Small and medium sized businesses face the same integration challenges of larger enterprises. They need to automate business processes and ensure secure, accurate communications between suppliers, manufacturers, retailers, and other business partners. Unlike larger enterprises, however, SMB customers have very limited capacity to invest in B2B infrastructure. Additionally, SMB customers often only do so because of a partner's mandate or government regulations.

The Challenge

Innovise seeks to address the growing business-to-business integration needs of the SMB market in New Zealand. Innovise's flagship product, Innovise Message Translator, is a rulesbased translation engine for message transformation and processing. Innovise Message Translator has support for a wide range of common B2B message formats. Automating communications through major business-to-business communications protocols like AS2 is a critical requirement for many Innovise customers.

"The AS2 Connector is an excellent solution for SMB customers who require secure AS2 connectivity," said Roger Ford, Managing Director, Innovise Ltd. "When combined with a message translation service like the Innovise Message Translator, the AS2 Connector enables businesses to separate external B2B demands from internal business requirements. This enables smaller businesses to gain the benefits of an electronic document exchange without huge development or infrastructure costs."

The Solution

When customers require AS2 connectivity, Innovise installs the AS2 Connector alongside the Innovise Message Translator. The AS2 Connector completely encapsulates all required AS2 capabilities, including secure communication, compression, and receipt confirmation.

Configuring the AS2 Connector is straightforward. It is configured through a simple web based interface that enables customers to update partner configurations at any time and from any location. Partner messages are sent to and received by the file system with individual directories configured for each partner. The Innovise Message Translator monitors these folders for new files and will process data based on a preconfigured set of rules every time a new file is received.

"The AS2 Connector is extremely easy to use. Our initial integration took one developer and one systems administrator less than two hours to combine the solutions.

"It was so easy to integrate that I cannot comment on the quality of support services: we never needed them." – Roger Ford, Managing Director, Innovise Ltd.

The Result

Innovise now offers its customers Drummond certified AS2 connectivity through the side-by-side installation of the AS2 Connector. The two products work seamlessly and provide SMB customers a robust and inexpensive solution for B2B messaging. By communicating with their partners directly, Innovise customers benefit from tremendous cost savings over using traditional EDI VAN's or Internet message brokers.

"The AS2 Connector does its job and is easy to work with," explained Ford. "It is a cost effective solution for small businesses which would otherwise be excluded from the benefits of B2B messaging."

By using the AS2 Connector, Innovise Ltd. is able to offer its customers an affordable solution for secure e-business messaging that is easy to use, easy to maintain, and requires little or no change to its customers' business infrastructures.