InsightETE Success Story - Sterling Commerce

Sterling Commerce had a problem, actually two problems.

• When time sensitive e-commerce or EDI data was unable to be delivered to trading partners by Sterling’s customers, Sterling was alerted to the problem via SCMP, the "Screaming Customer Management Protocol."
• In addition, both Sterling and it’s customers often had contractual service level agreements (SLAs) guaranteeing availability and response time.

Customers depended on the Sterling Information Broker (SIB) to deliver their critical purchase orders, shipment notices, and acknowledgements to their trading partners. When the SIB system was unavailable or performing sluggish, both Sterling and its customers often incurred financial penalties for missed SLAs. The problem for Sterling was the inability to objectively measure the SLAs.

InsightETE provided a solution, not only resolving Sterling Commerce’s business problems but also providing a competitive advantage. The first step in implementing InsightETE was in understanding the data flows. The flexibility provided to customers for transmitting their data to Sterling provided complexities for monitoring all the various data paths.

InsightETE was able to accurately track customer data from end-to-end regardless of the customer’s choice of transmission (i.e. FTP, internet, frame relay, dialup, etc.). Objective SLA metrics were then developed for each individual customer. The daily and monthly reports provided the customer with an accurate picture of their availability and response times, using the Sterling Information Broker.

InsightETE provided Sterling Commerce with a tool to improve customer retention by changing customers from the SCMP (Screaming Customer Management Protocol) to the RCFC (Raving Customer Fan Club) and obtain new customers through an innovative approach to SLA management.