Two Ways to Cope

The technology debate won’t be resolved anytime soon, which means most companies will have to support a variety of platforms, from legacy investments in electronic data interchange to the latest Web-based system. Although supporting multiple environments is more expensive than standardizing on one system, two companies, Arrow Electronics and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, have found ways to control the costs.

Arrow supports many B2B data standards, including EDI, RosettaNet and other XML standards, portals and flat files. The $11 billion company distributes electronics products such as semiconductors from 600 suppliers to more than 130,000 OEMs, and provides some business services, such as inventory management. To cope with each trading partners’ technical requirements, Arrow used a development platform from WebMethods to create software that converts files from the variety of formats it receives from customers to formats that Arrow’s systems can handle.

A preprocessor program identifies who sent a particular transaction, the type of transaction (whether it’s a purchase order, an invoice or an advance shipment notice, for example), the format (Excel file, EDI, RosettaNet or something else), and the data that’s contained in the file. A mapping program converts the file from whatever format the customer used into formats Arrow’s financial and order-entry systems can process. Within the mapping program, Arrow developed one generic data map for each type of transaction. For example, a customer’s purchase order will be converted to the generic map Arrow created for purchase orders.

The maps make it easy for Arrow to bring new trading partners on board, regardless of what technology they use, says Donna Cozzolino, Arrow’s e-commerce director. "We have about 4,000 different types of partners and transactions, yet we only have about 800 mapping programs, because we created these generic maps that developers can reuse." Finally, a post-processor program determines to which of Arrow’s systems the file needs to be sent: Purchase orders go to the sales order-entry system, invoices to the financial system. For data conversions that can’t be automated, Arrow keeps labor costs down by using offshore developers for the hands-on work.

Meanwhile, Hitachi Global Storage has found a way to reduce its EDI costs—without forcing trading partners onto new platforms—by outsourcing its EDI operations to an electronic hub operated by E2Open, one of a number of companies such as Sterling Commerce, GSX and Viacore, that operate B2B exchanges and facilitate B2B integration.

The company had used electronic data interchange since 1996 and spent "a good fraction of a million dollars" annually to maintain its EDI infrastructure, says CIO Jayaraman. But Jayaraman figured he couldn’t dump EDI wholesale because so many suppliers use it.