Scale your EDI in the cloud with a B2B integration platform

I’m often asked, “why do we need to move our B2B transactions to the cloud?” and all I can think when I hear this is: “why wouldn’t you move your B2B transactions to the cloud?”

When you are dealing with skill shortages, supply chain squeezes, a forced march to the cloud, and increasing complexity as your B2B networks expand, do you really feel comfortable scaling your EDI operations on your own?

Here’s why you’re better served – and can get back to growing the core of your business faster – when you outsource your EDI flows with a fully-managed B2B integration platform in the cloud.

Moving to the cloud isn’t an independent decision anymore

I’ve talked about our era’s massive cloud adoption before: 47% of companies are pursuing cloud first strategies, according to an O’Reilly survey. And we’re seeing that companies don’t have much of a choice anymore, as the systems they rely on or mergers & acquisitions force a move to the cloud.

Remember when SAP gave its customers a 2027 deadline to adopt its next-generation cloud Enterprise Resource Planning platform, SAP HANA? This wasn’t just future hypotheticals anymore – it was crunch time for the many companies that rely on their ERP.

We had a front row to one way this dynamic played out: we’ve worked with a major international pharmaceutical group for years, and the SAP HANA move to cloud announcement happened as they were acquiring a biotech company.

In this context, they needed to address a consolidation of EDI, environment, and infrastructure with their new acquisition – and at the same time engage in a global transition to the cloud for their main ERP system.

As you can imagine, that’s a huge undertaking, but done right, they understood it would serve more than one purpose. We helped this group transition from on-premises and legacy software, which was essentially running the entire business of the company, to a cloud platform.

And having a trusted partner accompany them on this project gave them peace of mind, helping to maintain high availability and watertight security along the way thanks to our stellar SLAs.

B2B integrations can be critical break points when moving to the cloud, so it’s essential to anticipate the change and make the transition seamless. How confident are you in taking on that complexity on your own?

Managed cloud is the answer to growing complexity of B2B transactions

Many organizations have mature EDI operations: they’ve been engaging their customers and partners across digital channels for decades. But the people who have been accompanying those programs from the start are beginning to retire – and new recruits are more interested in working on your latest innovation rather than supporting legacy systems.

You may be feeling the heat, struggling to keep up with this increasingly complex environment you’re hosting on premises. You might be working with multiple EDI and B2B solutions at the same time, and the volume of transactions keeps growing.

And of course, EDI itself is inherently complex: each partner has their own integration method, and document standards and communications protocols are continuously evolving. If your B2B teams are taking their knowledge with them as they retire, who will keep a handle on this critical piece of your business?

Outsourcing your EDI and moving B2B operations to a managed cloud allows you to do two things:

• Offset the risk of maintaining increasingly complex systems
• Benefit from the availability and scalability of the cloud.

A B2B integration platform in the cloud makes it easier and cheaper to support a growing number of transactions. And the transition to the cloud also presents an opportunity to consolidate everything into a single platform.

With an expert in B2B integration, you get the skill and support for the latest industry requirements. In fact, we don’t just understand protocols like AS4: we’re quite literally setting the industry standard, just as we served as a major contributor/author for previous standards including AS2, OFTP2, and SSL.

Don’t risk it: Outsource EDI & B2B to a trusted partner

What we’re really talking about here is risk mitigation: if cloud adoption is inevitable, the next question is how to make that transition without breaking everything.

At Axway, we’ve been doing this for years, and we don’t just provide the technology and the software: we are here to help manage the transition and continue to scale after. Axway consultants have a rich set of delivery accelerators, best practices, and the expertise needed to advance your business goals.

Look at how we helped OneHealthPort, Washington State’s lead organization for health information exchange (HIE), set up a data-sharing platform to seamlessly connect healthcare organizations of all sizes in the Pacific Northwest. OneHealthPort now drives around 50 million transactions per year on the Axway platform, allowing providers to share medical, insurance, and administrative data efficiently and securely.

“The elasticity of the cloud and the flexibility of Axway Managed Cloud Services for B2Bi were a perfect combination to help us to meet our business requirements in a timely manner,” says Rick Rubin, CEO and President of OneHealthPort.

Or consider how Pöppelmann, one of the leading manufacturers in the plastics processing industry, implemented a central communications and transaction hub in a secure managed private cloud for customers, partners, and locations worldwide.

With its previous on-premises solution, Pöppelmann struggled to meet needs as the business scaled globally; many customers just couldn’t link to the local IT system the way they needed to. Thanks to a managed private cloud protected by Axway’s real-time monitoring, the company hardly has to take care of anything itself anymore – and they were able to manage a complex migration without any downtime.

As EY Global Managing Partner Paul Clark points out, 84% of organizations are adapting to address deficiencies in current operating models right now – and managed services can help build a more resilient and agile business.

“Managed services moves beyond Business Process Outsourcing to leverage providers’ core domain expertise and technology investments to make key functions more efficient and effective. This allows companies to reap immediate cost savings while reshaping their approach to capital investment,” says Clark.

It’s possible to have secure, fully automated electronic data exchanges in the cloud with exceptional SLAs. And with modern API-driven document exchange, you’ll be ready for the next big thing. Let our B2B integration platform and expert support handle the complexity for you, so you can focus on growing your business.