The Paris 2024 Olympics saw over 10,500 athletes competing in over 329 medal events. This event is where sporting legends are created. Every four years these GOAT (Greatest of All Time) athletes gather in one place to compete for the gold.
The varied sporting disciplines of the games got me thinking. How would companies fare if they competed in the Integration Olympics, an event designed to assess how well companies are using B2B integration technologies to address specific business and supply chain challenges?
How many of the following ‘events’ would your company be able to participate in based on whether you are using the B2B integration technologies described for each sport listed? One, two or possibly all events?
4 x 100m Relay
This event relies on four runners effortlessly transporting a baton from the start to finish in the quickest possible time. If the baton is dropped for any reason during the handover period between two runners, it can add significant time to the track lap or, in some instances, cause teams to lose the relay race.
The EDI relay on your B2B network
Exchanging the baton seamlessly between runners is like transferring an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) message across a B2B network. A provider must carry EDI messages and transport them securely from one location to another. They must also do it in a relatively short time while simultaneously adhering to local EDI standards. OpenText Trading Grid provides a highly available messaging platform. It ensures your business transactions get from point A to point B as smoothly as possible.
Trading Grid allows you to build a 100% digitized supply chain operation. These transactions may need to be sent via different communication protocols or converted into other document formats. Either way Trading Grid can mediate between formats and provide interconnectivity to many different networks worldwide.
Do you have the ability to send EDI messages anywhere in the world, regardless of the communication protocol or document format being used? If yes, then you can award your company your first gold medal!
Triathlon
Sydney hosted the first triathlon at the 2000 Olympics. The event consisted of a 1500m swim, a 40km bike ride, and a 10km run with no breaks. Transitions between each event had to be seamless, and this was part of the competition. For the 110 men and women taking part in this year’s Olympic triathlon, it was a tough test of their abilities and endurance.
The shipping logistics triathlon
A triathlon is almost multi-modal in nature, similar to many of the services offered by global logistics companies. These companies ship goods across land, sea, and air routes around the world 24/7. But how do you keep track of these global shipments? One way is by leveraging an IoT solution. This solution gives you to have a window into your global supply chain. It keeps track of the location and health of your shipments as they pass across different modes of transport, different country borders and then onto distribution centers or retail outlets.
OpenText Aviator IoT is an AI-powered platform that allows you to track shipments moving across the supply chain or any asset across your business.
Do you have a way to seamlessly track shipments or assets anywhere in the world? If so, award your company a second gold medal!
Football
Football can trace its roots back to Ancient China. But the modern version of the game was born on the streets of medieval England before becoming the most popular sport in the world. Each team consists of 11 players, and the game is split into two 45-minute halves. The key difference at the Paris Olympics is that each team has 18 players, all but three of whom must be born on or after 1st January 2001
Choosing the best teammates for your business initiatives
Football is interesting because teams are selected from multiple players, and coaches can substitute players as the game develops. In essence, teams swap out scalable resources depending on needs or who they may be playing. Supply chain leaders face many challenges in supporting global expansion initiatives. These include business restructuring, ERP modernization activities, or meeting complex regional e-invoicing compliance mandates.
A football team manager might need a player with different skills to compete against another team. Similarly, supply chain leaders may need additional skills and resources to ensure their B2B integration platform supports the needs of the business. OpenText Business Network Cloud Enterprise can provide the scalable resources companies need to deploy a successful B2B integration project. Defined as outsourced integration, managed services, or EDI as a service, a scalable integration delivery model extends the skills of an IT team and ensures they can meet impending project go-live dates.
Do you have a way to scale B2B integration resources to meet the needs of your business? If so, then you can award your company a third gold medal!
Volleyball
In 1895, William G Morgan devised a game called ‘mignonette’, which he intended to be a gentle alternative to basketball for older members of his YMCA gym. Over a hundred years later, volleyball is anything but gentle. It first appeared at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. Two teams of six play this game, with the object being to land the ball in the opposition’s half of the court with only three touches of the ball before it must cross over the net. In 2024, 312 volleyball players competed at the South Paris Arena and the Eiffel Tower Stadium in Paris.
There are two critical requirements for volleyball team members: collaboration and communication. These are also skills required across many of today’s supply chains. Collaborating with trading partners is essential for improving operational efficiencies, and communicating during, for example, some form of supply chain disruption is equally crucial.
Collaboration and communication matter in teams and supply chains
OpenText Active Access provides a secure collaboration platform that helps to improve collaboration and information management across a trading partner community. A solution such as Active Access has been more significant over the past couple of years, with the increase in disruptions impacting global supply chains. When these disasters strike, communicating with your trading partner community becomes more critical than ever.
Do you have the means to manage the day-to-day effectively, as well as people-to-people collaboration and communications with your entire trading partner community? If so, award your company a fourth gold medal!
Archery
This sport is one of the oldest in the Olympics and requires the utmost accuracy and patience from competitors. Archery dates back around 10,000 years, when humans first used bows and arrows for hunting and warfare before it developed as a competitive activity in medieval England. The 128 athletes competing in archery demonstrated much nerve, skill, and determination, shooting at a target 122cm in diameter, approximately 70m away, to hit the center ring measuring just 12.2cm.
Automation delivers accuracy
As archery is focused primarily on accuracy, have you ever thought about how accurate your B2B documents are as they flow across your supply chain? How much manual rework do you have to undertake to correct documents before they enter an ERP system, for example? Did you know that 44% of data entering an ERP system comes from outside the enterprise? What if it contains inaccurate information? OpenText Active Intelligence is one solution that can ensure increased accuracy of business transactions flowing across your supply chain and into enterprise platforms such as ERP systems.
Do you have an automated process for checking the quality of B2B transactions exchanged across your supply chain? If so, you can award your company a fifth and final gold medal!
Based on these five areas, how many gold medals did your company win? One? Two? Three? Four? Five? Adopting B2B integration technologies is a slow and complex process, but OpenText is here to help. Learn more about how OpenText Business Network and our most recent innovations from our 24.3 release in July 2024 can help you GOAT for the gold and win the Supply Chain Olympics!
