In the business-to-business supply chain management arena, manufacturers can choose from among many great tools for integrating trading partners’ ERP and supply chain management systems. But, though current technology does a sufficient job of automating transaction flows, it does not necessarily facilitate effective communication among the people behind the partnerships.
Enter RollStream, a 5-year-old software-as-a-service vendor that focuses on facilitating relationships in the supply network. Dubbed an enterprise community management collaboration platform for B2B networks, RollStream's applications connect business systems with the people who actually do the work, says RollStream CEO Kristin Muhlner.
“It is like Facebook for the supply chain,” Muhlner says. “We’ve adopted the free-form collaboration features that you see in personal social networks and have applied it in a B2B context.”
Leveraging Web 2.0 technology, RollStream layers a social networking software layer on top of B2B hub technology from companies such as Seeburger and GXS.