B2B Integration : A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce

Components, Benefits, Challenges and Applications of B2B Integration 27
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Figure 2.2. — Enterprise Application Integration components
2.2.3. Business Process Management (BPM)
B2Bi is as much about business process management as it is about
technology. B2Bi implementation provides every corporation with the
opportunity to redefine and automate core business processes, which
results in streamlined business operations and reduced cost.
BPM for B2Bi is focused on how business partners can refine their
business processes so that the applications supporting them can be
seamlessly integrated. With effective BPM, companies can become a
part of a unified business process flow and unified supply chain.
Unified workflows allow the dynamic sharing of state information
among trading partners, through which all communication can be tracked
and recorded. Since B2B transactions can span over multiple days,
unified workflows become critical in ensuring the completion of
automated business transactions.
2.2.4. Extensible Markup Language (XML)
XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a technology based on open
standards that standardizes and simplifies the communication of business