The term, also called a trading partner community, describes your supply chain from the point of view of transactions. It covers the buying side (suppliers you issue purchase orders to), the selling side (customers and dealers who order from you) and the logistics providers that connect them. A large ecosystem can include many companies across several countries, business units and sites.
Ecosystems are rarely uniform. Some trading partners exchange EDI or API transactions from their own systems. Others are non-EDI trading partners that send email, PDFs and spreadsheets, or hybrid trading partners that mix the two. Requirements also differ by process: a retailer’s suppliers need to meet vendor compliance rules, while a manufacturer’s dealers need accurate pricing and order status.
Mapping the ecosystem is a useful first step in any program. Group trading partners by role, process, transaction volume and channel, then decide which segment to bring into a governed process first. The aim is for every trading partner to follow the same rules, even if each one connects differently.