracking, problem detection and resolution, and root cause analysis. ERP Integration—GXS provides a range of services for enterprise integration from complex document mapping, such as SAP IDoc format, to managing business partner relationships and monitoring data quality. We offer B2B and ERP integration to any of the following ERP systems: SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Infor and Epicor. Data and Process Intelligence—Drive data quality and business process integrity by automatically monitoring in-flight data and identifying errors within individual transactions and across long running business processes, such as order to cash. This rule driven service uses compliance guide and business rule modeling to capture business impacting exceptions and track key performance indicators (KPI’s). The service includes validation, exception management, and analytics and reporting to deliver a heightened level of visibility.Mapping and Translation—B2B mapping specialists manage all data-mapping and translation tasks, perform change management and issue resolution and process critical production map changes on-demand to ensure map quality. GXS performs mapping of data structures from the format of internal applications such as Microsoft Dynamics, SAP or Oracle ERP to the formats required by external business partners such as EDI (ANSI X12, Tradacoms, EDIFACT), XML and RosettaNet.Partner On-Boarding—GXS provides the ideal combination of experienced implementation professionals and robust tools to rapidly onboard all your business partners on your behalf to ensure full participation in your company’s e-commerce programs, including data synchronization, AS2/Internet EDI, VAN migrations, EDI and supply chain visibility. Program Management— Experienced B2B Service Delivery Managers work with you to ensure implementation success and will also provide day-to-day project management activities ranging from oversight of all production activities including status reports and resource orchestration to help manage change request activity and production incidents. 24X7 Monitoring and Resolution Support— GXS provides you with a dedicated Production Services team to proactively monitor all processes and business transactions that flow through your production system. 24X7 support includes translation monitoring, exception management and incident management, in addition to monitoring system availability, capacity, performance and utilization, file latency and conducting server, application and interface health checks.In short, GXS provides Michelin with a flexible and scalable B2B platform that is able to support their business operations anywhere in the world.
With regards document mapping, our mapping centre of excellence has experience of a wide variety of cross industry and regional standards in document translations. We are able to provide extensive any to any mapping skills. This allows consolidation of existing maps or the creation of entirely new maps to suit business processes in the divested operation.For integrating with ERP systems, GXS has worked with 20 companies to manage their SAP and B2B integration needs. Seamless integration between ERP and B2B platforms allows the divested operation to have a common view of enterprise wide informationManaging trading partner relationships is a key activity that the divested operation will want to manage carefully, having local on-boarding in 30 countries in 20 languages allows trading partners to be effectively managed both during and after the divestiture process.Provision of truly global support through multi-lingual, 24/7 helpdesks and proactive monitoring allows the newly divested operation to manage all their users across the extended enterprise, no matter where they may be locatedFinally, the ability to provide support for legacy technologies or provide an upgrade path to the latest B2B solutions and services allows the divested operation to build flexibility and reliability into the divested operation. This flexibility in the B2B infrastructure will ultimately allow the B2B platform to grow as the company grows.