Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 49 seconds

From the Top - EXTOL

Last week I interviewed Anthony (Tony) Baran, co-founder, chairman, and CEO, and Dennis Bonagura, President and COO, both of EXTOL. Here is the transcript of our conversation.

ImageWhat is the current focus of your company's business?

Baran - EXTOL started as an EDI software organization but always recognized that integration was one of the challenges for our customers. Our original design principle was to build an extensible set of applications so that we wouldn't have to rebuild it for each trading partner's needs. The code was built with lots of capability to handle the different requirements of a variety of trading partners, and to present a unified data set to the backend applications. We continue to see a growing need for this same capability. EXTOL has grown to over 80 employees with nearly 800 installations for 600 customers.

Image How has this focus changed in the last 2 years?

Baran - I think what has changed is that as an industry we are now looking at the real meaning of EDI. For the last 10 years it was assumed that EDI meant X12 or EDIFACT, but it really means exchanging data electronically, or e-Commerce. The idea is to get companies working together electronically. We are addressing that need, and letting customers address ALL electronic capabilities. Our product is a central application integrator.

We see the market needing strong integration capabilities. That includes a full range of data formats. We see EDI as an application to application exchange in whatever format you want to use. What we have done is take our product line to the point where we are agnostic with regard to the data formats. We believe they will be constantly changing, and will support whatever the customer wants. We do believe in using standardized formats, otherwise you end up with proprietary configurations. But sometimes standards are too slow to be ratified. So when companies need to get things done, they need to have methods and formats to support the business processes. And we do support them, whether they are flat files, spreadsheets, EDI, XML, etc.

Image What are your current initiatives?

Baran - We released our EXTOL Business Integrator in 2005. It handle all the translations internally in order to support the business processes. We can provide application level functions for specific initiatives including data synchronization, X12, XML, and our customer's own formats. We also provide VAN service at reduced prices.

Image How has the market for EDI changed with the impact of the Internet?

Bonagura - We built the EXTOL system for EDI, then we used that history to change our approach in order to deliver a complete business to business platform. The Internet has made a big different by reducing connection costs, but it also enables more collaboration. Transaction volumes are up dramatically, and that's what our customers wanted. Previously that kind of traffic was complex and expensive. We want to get to the point where we have closer to real-time information and interactivity. One change that has moved us in that direction is that we are now transaction driven rather than batch driven.

We present a generic business to business solution without regard to the standard or format the trading partner wants to use, and we remove the extra work and staff needed to get the job done. It is all included in a single platform that works the way the customer wants to work.

Image What are the greatest challenges for your customers?

Bonagura - We did in-depth studies of 26 customers, and the common theme is that they are all doing traditional EDI, and trying to grow their businesses. Lots of customers want to trade electronically, but they don't use EDI. This presents a barrier to their efficiency.

We also see the number of perfect orders being an issue for our customers. We've found that more than 20% of orders are imperfect. Our customers are on the supply side, and we want to help them reduce that percentage. The way to do that is to use the electronic orders and synchronization facilities that already exist. But the formula also includes removing the human intervention from the process. That's what we provide. It helps them grow their revenue, increase their profits, and make happier customers.

Image How are you helping your customers address these challenges?

Baran - We are focusing on enabling better information exchange between customers. Data synchronization helps that tremendously. The number of transactions has increased, and the amount of information needed to support the transactions has also increased. The facilities that are in place like the GS1 data pools need to be used as a common source of information.

Even so, we believe the individual user company owns the internal information. With that in mind, integration as a service doesn't make a lot of sense to us. The information/data needs to be handled inside before it can be sent to a VAN for collaboration purposes. We pull the extra information from external sources and add them to the existing information in order to meet specific trading partner requirements.

Bonagura - Our services are offered as a hybrid insource / outsource where needed. With this method we can provide the integration services for the customer on their internal data managed by us behind their firewall. That reduces their staff and technical requirements. Also, if they eventually decide to take over the tasks, it's already in house. This alleviates a lot of security concerns because it keeps data like customer information and pricing internal.

Image What is your stance on the eC-BP organization and tenets?

Baran - We believe that standards have to be in place in order for business to operate consistently and reliably. And because the standards need to be open, we support interoperability between transports. If customers want to connect through different VANs, we will handle the transfers.

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Scott Koegler

Scott Koegler is Executive Editor for PMG360. He is a technology writer and editor with 20+ years experience delivering high value content to readers and publishers. 

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