CompTIA White Paper Reveals Effects of Migration to B2B Extranet Trading.

OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill. -- Migration from electronic data integration (EDI) to managing transactions via an extranet Web site is having a detrimental impact on both B2B suppliers and customers, a new white paper published today by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) reveals.

The CompTIA white paper, titled "Weakening the Electronic Supply Chain," explores how the emerging trend of transitioning from EDI to extranet-based trading results in increased manual workloads, data inaccuracies and delays in information sharing. The end results are negative impacts for the supplier and customer in overall efficiency, accuracy, cost, and partner relationships.

A recent CompTIA survey of B2B eCommerce buyers and suppliers revealed the drift from EDI toward extranet data exchange, despite a strong preference for system-to-system automatic trading. Survey respondents indicated that while 92 percent of them prefer system-to-system EDI trading, 74 percent indicate they are actively using extranet Web sites today for a portion of their B2B trading. Also, 31 percent indicate Web site trading has increased over the past year.

"This white paper highlights a supply chain issue in e-commerce that has somewhat flown under the radar, but is having a significant negative impact on suppliers and customers in the B2B space," said David Sommer, vice president, e-Commerce, CompTIA. "This document was developed to be a catalyst for developing industry-wide best practices around this subject. The details of these best practices need to be determined and documented, recommendations need to be defined, and appropriate education must be done."

"Weakening the Electronic Supply Chain" was produced by the EIDX Section of CompTIA. With more than 40 members, the section provides a unified voice, global leadership and strategic direction to further e-business interoperability. EIDX is committed to advancing industry growth through the development of standards, best practices, accreditations, professional education and development, tools and business solutions.

The CompTIA white paper, "Weakening the Electronic Supply Chain", is available for public download at the CompTIA EIDX Web site, http://eidx.comptia.org. It also is accessible to CompTIA members in the research area of the CompTIA Web site, http://www.comptia.org/sections/research/whitepapers.aspx.

This CompTIA white paper was produced with input and cooperation from Kenneth Jeanos, Director of Operations, Panasonic Industrial Company; Bryan Larkin, vice president Tech Strategies, The Kodiak Group; Richard Solberg, MIS Asst. Manager; TDK Corporation of America; and Casey Stevens, e-Business Implementation Manager, STMicroelectronics.

About CompTIA

The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) is a global trade association representing the business interests of the information technology (IT) industry. For more than 23 years CompTIA has provided research, networking and partnering opportunities to its 20,000-plus members in 102 countries. The association is involved in developing standards and best practices, and influencing the political, economic and educational arenas that impact IT worldwide. More information is available at www.comptia.org.