eBusiness Hub

The eBusiness hub connects companies and enterprises to each other. It relays business documents and other information directly between computer systems. The hub eliminates the inefficiency of paper printouts, snail mail and manual data entry at the receiving end. An enterprise that connects to the hub is immediately connected to all other participating companies.

Business documents flow automatically from one system to another, even between different types of software. Original data can still be viewed onscreen. As an example, invoices can be displayed in the same format as they would have appeared in the original system, with all details and layout preserved.

Documents flowing through the hub are continuously tracked, and appropriate parties are notified by e-mail or SMS in the case of a delivery or posting problem. The status of each document can be seen at any time, from creation through sending, approval and posting into the recipient’s system.

Concrete Bottom-Line Benefits

Connecting to the eBusiness Hub yields clear savings, both direct and indirect. The printing and mailing of business documents is an expensive process where substantial savings can be achieved through eCommerce. Studies show that the cost of issuing a paper invoice is at least $1.00-$1.50. Labour costs associated with receiving, manually handling and posting invoices are upwards of $1.70-$2.50 for each invoice. Reducing these costs yields significant bottom-line benefits to any enterprise.

Indirect savings also become apparent when the eBusiness Hub solution is compared with paper process. Information can be searched and viewed at any time. Documents are posted as they arrive, error checking is simplified and consolidation is easier. IT costs are reduced by connecting once to a hub instead of multiple times to individual trading partners, since the single hub connection supports any number of trading partners.

Security

Security is of prime importance in the eBusiness hub. Electronic signatures can be employed to authenticate transmissions, and all communications are encrypted (SSL, HTTPS). The core of the eBusiness Hub is built with software from webMethods, a B2B specialist developer that major corporations such as Boeing, Federal Express and Chase Manhattan Bank rely on in their eBusiness transactions.

The hub is continuously monitored. End node failures, transmission errors and posting problems are automatically and immediately reported to the appropriate parties.

Reliable an Auditable Transmissions

• Both sender and receiver can ascertain whether and when a particular document has been delivered.
• A reply message confirms that a document reached its destination.
• A final confirmation message indicates that the document has been successfully posted in the receiving ERP system.
• Users can trace the history of a document using the hub's Web front-end.
• Documents can be searched and viewed from the hub's Web front-end or directly from the ERP system.

The eBusiness Hub sends an alert

• if the communications adapter attached to a customer's system cannot be contacted
• if the recipient of a message is unavailable or off-line
• if the recipient has not posted a document successfully into its system within a preset amount of time after receiving it.
• if something is wrong with a received document or if a recipient does not accept it for some reason.
• when certain types of documents are received (for instance invoices from particular suppliers).