HQ or locally decision making process? Various approaches to P2P projects

E-collaboration supports supply chain optimisation

Nowadays, the companies are seeking those operations that may result in cost reduction and the automation of processes. One of the areas of possible improvement is the holistic approach to the supply chain processes. The enterprises that deal with hundreds or even thousands of partners re-design their approach by adopting B2B collaboration and usually find this strategy very rewarding. A growing number of companies have implemented electronic communication to improve data quality and build a better relationship with their partners.

Organisation structure vs. project scope

Multinational companies tend to aggregate and unify operations in each country. They endeavour to create universal versions of the IT systems. However, each organisation is different and have various decision processes. Taking the multinational retail company and B2B e-collaboration projects as an example, there might be different scenarios for the project.

One of the possible scenarios is when each country subsidiary has the power to make its decisions independently. In this case, the retailer is looking for the solution provider compliant with corporate policy and standards. The most important criteria would probably be the stability, experience and penetration on the local market as well as the ability to on-board new partners. Sometimes companies do not pay much attention to the technical maturity of the vendor and their ability to maintain the service desk what usually means trouble. Let leave those problems aside because there is also another scenario.

There are retailers with a central organisation (or at least centralised regionally). Very often one regional branch manages the IT systems in the neighbouring countries. Usually, the tender includes a few countries and in this case, some of the solution providers (those operating in a single country) are not considered at all. The short list will surely comprise the providers with the international experience on the most important markets (with high vendors penetration) and established interoperability with other providers, ability to assure legal compliance (in a case of e-invoicing) as well as scalable functionality and support in local languages.

The reality

It is clearly visible that the central approach is beneficial because of the large scale of operations. At the same time, companies are aware that regulations and culture related to running a business can greatly vary across different regions and that is why providers do specialise in particular geographical areas. Thus, there are plenty of tenders where only vendors from a particular region are taken into consideration. The general conditions are agreed centrally with possible slight adjustments, made country by country. For instance, our experience tells us that the retailers are looking for the universal solution for Central and Eastern Europe which may also include Turkey, Russia, Croatia, or Greece. In this region, the technical maturity is less advanced than in Western Europe. In this region a user-friendly supplier portal or Web-EDI, the functionalities suitable also for the beginners, are very important. Moreover, in the most of the cases, a crucial role plays support in the local language. For that reason, Comarch has created a network of partners providing local project management and support.

To sum up, it is more beneficial to choose a provider who covers a few countries, assuming its ability to on-board majority of vendors and provide high service level. From the organisational point of view, there will be a single person managing the project holistically.

Additionally, the more operations are covered within the project, the better is optimisation of the processes. Even if the company is not planning to implement full automation in the procure-to-pay process it would be wise to choose a solution which may launch such functionalities in the short time. In modern business the only thing that is constant is change.

About Bartlomiej Wojtowicz

He has over 10 years of experience in the field of B2B communication in the supply chain. Initially responsible for the EDI market development in Southern and Central Europe, he is currently responsible for the development of Comarch EDI portfolio.

 About Comarch EDI

Comarch EDI is a B2B platform, which provides a competitive advantage by a fast and secure data exchange with business partners. The solution provides the automation of data processing throughout the supply chain: from the procurement process, through the logistics, to invoicing and payment processing.