Remove the roadblocks in your supply chain

2021 was the year of the so-called “Great Resignation,” where people in all industries were leaving their jobs – by the millions. For companies with complex supply chains, already struggling with shortages and delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the workforce turnover in a competitive marketplace adds one more challenge to the mix.

Your supply chain is much more than just about passing along a digital invoice, it’s about connecting all participants to a myriad of systems across a complicated and interwoven supply chain that’s in flux.

Supply chain integration is critical. A smooth integration can mean accelerated time-to-value, whereas a piecemeal integration can delay decisions and add another layer of disruption to supply chain operations. Being able to seamlessly integrate trading partners with the supply chain, and manage the human factors in this complexity, will give your business stability and resiliency in this ever-changing industry. 

So how do you mitigate the business risks that come with depending on a volatile supply chain? It comes down to efficient supplier lifecycle management and effective cross-functional collaboration. 

Predictably respond to change

The supply chain is always fluctuating. Divestitures, mergers, and acquisitions of suppliers are common and can slow things down significantly due to the continual onboarding and offboarding of businesses – and their human and non-human “users.” In many cases, these businesses continue to deliver the same goods, but extensive administrative changes mean that it can take weeks before they can be operating in full swing again. 

For businesses down the line, where operations depend on a consistent supply of goods and services from other manufacturers, the impact of these delays is magnified. The lack of visibility into dependent business processes, and the inability to absorb unforeseen changes, cause delays and uncertainty that result in lost time and money, and increased pressure on an already strained supply chain.  

Even before the pandemic and its challenges, 94 percent of enterprises were authorizing third parties to access their backend resources. However, connecting and sharing information with large partner ecosystems is incredibly complex and expensive. Plus, providing so many third parties with external access to internal systems (and doing so in a variety of ways) can threaten your company’s cybersecurity.

It’s hard to find a platform that’s built for all your needs:

• a unified solution that gives you visibility into changes across trading partners
• the capability to accelerate and simplify onboarding and offboarding of suppliers – at scale
• the ability to streamline collaboration securely across the system

But you can check all these boxes with OpenText Supplier Portal. 

One portal for streamlined and secure control

The OpenText Supplier Portal increases the value and benefits of collaborative work, breaking down information silos and eliminating high-friction experiences that decelerate supply chains.  This single-portal infrastructure provides quick and secure access to information, regardless of user community, industry, or geographic location. Identity and access management (IAM) is built right in, allowing you to control third-party access to backend systems and information at scale, and providing a single-sign-on environment that’s secure, compliant, and fully auditable.

This streamlined control safeguards information while suppliers are transitioning through their lifecycle. Whether they’re being onboarded or offboarded in your system, or experiencing staffing changes within their own company, IAM leverages vendor master data (and a distributed security model) to gain visibility into each supplier. This ensures that every person, system, or thing connecting to your backend systems has only the right access – everywhere. 

Easy and efficient collaboration across touchpoints

All the security in the world won’t make a difference if your people are circumventing company-approved methods for accessing and sharing information with third parties. If users must search through endless amounts of irrelevant data to find the answers, bounce from portal to portal to gain access to different systems, or jump through hoops to share information with each other, they’ll find another way, which could be disastrous for your company.

The Supplier Portal tailors the experience for people so that they have access to relevant information quickly and can communicate with others easily – all within the system. Everything is accessible from one, user-friendly portal that simplifies navigation and search features to improve efficiency and productivity. It can be a single source of truth for securing your B2B integration.

A solution for real-world challenges

The Supplier Portal and IAM solutions were developed in response to real-world challenges in the supply chain. In working with the “Big Three” automakers in 2000, we saw an opportunity to rethink how various systems could be integrated and secured to improve operations and decrease massive costs through collaboration across global supply chains. 

These automotive manufacturers have hundreds of thousands of people accessing their backend systems and need to maintain reliable and secure operations – no matter how complex the lines of the supply chain can get as companies divest, merge, acquire others, and grow rapidly. 

OpenText Supplier Portal integrates systems with the people behind the supply chain, fostering collaboration through a secure model that puts more control into the hands of manufacturers. We’ve brought it all together in a platform for success, where you can enjoy the benefits of single sign-on (SSO), simplified content management, real-time communications, reporting and analytics features, adherence to governance and compliance regulations, supplier lifecycle management, and secure file exchange.

Learn more about how IAM plays a critical role in supply chain management here.