GXS Trade Visibility Platform

Overview

Benefits

Overview

GXS Trade Visibility Platform offers a specialized, best-in-class infrastructure that is critical to the success of any trade product.  GXS does not offer a trade finance application to manage customer credit lines, assess transaction risk, propose financing terms and orchestrate payments.  Instead, GXS Trade Visibility Platform is focused on providing high-quality, supply chain data to enrich and empower trade finance applications.  GXS can integrate with your corporate clients and their supply chain partners to provide you with full access to their purchase orders and the associated amendments, transportation documents and commercial invoices.

GXS Trade Visibility Platform consists of two primary modules:

  • A B2B Integration Platform called Managed Services consisting of the people, processes and technology required to capture purchase orders, transportation documents and commercial invoices from your client’s supply chain.
  • Supply Chain Visibility Applications which offer the ability to trace an order throughout its lifecycle.  The applications also include value-added services such as a transaction data warehouse, supply chain event triggers, three-way document matching, and historical trend reporting.

B2B Integration Features

The Managed Services module of the Trade Visibility Platform offers a comprehensive B2B integration program designed to feed your trade finance applications with high quality data from supply chain participants around the world.  Our unique managed approach enables you to receive an electronic feed of trade documents at minimal cost and complexity to both you and your corporate clients.

Today’s value chains are increasingly fragmented with a growing number of specialists providing value-add at multiple stages of the supply chain.  For example, the typical supplychain for a department store with private label apparel can consist of a mix of contract manufacturers, freight forwarders, consolidators, insurers, ocean freight carriers, less-than-truckload carriers, postponement specialists and financial institutions.  GXS can connect you to the various supply chain participants to ensure that you can receive the necessary trade documents such as

  • Terms of Sale—including purchase orders and the associated amendments and changes.
  • Pre-Export Documents—such as inspection certificates, insurance policies, advanced shipment notice and packing lists.
  • In-Transit Status—of shipments from ocean, rail, less-than-truckload and truckload carriers as well as electronic proof of delivery for receipt of goods.
  • Financial Documents—such as the commercial invoice, invoice approval status messages, payment instructions and remittance advice.

The simplest configuration is one in which the buyer is already using the GXS Trading Grid® as its primary e-commerce network.  In such a scenario, GXS can simply configure the Trading Grid to provide a copy of relevant trade documents to your product applications.

In the more complicated scenario a buyer is using a mix of e-commerce networks and technologies to exchange information with its supply chain community.  For example, the department store referenced above may use a combination of Value Added Networks (VANs), industry exchanges, direct Internet connections (AS2) and vendor portals to exchange information with their trading partners.  In such a scenario, GXS can configure the Trade Visibility Platform to integrate with the various VANS, 3PLs, exchanges and supplier e-commerce applications.

Features of Managed Services

GXS gives you the flexibility to exchange information in your clients’ preferred file format, network protocols, and security standards.
  • Network Protocol Mediation—GXS supports a wide variety of network protocols including Internet protocols such as FTP/S, HTTP/S, AS2 and AS3; proprietary middleware formats such as SAP ALE and IBM MQ Series; and legacy mainframe or dial-up protocols such as SNA, Async and Bisync.
  • Electronic Document Formats—GXS supports a wide variety of electronic document formats. Supported formats include regional EDI standards such as EDIFACT, ANSI X.12, EAIJ and Tradacoms; vertical industry specific XML standards such as RosettaNet, VDA, CIDX and PIDX data structures for ERP applications such as SAP, Microsoft and Oracle (including Peoplesoft, Retek and JD Edwards).

GXS will manage all of the technical activities associated with collecting electronic trade documents from your clients and their supply chain partners including:

