Integration in a Multi-ERP Environment
A food distributor operates multiple business units and regional operations, each running an instance of an enterprise resource planning system from various vendors. While each system effectively manages local operations, the company struggles with a lack of enterprise-wide inventory visibility, inaccurate order promises, cost-inefficient fulfillment strategies, and the inability to form a single view of customer orders. To address these challenges, the distributor deployed Enterprise Promise & Fulfill as a unified cloud layer that connects the company’s ERP systems with a single, intelligent order orchestration and fulfillment platform.
In this integrated business architecture, the regional ERPs are the system of record for core financials, customer master data, pricing, local order transactions, and billing, and Enterprise Promise & Fulfill is the enterprise-wide system of record for order management providing:
- Inventory Visibility: Real-time inventory availability across the distributor’s regions, exposing more units to sales and ordering.
- Delivery Optimization: Ensures accurate delivery date promises by leveraging on-hand and future inventory while optimizing inventory allocations and merge routes.
- Order Fulfillment: System of record and centralized routing and tracking for orders across all regions, customers, sales channels, and ERP systems (order management module).
Enterprise Promise & Fulfill integrates with each of the distributor’s ERP systems using a combination of RESTful APIs and middleware, aggregating inventory availability, fulfillment and delivery capacity, and order data across the enterprise. When an order is placed, the system evaluates real-time availability across all divisions and then routes the order to the optimal fulfillment node—regardless of which ERP manages it.
This centralized order intelligence enables consistent delivery date promises and optimized routing. The solution also centrally tracks order progress across all regional ERPs and provides proactive order exception handling while allowing each ERP to continue operating independently. The result is a globally coordinated, customer-centric fulfillment network that scales with the business and adapts to complex operational needs.
Integration in a Single ERP Environment
A global B2B electronics distributor has initiated a significant IT modernization effort to upgrade its legacy mainframe ERP system to the latest version of a well-known ERP solution. This new ERP system manages core functions such as financials, customer master data, pricing, order transactions, and billing. However, the distributor discovered that the ERP system lacks the advanced logic needed to promise order delivery dates based on real-time inventory and fulfillment data across multiple fulfillment nodes. This shortcoming has often resulted in lost sales opportunities, missed service level commitments, and buyer dissatisfaction.
To address this issue, the distributor implemented Enterprise Promise & Fulfill to add inventory availability and ordering intelligence that integrates seamlessly with the new ERP system and digital sales channels through RESTful APIs. In this integrated business architecture, the ERP serves as the system of record, while Enterprise Promise & Fulfill acts as the system that differentiates the buyer experience by providing:
- Inventory Visibility: Real-time inventory availability across multiple sales channels, with a heavy focus on exposing more units to sales and ordering.
- Delivery Accuracy: Accurate delivery-date promises through optimal inventory use (on-hand, future, and purchase) and merge-route optimization.
- Order Management: Seamless orchestration of orders across all channels and types, including digital, electronic data interchange, manual, and corporate orders.
- Late-Order Updates: Buyer-driven late-order updates and changes during fulfillment, helping to improve buyer experiences and reduce business costs.
When a buyer browses and orders through the distributor’s customer portal, inventory availability and delivery date information are shown in real-time. An API call from the portal to Enterprise Promise & Fulfill facilitates the presentation of this value-added ordering data. The Enterprise Promise & Fulfill solution evaluates real-time inventory, fulfillment and delivery capacity, operational constraints, and buyer preferences to return a precise delivery promise, including the delivery date, location, and method.
Once the customer reserves inventory and a delivery date and places the order, the order is sent to the distributor’s ERP system for processing. As the system of record, the ERP calls Enterprise Promise & Fulfill’s APIs to validate the promised delivery date during fulfillment. The result is a responsive and informative ordering experience that enhances buyer satisfaction while safeguarding the distributor’s new ERP system.
