EXTOL International, a leading provider of B2B integration software for the mid-sized enterprise,has announced that eZCom Software selected EXTOL to bring self-service EDI and multi-enterprise integration to the Software as a Service (SaaS) business arena. By implementing EXTOL Business Integrator as the integration engine, eZCom can integrate its standard network formats to meet the requirements of each new customer in record time, the company said.
The arrangement brings to customers self-service EDI capabilities through Software as a Service (SaaS). eZCom’s Lingo is a Web-based application for comprehensive multi-enterprise integration. Functioning like an e-commerce passport, Lingo supplies an easy browser interface designed around individual companies' trading needs. With unmatched power and ease of use, Lingo enables companies to converse with any trading partner, regardless of formats or communication languages, managing multiple trading relationships and e-commerce standards with the click of a mouse, the company said.
After deploying the EXTOL Business Integrator (EBI), eZCom can add customers faster and easier than before, allowing the company to reassign programming resources to strategic development projects that can grow its business. EBI sets eZCom apart from its competition "by giving us the ability to use a service-oriented architecture, Web-service choreography, and business process management infrastructure in addressing the increasingly complex needs of our customers," said eZCom CEO, Marc Kalman.
With more than 1,000 customers contributing to a one-third growth in less than a year, eZCom faced a significant challenge: How to profitably and rapidly grow the company’s customer base while establishing a sustainable differentiation in the evolving integration service-provider market segment.
"Our IT team was using traditional translator technology to on-board clients' partners, as well as to provide the custom code needed to address any non-standard EDI requirement," said Kalman. "This is labor intensive, diverting development resources from strategic activities and limiting the number of new customer requirements we could address in any meaningful time frame."
Last summer, eZCom installed the EXTOL Business Integrator to automate bringing onboard customers' partners, so that a new partner can be added to a customer’s profile in just a couple of minutes instead of the typical days or weeks that other solutions require. "Integrating EBI into our backend can increase our ability to add new clients by over 200 percent," said Kalman.
"The result is the availability of IT resources for projects that contribute to the growth of our company," said Kalman. "And, of equal importance, the EXTOL technology gives us clear differentiation of our SaaS offering, beyond the common capabilities of supply chain integration service providers. This includes data validation, compliance monitoring of business rules, and business activity monitoring inclusive of event notifications, alerts, and activity reporting. Everything we were concerned about can now be automated."
Crossing enterprise lines is complex and resource intensive. But because of Lingo's ease of use and EBI's integration capabilities, operational complexities are eliminated, along with potential errors and chargebacks, the bane of retail e-commerce.
"The one-size-fits-all approach of most supply chain integration service providers will fail to meet the requirements of all but the most elementary companies," said Stephen Rosen, vice president of Marketing at EXTOL. "Filling the gap with custom-coded solutions may be profitable for the provider, but because these are typically neither scalable nor transportable, they are losing traction in the SMB supply-chain market. The most important word in the definition of SaaS is ‘service.’ Nowhere does it say 'coding.'"
About eZCom
eZCom Software, Inc. is a leading provider of innovative e-commerce solutions for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) in supply chains. eZCom capitalizes on the growing need for a simple and effective e-commerce solution that empowers SMBs to effectively participate in these supply chains. The company’s proprietary open-ended architecture supports multiple translation and communications protocols such as EDI X12, XML, and AS2, while reducing the complexities of this process. An easy to use batch-driven interface manages multiple relationships and allows suppliers to focus on their core business process: getting orders, shipping merchandise, and billing customers. eZCom's solutions become an extension of the supplier’s company, growing with them as their needs evolve. Further information is available at www.ezcomsoftware.com.
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