Efficiencies by vertically integrating to your suppliers and customers should not be underestimated.
Typically, a business will have many applications that share information to a degree, but the overall effectiveness of using that information can be compromised due to time delays, duplicate data, out of date information etc.
An extranet solution can take feeds from many sources and render them as a cohesive set of information within an easy to use browser application. Conceptually, this places an umbrella over the existing systems and provides a 360 degree view of the information. Data processing and manipulation can take place as the information flows across the systems.
Consider vertically integrating to your suppliers and customers, passing and processing information electronically, at a time to suit them. Reducing costs and the time it takes to perform certain processes can now be achieved by adding dynamic integration processes into your business with exception handling. Moving and processing a subset of information needed to make business decisions in real time is fast becoming the de facto standard for business management teams. Historical reporting is fast being replaced with on demand browser based applications that can drilldown to the detail when required.
An extranet solution can add this capability to your business by co-existing with your current applications. In the future, as some applications are replaced the extranet remains the same, providing the same consistent interface to the user. This allows your applications to be replaced on a modular basis at a time to suit your business and with the added benefit of reducing the risk of the usual big bang approach. Another benefit is that they raise the expectation of the customer to expect that level of functionality from all of it's suppliers, hence makes your differentiation case a little stronger.
Sometimes information needs to be transformed, de-duplicated and/or merged. Our range of technical expertise can be used to formulate a data conversion strategy, build the solution and work with your company to implement the processes and checkpoints required to guarantee success. Working for a large number of plc companies in the past means we have the structured approach to data conversion and migration planning, essential in large volume transfers.