Future-Proof Flexibility

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Your system should be flexible enough to meet the diverse needs of your various trading relationships. It should also be able to adapt to changing conditions. For example, if a current customer communicates with you by sending EDI documents and suddenly wants to start using an industry-standard XML schema and BizTalk, you should be able to change your system to accommodate this request without having to reestablish a trading partner agreement. All the history with that customer remains intact; only the way you communicate changes.

Your system should also be capable of extending industry standard schemas. You might do business with 10 companies in a particular industry. Suppose an organization devoted to setting standards for that industry creates a set of schemas for industry members to share information. You might use this set of schemas to do business with all your customers who belong to that industry. However, what if you have a closer relationship with one of the members of this industry? You might want to share a little more with that member than with the others.

With XML, you can insert certain fields within the transaction documents you create for this particular customer without breaking the system. Likewise, if you include fields in the body of any BizTalk document that a particular trading partner doesn't need, that partner can just ignore them. Your BizTalk server should be able to manage this data and create customized views of data for each trading partner on a partner-by-partner basis.

Your system should be able to handle future business changes such as mergers and acquisitions. Your system should be flexible enough to maintain information about two customer companies that become one, or one company that splits into two. Your system should also be able to handle a merger or consolidation of your own company or, more likely, a change in organizational structure.