My fellow blogger Melanie has been waxing eloquently on both the state of grace which can be achieved by effective B2B data management only to reminded by another fellow blogger John about how far there still is to go in the integration space.

Both of these posts re-enforce (and refine with far more eloquence than I can muster) the motto of B2B Managed Services  – Make it Work.

John’s right there is a long way to go, and I was quite surprised to read the results of a recent Survey   that when asked what the #1 technology used to synchronize (sounds like integrate to me) with customers on orders forecast and industry status – the #1 answer (34%) was e-mail.  The #2 answer was (32%) was EDI so perhaps that means e-mail is used to handle the exceptions arising from the gaps still inherent in using EDI.

Since EDI still represents 85-90% of B2B transaction volume (Forrester Research 6-July 2007) the journey towards the kingdom of data heaven may be longer  than any of us think.   But take heart!  There is a road to get there.  It’s called Managed Services – using Data Transmission and Data Translation (the foundational components of B2B Managed Services) organization will be collaborate to exchange their business data , mange it’s quality and be able to take the steps to integrate into their business process.  

SaaS – Software as a Service is huge -A quick Google produced 1,620,000,000 hits.  Even SAP is jumping on the SaaS bandwagon – although not large customers.  (SAP Big business won’t be interested )

SAP is making the bet they can deliver ERP services using a SaaS model to small clients (100-500 employees.)  What struck me most about this announcement is the competing view from Larry Ellison    Larry Ellison Says No To SaaS – namely that he doesn’t see how he can create a business models using SaaS as a delivery

So what about a B2B Managed Service?  Can the core elements of Data Transmission and Data Translation between trading partners be delivered via an SaaS model?