Every manufacturer, retailer and distributor sits in the middle of its supply chain. It buys from suppliers through procure-to-pay and sells to customers through order-to-cash. Logistics runs through both sides through logistics collaboration with carriers and 3PLs: inbound freight brings goods in from suppliers, and outbound freight and warehouse fulfillment deliver them to customers. Each of these relationships uses its own documents and timelines.
The two sides depend on each other. A late supplier confirmation becomes a missed delivery date for a customer. An inaccurate inbound shipment notice becomes an inventory error that affects the next customer order. Yet many companies run each side on separate tools, with separate integrations, rules and reports, so the connection between a supplier problem and a customer promise is hard to see.
Roles also cross sides. A distributor is a customer of the manufacturers it buys from and a supplier to the retailers it sells to. Running both sides on one platform means one trading partner model, one set of rules and one view of how buying-side events affect selling-side commitments.