Table of contents
TraceLink Multienterprise Information Network Tower (MINT) Value Proposition:
- Link and exchange transaction data with 100% of your supply chain partners through a single integration to the TraceLink network
- No fees to onboard your supply chain partners or subscription fees to partners.
- Leverage real-time integration to exchange and orchestrate more than 50 supply chain business transaction types with partners.
When we meet with senior supply chain and IT leaders, we hear that the TraceLink MINT value proposition sounds “too good to be true.” Why do these experienced leaders feel this way? For years, legacy approaches to enable system-to-system integration between a company and a single supplier or trading partner have often cost more than $100,000 per integration and can take months, or even years, to build, test, and deploy. So, how can TraceLink help you to cost-effectively integrate each partner? Let’s break down the MINT value proposition and business model and look at how MINT excels where other integration models have struggled:
- Link and exchange transaction data with 100% of your supply chain partners: TraceLink developed its "Integrate Once, Interoperate with Everyone™" capability to greatly reduce the time and effort required to integrate each company to exchange data. TraceLink replaced electronic data interchange (EDI) point-to-point integration, which requires individual mapping for each partner relationship. Instead, TraceLink built a highly scalable cloud platform that enables data to be shared first with a network-based canonical data model through a single integration. Once shared to the network canonical data model, data can be exchanged with any partner on the network. Trade partners also exchange data with the same "Integrate Once, Interoperate with Everyone" capability, making this approach highly efficient and scalable. The ultimate goal is to enable real-time data exchange among all stakeholders because any missing ingredient, excipient, or component could stop medicines from reaching patients.
- No fees to onboard your supply chain partners or subscription fees to partners: TraceLink has been investing in the industry’s largest digital network for more than 15 years and has onboarded more than 291,000 network members spanning the life sciences/healthcare supply chain, from material suppliers to healthcare dispensers—only about 1,600 are customers with paid subscriptions. TraceLink developed a highly efficient onboarding process through our Network Success team, which works exclusively with our customers’ trading partners to ensure they are successfully integrated to the network and trained to use TraceLink solutions. Every partner that is onboarded at no cost is also a potential customer that experiences value from MINT, helps expand the network, and supports business model growth. As a customer, partners will experience the full value of MINT’s supply chain orchestration capabilities.
- Exchange more than 50 supply chain business transaction types with trading partners through real-time integration to orchestrate business processes: TraceLink has already created and deployed more than 100 B2B transaction types to secure the global drug supply chain as part of its track-and-trace and compliance solutions. These transactions operate across more than 339,000 integrations which have, for example, supported the exchange of more than 150 million Advanced Ship Notices to date. The next 50+ transaction types integrate partner supply chain data into your ERP across Direct Supply, External Manufacturing, Logistics, Commerce, Clinical Supply Chain, and more processes to fully support end-to-end supply chain orchestration. These 50 transaction types can be developed at lower costs as they are based on established industry standards defined by ANSI, EDIFACT, and GS1. The real-time integration of these 50+ supply chain business transaction types enables TraceLink to address a massive customer and trading partner need on a cost-effective basis.
Enable critical processes such as digital procure-to-pay and order-to-cash: TraceLink built its track-and-trace solutions on a scalable AWS infrastructure to support the orchestration of billions of serialized pharmaceutical products and to execute supply chain transactions, including serialized batch aggregation, ASN exchange, and instant product verification. Not all of these were firm compliance requirements in the early phases of the U.S. Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA). The need for these capabilities was determined through industry collaboration and learnings that evolved over time. TraceLink was proactively building an infrastructure that could support the end goal of the compliance regulations many years before the requirements were fully understood. This experience with orchestration across the end-to-end life sciences/healthcare supply chain helped TraceLink advance its technology and services to be highly efficient and scalable with very predictable cloud infrastructure costs.
In addition to low costs, MINT pricing is based on the large market opportunity for supply chain orchestration that goes well beyond procure-to-pay and order-to-cash to support all critical supply chain processes including:
- External Manufacturing: Orchestrate forecast collaboration, purchasing, inventory status, and payment processes with contract manufacturers.
- Direct Supply: Orchestrate forecast collaboration, procure-to-pay, and shipping status with direct material suppliers.
- Third-Party Logistics: Orchestrate product transfers, inventory status, warehouse operations, and order-to-cash processes with 3PLs.
- Clinical Supply: Orchestrate procurement, inventory, and shipping processes to manage materials and kits required for clinical trials.
- Commerce: Orchestrate order-to-cash, product catalog, price list, and product activity processes with wholesale distributors, pharmacies, and other resellers.
A business model built for success
There are a finite number of companies and systems across the life sciences/healthcare supply chain and most have already been onboarded to the TraceLink network. The TraceLink model for integrating companies once per transaction type and reusing that integration with potentially thousands of partners enables a highly efficient and cost-effective network growth model. Our efficient network growth business model has proven very successful for TraceLink and is supported by continued investments in our:
- Scalable cloud infrastructure
- OPUS Network Platform
- Network data model
- Streamlined partner onboarding
- Integrate Once, Interoperate with Everyone capability
- Flexible modes of integration
- Reusable B2B connections
- Deep supply chain network services experience
- Network Success Team
- Network supply chain solutions built to deliver value
Supply chain practitioners have been working to improve visibility and collaboration for more than 20 years. By providing them with these capabilities, TraceLink is ensuring a giant market opportunity while delivering high-value and cost-effective network solutions to customers. As a result, the business model for MINT is strong with virtually unlimited potential to solve some of the most pressing supply chain challenges in healthcare and life sciences.
