I went to visit one of our customers yesterday, a global OEM with a presence in all the main regions of the world. We spent a considerable amount of time discussing their present B2B environment and it was interesting to find out that each of their main regional business units seems to have their own strategy for document transfer and supplier enablement.   As with most OEMs worldwide, they have a manufacturing and sales division and even these divisions appear to have their own B2B strategies.  They said that one of their biggest challenges was trying to improve visibility into their supply chain.  As they operate an efficient Just In Time (JIT) environment, they need a quick turn around from their suppliers, often within three days, and they therefore need visibility of any potential short shipments. 

So the questions is, when you are trying to promote your business as a single global OEM, why do these companies insist on making it so difficult for themselves to transfer information around the world, between different operating divisions and across their numerous supply chains?  The company has a significant presence in Europe and a joint venture project in Eastern Europe.  Both of these operations are totally independent from a B2B perspective, may be due to the fact that they do not want to share sensitive information with their joint venture partners.  In Japan they are using a communications protocol that is only used amongst their suppliers within that region. The same goes for their U.S division, once again using a different set of B2B standards. 

Globalisation is one of the biggest buzzwords being used in the automotive sector at the moment, but globalisation is more than simply setting up a manufacturing plant in another country or region.  From an OEM perspective, globalisation should not just include establishing manufacturing plants in other regions, but some of the other centralised functions, such as design for example, could also benefit from being located in other regions.  We all know that there are various B2B standards around the world with Odette OFTP messaging and EDIFACT documents being the most common B2B standards being used within the automotive sector.  So you would think that it would be relatively easy for a global OEM to exchange information easily between different regions.   

However despite not having a common B2B and communications platform, this hasn’t stopped this particular OEM from being one of the world’s leading producers of cars, so may be, in their case at least, having a fragmented B2B environment has actually contributed to their success.   Probably a controversial statement there!, but when you think about it, they probably have less politics to deal with and it may provide a more flexible way of working to meet varying local market requirements. It could simply be down to the culture of the company to do things their own way, no matter what the rest of the automotive industry is currently doing. 

Naturally GXS are able to help global OEMs and their respective suppliers resolve their global B2B infrastructure, communication and visibility issues, for further information on how we can do this, please take a look at our website, www.gxs.com.