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Industry Leaders Declare Integration will play a Key Role in the Emergence of Collaborative Commerce
TIBCO's Strategic Directions 2001 Conference Backdrop For B2B Implementation Predictions
LAS VEGAS, NV., June 12, 2001 - Business-to-Business (B2B) collaboration was the topic of today's expert panel at the TIBCO Software Inc. (Nasdaq: TIBX) Strategic Directions 2001 customer conference.
Moderated by TIBCO's Chief Marketing Officer Fred Meyer, the panel included senior management from market leading companies including:
- Fadi Chehadé, co-founder, CEO and chairman of Viacore;
- Paul Melchiorre, vice president of global channels and alliances at Ariba;
- Alberto Ostorero, development and technology manager for Pirelli;
- Gerhard Romen, vice president of enterprise solutions at Nokia; and
- Julian Soper, global eCommerce, investment banking and markets, HSBC.
Meyer began the discussion by offering his view of B2B collaboration. "Industrial strength collaboration between companies requires a sophisticated integration framework. Companies are recognizing that only by integrating systems can they share the kinds of sophisticated business processes required for multi-million dollar transactions and meaningful collaboration. This is the future of B2B - dynamic large-scale transactions and collaborative interactions between known and unknown counter parties."
Chehadé of Viacore, noted, "The issues that companies face in trying to implement real collaboration with their partners are very complex, and require specific expertise. The first major objective to focus on is finding a scalable infrastructure platform that can support B2B collaboration. In our case, TIBCO is a very integral part of the service we offer on a central ASP service platform."
"The second thing to determine," said Chehadé, "is what types of messages you want to exchange with your partners. And last, but not least, offer your partners a solution that's low cost. We've found that TIBCO's B2B products make it very affordable for partners to participate in B2B collaboration."
Alberto Vinci from Pirelli, agreed with the latter. He said that one of the challenges for Pirelli, is that they have many small to mid-sized dealers who do not want to install proprietary software, and who will only use a low cost, very flexible solution that is able to work with multiple diverse systems.
Vinci noted that they had started by using TIBCO's infrastructure for integration of their internal enterprise. Their next effort was to integrate their back end systems with their major partners. Now, Pirelli is rolling out the TIBCO ActiveExchangeTM product family of B2B solutions to the rest of their partners. Vinci offered some advice based on his experience from these projects: "Make sure that you provide your partners with an end-to-end solution that not only allows transactions, but also addresses issues such as security. Also, be aware that you will have to send information to a many different kinds of devices, which poses an additional challenge. But the most difficult part of B2B collaboration is coordinating your company's internal processes with those of your partners," said Vinci.
"Don't just look at how many applications you offer to your partners; figure out how your partners are using information. The point of being event-driven is to be able to react to needs and changes quickly and effectively," noted Vinci.
At this, Chehadé chimed in. "What's driving B2B is the need for visibility. Until you have real-time information on what's going on in your enterprise and with your partners, manufacturers and suppliers, true B2B collaboration is not possible."
Julian Soper, who has been responsible for creating an e-channel for HSBC, said they started by building a web site using TIBCO's portal technology, and then HSBC began participating in industry portals such as TradeWeb. HSBC also uses TIBCO for foreign exchange.
Soper detailed some of his lessons learned. "Don't be afraid to partner with competitors to develop joint solutions. And be aware that B2B collaboration is more about solving business issues rather than just technology."
Ariba's Paul Melchiorre also offered suggestions for companies wanting to drive towards B2B collaboration. "Look at your procurement process and see how it can be streamlined. Then leverage whatever business processes you optimize throughout your enterprise."
When asked how Ariba simplifies the heterogeneous software world for B2B collaboration, Melchiorre said "You need a collaboration platform that allows communication among different systems, different types and different versions of software. Until there's one standard, TIBCO and Ariba are absolutely necessary for the integration of your back-end world."
As a background for the panel, Meyer provided a brief analysis of where B2B collaboration solutions are today, and what they might look like in the in the approaching months and years. He discussed the compelling need for Total Business Integration (TBI) in order to conduct "industrial-strength" collaboration. TBI is the integration of every aspect of a company's business-both the human and electronic, both with the enterprise and in its extended circle of suppliers, partners and customers. TIBCO likes to refer to this as the integration of "processes, partnerships and people" - the core of any companies business.
The potential benefits of implementing TBI are significant, and include: streamlined business processes, increased operational efficiencies, increased revenues from serving customers better, and enhanced ability of an enterprise to swiftly respond to change..
Total Business Integration represents an important shift in the way companies are thinking about their business. Instead of viewing collaboration as an activity that takes place "outside" of a company, increasingly companies are recognizing collaboration as a critical component of their overall business strategy. But top executives at global enterprises are finding that collaboration is not easily accomplished without a sophisticated integration framework.
For more information about TIBCO's Strategic Directions 2001 conference, please visit www.tibco.com.
About TIBCO Software Inc.
TIBCO Software Inc. (Nasdaq:TIBX) is a leading provider of total business integration solutions delivering infrastructure software that enables companies to seamlessly integrate business systems in real time. TIBCO's products enable the real–time distribution of information through patented technology called The Information Bus™, or TIB®. TIBCO technology was first used to digitize Wall Street and has since been adopted in diverse industries including financial services, telecommunications, electronic commerce, transportation, logistics, manufacturing and energy. TIBCO's global customer base includes more than 1,000 customers such as Cisco Systems, Yahoo!, Ariba, NEC, Enron, Sun Microsystems, GE Capital, Philips, AT&T, Pirelli and AOL/Netscape. Headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., TIBCO can be reached at +1 650 846 1000 or on the Web at www.tibco.com.
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TIBCO, TIBCO Software, TIBCO ActiveEnterprise, TIB/Rendezvous, TIB/Hawk, TIB/Adapter for ActiveDatabase, The Information Bus and TIB are trademarks or registered trademarks of TIBCO Software Inc. Other trademarks, registered trademarks and/or service marks are the properties of their respective owners.
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