  • New Client Implementations—GXS will perform an assessment of the unique technical and procedural requirements to interface with your client and their trading partner community.  Based upon client requirements, GXS will design, develop and test the necessary data translation maps, file transfer scripts and data enrichment services to support your B2B programs.  A battery of unit and system level testing is conducted with your client to ensure proper functionality and production readiness.
  • Mapping Services—As necessary, GXS can map data from your client’s systems to the formats required by your in-house trade applications.  GXS supports a variety of complex mapping scenarios including merging of information from multiple electronic documents into one; splitting of content from one file into multiple documents and reorganizing content within one file.  Additionally, data can be modified, augmented or omitted using conditional logic, database inquiry or external application interface.
  • Program Management—GXS uses a combination of centralized and regional program managers to ensure the success of your client-facing integration projects. Regional program managers will be assigned as appropriate in local countries throughout Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, and Latin America.  Program mangers can support a variety of business or IT initiatives including new product rollouts, trade application upgrades, legacy system migrations or post-merger consolidation.
  • Client Help Desk—GXS can provide on-going support for both your internal IT staff and your clients.  GXS will set up a help desk and support team dedicated to you and your client base. GXS will answer the hotline with a personalized greeting that can include your brand name. Specialized technical support experts can be trained in your business processes and unique technical requirements.

 

Supply Chain Visibility Features

GXS Supply Chain Visibility applications offer the ability to trace an order or shipment throughout its lifecycle.  Features include:
  • Supply Chain Visibility—Through GXS applications can track an order throughout its lifecycle from its procurement to payment.  Additionally you can trace shipments as they traverse multiple modes of transportation and manufacturing stages through the physical supply chain.  GXS supports track of up to 40 milestones in the supply chain including raw materials procurement, manufacturing, quality inspection, shipment export, international transport, customs clearance, warehouse receipt, invoice processing and payment approval.
  • Research Order Details—GXS offers a user interface which provides details on purchase orders, transportation documents and commercial invoices in a single user interface.  The application also offers the ability to share a single view between a buyer, a supplier and their financial institution.  All three parties can work off the same data through the same user interface and database. A complete view of a purchase order is available including the revision history of amendments and changes.  All supply chain documents are converted into a standardized XML-based format and stored in a hosted, data warehouse.
  • Event Triggers—The Trade Visibility Platform can notify you of critical events in the supply chain as they occur.  You can choose to be alerted proactively via an email or passively through web-based reporting.  Triggers can be established to notify you of possible new financing opportunities such as the creation of a new high dollar value purchase order.  Alternatively, you can be notified of the satisfaction of terms for an outstanding liability such as an invoice released for payment.  Triggers can be used to provide early warnings of scenarios in which the supplier or buyer may be at risk of failure to meet the terms of a trade finance agreement.  Examples might include delays to inbound shipments, shutdowns of manufacturing plants, failures to meet quality inspections or rejection of goods upon receipt.
  • Document Matching—The Trade Visibility Platform can help to automate the invoice reconciliation process through its document matching engine.  Fields on the commercial invoices can be matched against the corresponding data on the purchase order and receiving advice to identify any discrepancies in price, quantity or other terms.  Business rules can be configured to allow flexibility for buyer-specific business practices in the invoice reconciliation and matching processes. 

Benefits

Improve the Client Experience

GXS can improve your corporate client’s experience for both traditional trade products and new supply chain finance services.  Specifically, GXS Managed Services offer advantages in:

  • Cost of Delivery—Leveraging a hosted solution managed by GXS can enable you to retire expensive legacy systems such as mainframe-based client file gateways.  Lower operating costs enable more competitive pricing, thus enabling a higher win rate.
  • Flexibility of Delivery—Through GXS you can offer your clients the freedom to use their preferred data network protocols, security standards, and file formats.  The result is a much simpler and faster process to connect clients and their supply chain partners.
  • Speed of Delivery—GXS can accelerate timeframes for implementing new business with your corporate clients.  Faster implementation cycles reduce the time frames before billing and revenue collection can begin.
  • Quality of Delivery—Through best practices and deep expertise in B2B integration, GXS can reduce the number of setup and post-implementation challenges your clients will experience.  Fewer trouble tickets result in better scores on service quality scorecards and reduce the roadblocks to up-sell and growth opportunities.

Enable New Supply Chain Finance Products

New supply chain finance applications can offer a compelling new value proposition to corporate clients.  These new services can re-energize your relationship with key accounts leading to near term growth.  Numerous advantages extend to both buyers and suppliers of goods:

  • Buyers can lower cost of goods sold and reduce supply chain risk while extending the number of Days Payable Outstanding.  Buyers with a strong balance sheet or credit rating can use their financial strength as a competitive advantage.
  • Suppliers can improve the accuracy of cash flow forecasting and enhance the liquidity of receivables while reducing the number of Days Sales Outstanding.  Large suppliers can use bank-based products to offer new low interest financing services to their customers.