T O U R    : A R C H I P E L A G O

Maya : archipelago was the first serious 'idea' to come from Maya. It's been around for a few years, gaining maturity so to speak.

If anything classifies a busines website, its that of a Portal. Biz-toBiz portals like Cosivint and Ariba are all nice and dandy for doing their job, which is interesting enough - bringing buyers and sellers together. Kinda like eBay on steriods.

But, and us here at dptopia have yet to see (publically announced anyway) a internet ready platform or product that builds upon the relationships businesses have with each other, not just suppliers and customers mind you, the whole gammut like out-sourced operations, freight, lawyers yadda yadda.

Portals are so, see-and-destroy. Go in, get a good price and bang you're gone. No phone call later in the week to see how you're going. Kinda like my relationships ... uh.

Anyy way, companies and organisations that are founded on networks and trust are more successful than those not. What makes this so? Collaboration. Yup, if there is strong communication between all layers of involved companies, which I'll call Partners from now on 'cause they are, then operations are more efficient, everyone knows what's going on and what is exptected.

Archipelago helps to deliver this to you and your Partners. By using the 'ubuiquity' of the Internet and all the cool standards its built on, archipelago provides the means for smoother information flow to the right destination, letting the right people communicate and so on. Something like this still requires the proper commitment - it wont work if its not used properly, something that I bet a lot of Marketing Duds don't say when they come calling. We're realists here at dptopia!

If you're a little confused or vague, and sometimes I get that way myself explaining this thing, I am just a tour guide after all, here's a bunch of dot-points:

• Employees can connect to a Partners Extranet to find out information without contacting the Partner and taking up its personnel's time. Such as checking inventory levels, product updates, documents and specifications, status of orders or maintenance work.
• Partner employees can converse on topics, projects or processess, ask questions and supply information using the underutilised Newsgroup standard. Or converse real time in maligned 'chat-rooms', or a more fancy name 'Conferencing'. Parnter relations are further enhanced as employees of all levels get to know each other better and establish relationships. Wast time is cut as a more direct source can be found.
• Extranet sites are created for project planning, mobile or remote working. Allowing 24x7 operations and access to information.
• Traditional Supply Chain Management or Enterpise Resource Planning tools are focused on the operations of just the owning company. Archipelago aims to provide these features to the entire Partner Network. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so why hobble yourself when it is possible to be strong throughout.
• Demand and Supply form the basis of business success. They are also important in regards to cost, waste and efficiency. Over supply leads to many additional costs while too much demand means lost opportunities. While Archipelago does not focus specifically on forecasting, it sees the transfer of historic figures to the parties that need them.
  • Automotive manufactures aren't really manufacturers at all, they assemble pre-built components to produce a car. All of these component manufactures are dependant on the orders from the Assembler. Greater production efficiencies in Just-In-Time (JIT) can be achieved if these supply chain members have access to the 'sales' of their components. From the point of sale, sales data should flow up the chain and be broken up into its component parts and passed onto the respective producer. With this information, chains and Networks will produce less waste and be more efficient.
• Archipelago is global. It uses standards so Partners with different infrastructure will have little difficulty in installation and maintenance and use compared to propriety systems.
• It is integrated with the Partner and Customer Collaboration platform lorielJump! providing full circle coverage.
• Archipelago will provide a platform and work space from which employees of all levels will find their tasks easier to acomplish and more interesting to do, providing them with the information or sources of that they need to ensure continued efficiency, collaboration and success for the entire Business Partner Network.