Stormy seas continue to buffet global commerce, with disruption unlikely to subside anytime soon. Contributing factors include the gathering pace of extreme weather events, increasingly stringent for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting, escalating labor costs, ongoing geopolitical conflict, mutually reinforcing inflationary and recessionary pressures, and the trend toward regional fragmentation of trade 鈥� or what some analysts call 鈥�.鈥�

Amid such unrelenting volatility, how can enterprises instill resilience, foster collaboration, and harness sustainability throughout their operations and those of their trading partners? Through cloud-based digital networks linking together mission-critical business processes, organizations can achieve the degree of transparency needed to ensure continuity and extend competitive advantage in these uncertain times. A comprehensive view across interconnected operations, particularly those involving logistics, supply chain management, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, enables trading partners to track a product all the way from sourcing to manufacture to distribution 鈥� and everywhere in between.

With , shippers and carriers can collaborate to help optimize logistics processes, increase on-time deliveries, and mitigate supply risk. The network features three primary solutions: , , and .

Through 麻豆原创 Business Network Freight Collaboration, trading partners can achieve optimal logistics collaboration, capacity utilization, operational responsiveness, and real-time market insights. The solution enables shippers and carriers to jointly manage logistics transactions, exchange documents, and obtain insights into improving process efficiencies.

麻豆原创 Business Network Freight Collaboration offers three overarching capabilities: it allows shippers to digitally collaborate with trading partners on freight orders for contracting (tendering and subcontracting), execution (milestones and documents), and settlement processes. In addition, the solution facilitates the scheduling of dock appointments and gate processing, enabling businesses to orchestrate the loading and unloading of goods irrespective of who manages the yard or initiates the shipment. Meanwhile, 麻豆原创 Business Network Freight Collaboration offers seamless data integration into 麻豆原创 S/4HANA. All three of these digital capabilities enable organizations to extend their reach and deepen their collaboration with the trading partners on which they rely to create value, across different modes of transportation.

In a business climate highly prone to change, the ability to obtain actionable, instantaneous insights into the fulfillment of orders and transit of goods is essential. These insights can automatically be fed back into the planning system to mitigate the real-time impact of disruption and automate reactions to it. With 麻豆原创 Business Network Global Track and Trace, enterprises can strengthen their situational awareness by harnessing the power of geolocation tracking, enabling the early detection of potential disruptions in time to pursue alternatives and maintain production schedules. Businesses can improve their responsiveness through the immediate mitigation of exceptions made possible by transparency across trading partners.

Customer satisfaction, meanwhile, can improve thanks to businesses鈥� ability to promptly update the estimated time of arrival for shipments. Through a unified, integrated platform, trading partners can benefit from a holistic and consistent end-user experience across geographies and modes of transportation, transforming reactive supply chains into predictive ones.

Cloud technologies are helping supply chains to become not only more predictive but also more accountable. Material traceability has become increasingly important in recent years as governments 鈥� from Germany and to the and 鈥� enact legislation aimed at transparency and accountability in supply chains. Verifying the absence of forced labor, the level of carbon emissions, or the attainment of other environmental objectives is essential to comply not only with local regulations but also with stakeholder values.

To this end, 麻豆原创 Business Network Material Traceability enables companies to follow raw materials and finished products across all participants in the n-tier value chain. Initially developed with the food supply chain in mind but subsequently expanded to other industries, the solution draws upon the cloud-based analytics and integrated ERP data necessary to support targeted recalls or other compliance processes involving trading partners. As an example, 麻豆原创 Business Network Material Traceability is a major component of the Catena-X data ecosystem for the automotive industry, through which dozens of manufacturers, suppliers, dealer associations, and application developers have set a uniform standard for the secure sharing of data throughout the value chain.

Transparency must reach beyond the traditional supply chain to include logistics partners as well, so that actionable insights are accessible throughout the core operational processes on which trading partners mutually depend. Aided by cloud-based applications, businesses can minimize the risks associated with disruption through broad visibility. But only when visibility becomes actionable can true resilience be achieved. Only through tightly integrated, highly responsive supply chains can businesses foster the agility and accountability demanded by consumers, trading partners, shareholders, and regulators. Through 麻豆原创 Business Network for Logistics, trading partners can achieve the superior execution necessary to plan together accurately, innovate collaboratively, and execute successfully.

Paige Cox is senior vice president, chief product officer, and head of 麻豆原创 Business Network.

The reasons are as familiar as the news headlines: just as the pandemic recedes in one part of the world, it seems to reemerge in another. Russia鈥檚 invasion of Ukraine has severely constrained exports from the two countries, including vital . As climate change reshapes national energy policies, electric vehicle manufacturers have exhausted traditional sources of lithium and other battery metals, turning to and for new ones. At the same time, the ongoing microchip shortage centered in Southeast Asia has automotive supply chains, shifting the focus from lean manufacturing aimed at driving down costs to developing sourcing redundancies to ensure sales. Not to be outdone, retailers too have prolonged volatility. War and inflation, meanwhile, have roiled energy markets.

