What is B2B Integration?

In today's technology age, competition in the business sector has gained momentum. We see that companies that successfully adapt to digital transformation stand out in this period. Today, business processes take place in a very different way compared to just 10 years ago. Because in the digital age, there is no longer any tolerance for manual ness and slowness.

In this age where automation and efficiency are very important, integrations are critical for companies. In this article, we will talk about B2B integration and the importance and advantages of B2B integration.

What is Business to Business (B2B) Integration?

B2B integration is the automation of business processes and communication between businesses, manufacturers, suppliers, customers and trading partners. B2B integration ensures that the data provided by all business partners involved in a common business process is automatically shared with other business partners. In this way, the data obtained from the business processes are automatically recorded in the ERP and 3rd party systems of the companies.

Types of B2B Integration

B2B integration types can be classified in various ways. But if we want to classify it on a general scale, we can classify it as "data-level integration" and "people-level-integration". Let's examine these 2 types of B2B integration now.

Data-Level Integration

Data-level integration is a type of integration that provides automatic document exchange in various business processes. With the integration at the data level, the documents of all these transactions are transferred automatically and digital from order to payment or from tender to invoice. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) can be considered as an example of data-level integration. Since the information transferred in B2B integration is very critical and private, high-security protocols are the basis of these integrations.

People-Level Integration

People-level integration is defined as end-to-end communication and collaboration between trading partners to run business processes.

What is Electronic Data Exchange (EDI)?

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) can be described as the electronic exchange of business documents (eg orders, waybills and more) in the form of structured data based on international standards. Thus, there is no longer a need for manual intervention, as data can be changed and reprocessed beyond the boundaries of the enterprise, without being bound by any format. The benefits of EDI, such as accurate data processing, reducing commercial disputes, increasing competitiveness by accelerating the process of converting data into information, make significant contributions to company productivity. EDI provides safe, fast and inexpensive transfer of data.

Advantages of B2B Integration

B2B integration is very important for businesses because of the many advantages it provides. Let's take a look at these advantages together.

Data Integrity

There are many applications, systems and hardware that businesses use in their business processes. Since all these applications, systems and hardware have different structures, it is not possible to directly transfer data with other assets. Thanks to the integration, companies can better process and manage the data obtained from different platforms by collecting them in ERP systems. Companies using software such as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft etc. as ERP systems use various integration solutions to perform bidirectional data transfer with 3rd party systems.

Monitoring and Reporting

For companies that carry out a large number of transactions with their business partners, it is impossible to track these transactions manually. B2B integration provides the status of transactions between businesses, the delivery status of messages, and automatic monitoring and reporting of errors.

Compliance with International Standards

There are international data transport protocols that companies have to comply with. These document transport protocols differ from industry to industry. X12 are some of the key B2B document standards, including EDIFACT and GS1. B2B integration ensures that companies comply with these document standards.

Productivity

B2B integration brings processes faster by enabling the processes that used to be done manually to be performed automatically now. This automation increases the operational efficiency and data accuracy of companies.

Do you need B2B Integration?

MDP Group has been supporting the integration processes of more than 140 companies for more than 10 years. MDP Group, which has one of the largest and most experienced integration teams in Europe, produces end-to-end solutions for the integration processes of enterprises with its know-how.

We are ready for your integration needs with our ready integration packages and custom integration solutions. Do not hesitate to contact us for more detailed information.