B2B Service Example

An example of B2B service is the update of inventory levels through notifications between a supplier and a consumer.

You are a reseller for several suppliers who update their inventory levels periodically and a single customer who purchases items from you. When an inventory level is updated, you receive a notification from a supplier. When you receive the notification, you must request the new inventory listing from the supplier, merge it with your existing inventory report, and send it to your customer.

Assuming your supplier is the producer and you are the consumer in a contract. The steps in the business process for the example are:

  1. Translate the notification of an inventory change to a request for an inventory change report.
  • Use the B2B Request-Response service to request the inventory level report from the trading partner that sent the notification.
  • Create a complete report for the customer using various services.
  1. Send the report to the customer using the B2B Respond service.

For the sample business process, the following roles would perform the indicated tasks:

Role Task
Business analyst Define a business process that requests an inventory listing from a trading partner, format it properly and merge it with existing inventory reports, and send the resulting inventory to the customer.
System administrator Configure the communications protocol adapters to start the business process correctly.
Trading partner administrator Type all the trading profile information for the producers and consumers of the data. This information includes contracts between the producers and Sterling B2B Integrator.