Serious Supplier Satisfaction

Supplier Communities

OmPrompt helps Agile Enterprises build fully Connected Supply Chain Communities quickly and at low cost. The flexibility which comes from having a focused and experienced company to manage the establishment and ongoing maintenance of a Supplier Community is invaluable given the overstretched resources in both IT and Operations in most Enterprises.

OmPrompt's management and maintenance expertise and experience is perfectly accompanied by the OmPrompt Messaging Platform which provides unrivalled advantage. It includes support for; the full range of format options, structured and unstructured message types, business processes, as well as full Monitoring and Alerting capability.

It is this combination of Management and Maintenance expertise together with the OmPrompt Messaging Platform that enables Agile Enterprises to build Communities quickly with their chosen Suppliers.

Not having access to this capability inhibits an Enterprise's agility as certain Suppliers would be unable or unwilling to support a rigid approach to Community Engagement where a prescribed format is imposed due to the constraints of the internal system or the bandwidth of the internal operations team. The Enterprise is faced with the choice of not trading with those selected Suppliers or accepting manual disconnected processes which undermine the efficiency, agility and visibility inherent in a fully Connected Supplier Community.

Supplier Communities

Supplier Communities

Formats

The OmPrompt Messaging Platform has the flexibility in terms of format options to enable an Enterprise to offer the correct balance of connectivity formats to ensure the establishment of the required Supplier Community rapidly and at low cost.

Building a Community of Suppliers with OmPrompt can be achieved very quickly and with a typical Return on Investment (RoI) of six months or less.

A full range of efficient connectivity options are all available as part of the OmPrompt Messaging Platform. This allows an Agile Enterprise to choose the correct balance between cost constraint and the flexibility required in order to maintain and enhance the required Supplier Community both today and into the future.

Deciding the target community and then determining the agreed formats to be adhered to with the community is the primary consideration. Terms of Business may be enforced to dictate that the Supplier Community members connect in a limited way, for example a given EDI standard. However, such a restriction could limit the ability to build and manage such a Community therefore requiring that greater flexibility in terms of the number and type of agreed formats may need to be offered.

A range of choices may need to be provided; such as multiple EDI or XML standards, plus some solutions for sending messages in unstructured formats such as Excel spreadsheets, PDFs or faxes. Offering too many formats could lead to increased costs - too few and agility is affected.

Messages

The OmPrompt Messaging Platform supports all structured and unstructured message types to establish a Supplier Community rapidly and at low cost.

Once the strategy for supported formats has been decided, the extent of the Supply Chain Messaging that the Enterprise wishes to exchange must be considered and brought into the design of the target OmPrompt Enabled Community.

In some communities the message flows are limited to a one way flow of a single message, for example, an order. In others the messaging flows can be a lot more complex and interactive encompassing the entire order-to-cash process including tendering processes, ASNs, CMRs and PODs etc.

Business Processes

The OmPrompt Messaging Platform fully encompasses the incorporation of Business Logic and Workflow Management so that all required business processes can be fully supported. Huge efficiency savings can be made as a result of the automation of business processes..

With more complex message flows often there is a requirement to introduce Business Logic in support of the business process with the Supplier Community. This logic could be as simple as some data validation or data cleansing but it could be as complex as concatenating multiple messages together, which arrive at separate times and from separate partners before setting in motion the next part of the automated process.

One Enterprise Interface

The OmPrompt Messaging Platform manages the multiple formats, messages and business processes connecting the 3rd Party Supply Chain Community with a single point of integration.

Only one connection or integration point is required to the Enterprise at the centre of the Community, this architecture significantly drives down the set-up cost and ongoing maintenance associated with multiple direct connections to each Community member. Any change to the Enterprise system that connects to the Community such as a system replacement or a system upgrade can be very efficiently managed as a result of such architecture.

Community Management

The OmPrompt Messaging Platform On-Boarding Portal has been designed to speed the process of On-Boarding and to ensure the rapid establishment of the Community in question and of time-to-value.

Ensuring that all the members of the Supplier Community are connected in the first instance to the OmPrompt Messaging Platform and that they fully understand their requirements as a member of the Community is something that can either be managed 100% by OmPrompt, or 100% by the Enterprise in question or as a partnership between OmPrompt and the Enterprise in question where the responsibilities are clearly divided and understood. Ongoing management and maintenance can be approached in the same way.

OmPrompt has established Communities of more than 1,000 partners in less than six months.

KPI Monitoring and Alerts

The OmPrompt Messaging Platform enables the introduction of Monitoring and Alerts within a connected 3rd Party Supply Chain Community and forms the basis of complete Supply Chain Visibility, Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), Supply Chain Collaboration and Event Management.

Once the Community is connected, the messages are flowing and the business processes are fully integrated it is possible to implement a series of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which will monitor the Community and track performance to the target metrics. Such monitoring can show aggregate performance for the whole Community as well as individual performance for specific members or a specific member of the Community. Examples of such KPIs are:

  • On time delivery

  • On time in full

  • Stock outs

In addition to the monitoring of KPIs it is possible to introduce Alerts either at an aggregate or individual level in order to initiate a required interjection to the process once a KPI has not been reached or is not being maintained. These Alerts can either be web based or email based or a combination of the two.

Benefits summary

  • Supplier Communities on-boarded rapidly at low cost

  • Complete connectivity flexibility from existing structured EDI to unstructured message formats

  • Full support of business process, logic, rules and workflow management

  • Single point of Integration to/from Enterprises

  • Full service Community Management

  • 100% connectivity with 100% of the target Supplier Community

    Fully monitored KPIs and associated Alerts at aggregate or individual level


Overview - Communities overview

Customers - Customer communities

3rd Parties - 3rd Party communities

Suppliers - Supplier communities