B2B Integration : A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce

68 B2B Integration — A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce
In order to have long-term benefits of data oriented integration, a
company needs to set a single standard for defining data elements
across all data sources.
3.3. Portal Oriented Integration
Portals provide a Web front-end or presentation layer for supporting key
business functions involving online transactions such as sales, marketing,
customer service and enterprise-wide communication and sharing
information with the customers, trading partners and internal employees
of a company. According to the definition provided by IBM, portals
provide a secure, single point of interaction with diverse information,
business processes and people, personalized to a user's needs and
responsibilities. Portal users have a Web browser to access and interact
with Web applications hosted by the company. Accessed content and
data in the portal may reside virtually anywhere: on the intranet, the
Web, relational databases and data warehouses, file systems, enterprise
resource planning systems (e.g., MySAP) or other enterprise applications.
A typical example of use of Web portals in a B2B scenario is a
buyer logging on to their account maintained on a supplier's portal and
checking on product availability, pricing and placing an order. After
placing an order, the buyer can check on the status of order fulfillment
and shipment through the portal. If the buyer uses the supplier's portal
often, the portal will recognize the buyer and offer personalized services
based on the buying pattern and preferences of the buyer.
Today, Web portals are an important component of any company's
B2Bi strategy. They provide a very quick and efficient way to establish
and maintain a business relationship and to add value to all interactions
conducted through it by providing personalized services. Portals enable
collaboration among the trading partners by including tools which help
large, distributed and cross-organization teams to work together and
communicate across distance, time zones and company borders. Through
portals, suppliers, buyers, manufacturers and distributors can streamline
their supply chains and other shared business processes. Furthermore,
portals provide anytime (24/7/365), anywhere access to information
over the Web and a scalable infrastructure for handling large volume