- Did you know there are 25 steps in every B2B transaction?
- Find out more
- B2B Oustourcing Glossary of Terms
- Click here to access a glossary of common technical terms and acronyms used when discussing B2B Outsourcing
What are B2B Managed Services?
A technical infrastructure
For all business systems, the technical infrastructure considerations are broadly similar. You have the hardware, software, legacy systems, data storage, network systems, back-up and data recovery systems. These have to be implemented, supported, maintained and upgraded. Their capabilities also have to be securely extended as the organisation enters new territories and new markets.
B2B systems are further complicated by the wide range of technology solutions that companies use to handle B2B transactions. Early EDI solutions have been augmented with FTP, AS2 and XML-based solutions. Large partners or customers have their own B2B solutions with which they demand you integrate. Smaller trading partners want Excel or web form capabilities.
This has led to a vast number of B2B document types and a vast amount of maps to allow the effective translation from one document to another. As the amount of B2B transactions that an organisation has to handle grows rapidly, this process makes onboarding new partners and customers more difficult as is accurately predicting the costs of your B2B system.
By removing these issues, B2B Managed Services can deliver:
- The development of a ‘technology agnostic’ B2B network
- Reduced software, hardware and network investments
- Reduced data processing time, increased data quality
- Accelerated connection to other B2B systems
- Increased system availability, improved disaster recovery capabilities
- Highly scalable architecture (capable of rapid extension or retraction)
- Highly predictable B2B IT costs (based primarily on the monthly level of transactions)