Today’s business environment is one of constant change with macro-economic conditions evolving on an almost daily basis. The Suez Canal blockage, the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack and, of course, COVID-19 have seen major supply chain disruptions occur around the world. When you look back over the past decade there have also been countless natural disasters such as tsunamis, earthquakes and wildfires that have also directly impacted supply chain operations. Companies know that disruptions are not going to go away — they will always have some sort of impact on business operations. So, what can companies do to build resilience to future disruptions?
COVID-19 has often been regarded as a ‘black swan’ event, one which will force companies to not only restructure their supply chains but also accelerate their digital transformation initiatives such as moving business applications to the cloud. Cloud technologies bring greater flexibility to business operations as information can be accessed securely from anywhere in the world. Today’s CIOs are now accelerating their cloud related investments, supply chain leaders are restructuring their physical supply chains because they realize if they don’t adapt their business operations they will not survive.
Cloud based integration is key to building increased resilience to future business disruptions and this is the theme of our new virtual conference, ConneXions, the integration summit. Here at OpenText ™ Business Network, we provide a cloud integration platform called OpenText™ Trading Grid ™ that helps companies connect people, systems and things, so only appropriate that we should name our event ConneXions to help foster greater collaboration with companies looking for support with their integration projects.
ConneXions is being hosted by IDG and produced by CIO.com. The four-hour virtual event includes an opening keynote from IDC who will be talking about the importance of digital resilience. We have some great customer speakers including Lear Corporation, Nestlé and Godiva and we will be running a live discussion panel with the team over at Supply Chain Now.
This is the most significant event we have run in five years for our Business Network customers and we are keen to build out an even broader community of companies looking to improve the way in which they integrate with their trading partner communities. If you would like to register for the event, please visit our dedicated website. Here is a very brief summary of the sessions that we will be hosting at our ConneXions event which will be running on 14th September 2021:
- Rethinking Supply Chains in a post pandemic world – IDCexplores how companies can build increased ‘digital resilience’ to future business disruptions and looks at how connecting to a cloud-based business network can provide greater flexibility, agility and scale to meet the challenges of today’s business environment.
- Why is seamless business integration important to Lear Corporation – This session will provide insights into how Lear Corporation intend to accelerate their digital initiatives and their CIO discusses why both internal and external integration are important to the continued success of their business.
- Managing ERP driven digital transformation initiatives at Godiva – this session will provide insights into the importance of integrating ERP and B2B environments together and the significant benefits that can be derived.
- Securing and minimizing risk across extended business ecosystems – This session will provide an overview of how Identity and Access Management can protect your business from external security threats and will discuss use cases for how your business can provide secure access to enterprise applications and associated business information.
- Panel Discussion: Ensuring digital resilience against future supply chain disruptions – how have companies been impacted? What best practices are out there to minimize this? and what can companies do to be better prepared? This live discussion panel, hosted by Supply Chain Now, will aim to find the answers to these questions and more from our line-up of distinguished panellists.
- The essential steps to implement an IoT based shipment intelligence platform – This session will explore the key steps involved with implementing an effective IoT program across your business.
- Business Network 2025 – What next for business integration at Nestlé – this session will provide insights into how Nestlé plans to evolve their integration environment and what disruptive technologies are likely to impact their business in the coming years.
The supply chain line of business has become an increasingly important topic of conversation in boardrooms around the world in recent months and will continue to do so until companies build more resilience into their business operations. It starts with the IT infrastructure, ensuring that information can seamlessly flow around the organization, shipments can be tracked in real time around the world and insights can be derived to monitor supply chain performance. We are excited to be able to host this event with such distinguished speakers and we hope that you will be able to join this virtual event on 14th September 2021. For more details on our speakers, sessions and information on how to register, please visit our dedicated landing page.
