The 5 principles of Open Sharing

1. If you pay it you own it

Definition of how you interact with your supply chain partners is your IP and not the IP of the business network: They make their money on your content. We provide the service to enable it. Therefore the solution is based on Open Standards (UBL 2.x) translation and Open Source software. With an OpenSoure based CPAL licensing model the customer owns what he pays for and the service is a true service, not a license in disguise.

2. You know how you can get out before you get in

We like our customers to stay with us for merit like our premium service, reliability of the data exchange and expertise in supply chain understanding. By relying on Open Source and Open Standards we provide a very transparent mechanism to get out. The content you own is simply portable; conceptually but also in practice.

3. Business continuity with your network ensured

We will never charge cost to business partners for either migration or operating fees. Therefore the fees our customers pay directly represent the true TCO. If you choose to make arrangements on distributing cost and benefits of the automated supply chain process with your partners, the, that is not our role but the role of contracting parties.

4. Interoperability in stead of platform size

Gartner rank B2B network size as the only "high" criterion in the evaluation process for Integration Brokerage. This favours a "size matters" approach which is convenient for both service providers and decision makers. We believe interoperability is in fact more important: Not one single network will ever cover all your supply network, so choosing one is a fallacy and you will either cut partners out or need to make extra investments in interoperability which is against the interest of the service provider. Hence low penetration rates in your supply network for full integration: typically 20% and defying the business case in the first place. Our game plan is an open model without roaming fees or 3rd party charges. There is no hurdle to adoption. True drivers for benefits from automated supply chain processes between customers, supply chain partners and our compensations are aligned: Pay as you save.

5. Prepare for disruptive change

Open Integration Models are emerging. We are not the only one recognizing the limitations of proprietary hubs. API's are a trend today as an alternative for connecting to external supply chain processes and platforms in an "inside out" approach using Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) technology or iPaaS solutions. If the prediction comes true that by 2016 API's will be used for 50% of the B2B transactions, this is disruptive to the business models and valutations of Integration Brokers. In an Open Source based model this makes no difference: The technology is agnostic to exchange the content via an API or via a message and the customer will just consume the service to connect to the API (which is then his IP and portable to any other platform like an internal application or EAI tool).

By integration of the IB functionality to our model using again OpenSource based Process Integration capability and portal technology we support a hybrid model where any process available electronically can also be executed via the web on the other side.

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Cloud Platform lock-in

Hosted EDI Integration

Interoperability

Open Source Integration

Portability