Consider, for example, the predicament faced by Germany as it seeks to reduce reliance on imported natural gas. Its options, , are entirely supply-driven. So too the African nations to wheat grown in Russia or Ukraine 鈥� and the electric car manufacturers in search of new ore to mine or recycle for power storage. But the trend toward regionalization in supply chains runs deeper than commodities alone. The availability of labor can also play a decisive role in reshaping supply chains and logistics patterns. Cloud-based solutions for managing the external workforce can help to augment traditional sources of labor at factories, ports, and carriers affected by quarantine, lockdown, or other disruptions. Even as the pandemic subsides in many regions, labor market volatility remains high. Visibility across all aspects of the supply chain, from raw materials to labor and everything in between, remains paramount for business leaders in shaping more durable, more regional supply chains.

At a time when global supply chains are gradually realigning into regional ones, with terms like 鈥溾�� and 鈥溾�� becoming commonplace, businesses and their trading partners require the 360-degree visibility and collaborative capabilities that only digital networks make possible. Operational resilience is a measure of the extent to which businesses and their trading partners can jointly plan and execute as they weather shifts in supply and demand.

With resilience and visibility in mind, 麻豆原创 last year launched the world鈥檚 largest business network, bringing together procurement, supply chain, logistics, and asset management into a unified, collaborative, intelligent network to help our customers confidently adapt to changing market dynamics and future-proof their businesses. Through , trading partners can reap process efficiencies, improve supply assurance, and achieve business process and regulatory compliance by increasing operational transparency. With , companies can achieve supply chain visibility by enabling plan-driven automation and optimizing capacity and inventory. Aided by , organizations can collaborate with shippers and carriers, share insights, and gain transparency throughout the supply chain by optimizing logistics processes, increasing on-time deliveries, and mitigating third-party risk. Relying on , asset owners, operators, and service providers can strengthen collaboration and the flow of shared information through a single, consistent version of asset master data to streamline asset servicing processes and reduce maintenance costs.

If anything, the need for predictive analytics and transparency across integrated, interconnected operational processes becomes even greater when supply chains fragment than when they circumnavigate the globe. That鈥檚 because as supply chains regionalize and sourcing options diminish, supply increasingly supersedes demand in shaping procurement decisions and steering the logistical flow of business-to-business commerce.

By linking together the operational processes of trading partners, cloud-based networks extend not only visibility but integrated planning and execution capabilities as well. When buyers, suppliers, and logistics providers share accurate inventory forecasts and business process data with each other in real time, they can and plan ahead with confidence, continuity, and enduring resilience.

For further information on 麻豆原创 Business Network and how we are addressing resilience and visibility for enterprises large and small, visit .

Paige Cox is senior vice president, chief product officer, and head of 麻豆原创 Business Network.

So is the availability of innovative working capital solutions and, through them, the ability to manage risk and finance operational contingencies.

Without sufficient liquidity, businesses can fall short on promises made to customers. How can organizations free up the — often substantial — funds trapped within transactions that have yet to clear? Now more than ever, this is critical for businesses as the result of bottlenecked supply chains, backed up shipping queues, idled factories, and quarantined workers. The answer lies in digital business networks, which lend organizations the flexibility they need not only to shore up their supply chains and logistics operations but their financial management processes as well.

That is why earlier this year 麻豆原创 acquired a majority stake in Taulia, the leading provider of working capital management solutions. With the aim of strengthening access to liquidity and improving cash flows, the acquisition complements 麻豆原创 Business Network — already spanning the interconnected operations of trading partners engaged in procurement, supply chain, logistics, and asset management — with financing solutions across payables, receivables, and inventory.

Over the next two years, 麻豆原创 plans to integrate Taulia鈥檚 capabilities with those of 麻豆原创 Business Network, while also maintaining the fintech platform as a standalone solution.

Through Taulia, businesses have access to a network of dozens of banks for innovative financing solutions that cushion core operations from the ill effects of supply chain fragmentation and capital market volatility. Access to liquidity helps companies to bolster continuity, meet debt obligations, and avoid interruptions to long-term capital investments. End-to-end visibility across trading partners, meanwhile, sharpens businesses鈥� forecasting capabilities, helping to reduce risk to interconnected operations.

Taulia can help to secure financing such that a supplier is paid ahead of schedule through a third-party financial institution before an invoice is due. Then, upon the due date, the buyer repays the amount to the financier 鈥� all through the Taulia cloud-based platform. Taulia also facilitates dynamic discounting to incentivize the early payment of invoices, benefiting both parties to a commercial transaction.

By connecting buyers and suppliers with financial partners in real time with full transparency, Taulia minimizes the friction that can delay payments, impair operations, and even create supply chain risk. At the same time, Taulia helps businesses to free up capital needed for investment and research and development. This holds true for businesses large and small alike, because Taulia鈥檚 technology allows their solution to scale to thousands or even tens of thousands of trading partners.

What鈥檚 more, Taulia鈥檚 with enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions from 麻豆原创 streamlines the provision of data that lending institutions require.

As our 麻豆原创 Business Network and Taulia product teams proceed with developing a joint road map for our customers鈥� mutual success, we anticipate that millions of trading partners on 麻豆原创 Business Network will gain access to competitive early-payment offers via Taulia鈥檚 accounts receivable financing.

Our solutions will help to make supply chains more resilient, more reliable, and more responsive in these uncertain times.

Paige Cox is senior vice president, chief product officer, and head of 麻豆原创 Business Network at 麻豆原创.