For smaller trading partners, the barriers to connectivity are daunting: they simply don’t have the time, expertise or resources to set up an EDI translator and maintain it. As a result, over 80% of trading partners are forced to maintain paper-based transactions, which are slower, significantly more expensive, and much more prone to errors—which, in turn, slow them down even more.

This lack of connectivity leads to other problems: delays in shipping, over-inflated inventory-on-hand carrying costs, and an inability to track demand and supply expenses accurately.

The Crossgate Business-Ready Network provides a catalog of services to simplify partner integration regardless of technical capabilities:

• Crossgate OneLink-- Our “Come As You Are” philosophy means you don’t have to subscribe to any standards; just send us your in-house formats, EDI documents, flat file or XML, and we do the translation, giving you complete, fixed-cost access to a global catalog of partners. There’s no mapping to worry about, and no ongoing middleware to support, either.
  
  
• Crossgate Networx – Partners that have technology limitations are not a problem for the Business-Ready Network.  Smaller network partners without even base-level e-commerce technology can still be fully integrated with trading partners and suppliers by using a software toolset called Crossgate Networx.
  
  
  Industry Packages provide a “Quick Start” with all major industry players by including:
  
  
  • Transaction Maps for all key partners
    
    
  • Process workflows such as Order-Order Response, Order-Dispatch Advice, and Order-Invoice
    
    
  • Technical setup and communication protocols
    
    
  • Fixed-price installation, testing, and enablement:
    
    
  • Retailers Packages (e.g. Wal-Mart, Metro, OBI, ReWe, etc.)
    
    
  • Automotive OEMs Packages (e.g. GM, Ford, BMW, Volkswagen, etc.)
    
    

• Crossgate Client -  is a small Java executable with a familiar user interface.  Suppliers can receive purchase orders and “turn around” order responses, invoices, and dispatch advices using a form based approach.  The Crossgate Client is pre-integrated into the Business-Ready Network, so companies have to use only one interface to trade with any of their partners.  Because there are no change management issues to deal with, suppliers will always be compliant with the trading partners they exchange electronic documents with.
  
  
• Crossgate SMB Accelerators – Many smaller trading partner utilize accounting packages in order to manage orders and invoices.  These include solutions from vendors such as Sage, Quickbooks, and Navision. Crossgate works with these small ERP and accounting packages to provide standard and out of the box interfaces so that these small partners can integrate quickly and efficiently with the Crossgate Business-Ready Network.  By eliminating mapping needs for organizations or partners using these technologies, Crossgate accelerates global participation and enablement.