Connect and Secure Your Supply Chain Transform your business with real-time insight and connectivity across all touch points

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1 White Paper Covisint Connect and Secure Your Supply Chain Transform your business with real-time insight and connectivity across all touch points Globalization has opened the door to immeasurable opportunity. The focus has shifted from cost of materials and labor to process innovation and optimization, today s pathway to competitive advantage. Expanding business overseas has exposed the growing complexity of the collaborative ecosystem, but the reality is that you don t have to operate a multinational supply chain to come across the same roadblocks. Over the past decade, businesses have become more global as they externalize non-core business functions and transition them to a network of suppliers, factories, warehouses, transporters, and others. As a result, the supply chain has become even more complex and vulnerable than in years past. One of the greatest challenges faced by manufacturers and suppliers today is maintaining a seamless process to work with a supplier or customer network. Each company and/or location has invested heavily in building its supply chain management system, ERP infrastructure and other computerized systems over time. This has included implementing and maintaining the hardware, software, protocols, and standards necessary to monitor internal information and communicate with other external parties as well. Replacing existing infrastructure is time consuming and cost prohibitive. Globalization compounds the impacts on companies, and inconsistent or unreliable delivery, increased lead times, and quality control issues are only the beginning. It becomes increasingly more difficult for organizations to find where and why problems occur as externalized supply chains become more distributed and specialized. As a result, increased visibility into the enterprise s operations and those of other members of the value chain become vital to balancing the increased complexity and risk. To truly harness the power of globalization, enterprises need a comprehensive view of the entire business bottlenecks, efficiency, and alignment with strategy across all functions. Challenges in the Supply Chain Only 15% of chief executives believe their supply chain is resilient enough to address the threat of external disruptors. So what makes the supply chain so vulnerable today? Globalization, the pressure to optimize efficiency, the drive toward increasing the pace of innovation and many other factors are contributing to challenges in supply chains. Most of those challenges fall into 4 key areas: 1. Visibility & Transparency - While executives have access to a large amount of supply chain data, visibility continues to be a top challenge. That s because data isn t being effectively captured, managed, or analyzed to drive strategic change. Rather, it s being housed in separate data silos that are difficult to integrate, making it that much more challenging to obtain a complete picture of the supply chain. Many times the information is located in disparate systems and processes that belong to external supply chain members. At the same time, there is no way to easily manage people and companies in the extended value chain and effectively enable their access key enterprise resources. There is no straightforward way to connect processes that span multiple entities and involve different stakeholders across different legal and technical entities. 2. Risk Management - With the ever-increasing pressure to reduce cost and increase efficiency in supply chains, many strategies to achieve those benefits also introduce risk. To remain competitive, organizations are seeking alternate global markets and more diverse customers. As a supply chain network becomes bigger and more diverse, the exposure to risk and disruption significantly increases. Over-reliance on a single supplier or small group of core suppliers creates vulnerabilities if that supplier or core group can t meet demand. That same principle holds true for geographic distribution, and other risk categories. For example, supply chain managers must mitigate risks, so weather events or labor issues in Asia don t stop the production line in North America. Globalization and technology innovations have also increased risk profiles related to regulatory compliance, data privacy, and protection of intellectual property. To maintain high levels of efficiency and optimize effectiveness of a supply chain, these risks must be identified and quantified in order to control and mitigate them. An optimized supply chain allows a company to quickly assess a supplier s ability to meet financial, legal, safety, quality, and environmental regulations and expectations. Those regulations differ based on customer and local standards, so flexibility becomes essential to risk management. Supply chain managers must have not only the strategy and plan in place to be alerted to and deal with contingencies of any nature, but also strong tools to manage suppliers. 3. Supply Chain Collaboration - Even when well-defined risk mitigation plans are in place, enterprises need to collaborate with suppliers to achieve optimal outcomes and on early intervention when issues arise. Moreover, as supply chain optimization initiatives are rolled out, policies and processes are updated, and new product lines are introduced and evolved, enterprises must be able to effectively collaborate and communicate with the extended supply chain. All Covisint products and services listed within are trademarks of Covisint Corporation. All other company or product names are trademarks of their respective owners Covisint Corporation. 1

2 They re also responsible for identifying suppliers that provide consistent and reliable service at a price that doesn t negatively impact the bottom line. Additionally, they maintain visibility into the relationship between suppliers, and manage the full supplier relationship lifecycle from onboarding and certification, adapt to merger and acquisition activity between suppliers, and end supplier relationships when needed 4. Secure Identity and Access Management for s - To optimize efficiency, agility and drive greater collaboration, it is essential for the enterprise to be able to share trusted information, resources and applications with external suppliers. However, a complex global network of external suppliers also increases the surface area for security vulnerability and a security breach can have devastating consequences for a brand. For the enterprise, management of external identities, determining who should have access to what resources, validating and auditing requests for access to key resources creates significant administrative overhead. The risk that is inherent in granting access to mission-critical resources to people and organizations outside the direct control of the enterprise, is compounded by: Lack of visibility into an external organizations hierarchy to validate user requests for access to resources Inability to identify orphan accounts, audit whether users are still active at an organization and still need access to resources or know when they leave or change roles and should be deprovisioned or re-provisioned Identifying and securing compromised accounts Adapting to external changes in supply chain ex. mergers and acquisitions or divestiture among suppliers Supply chain managers need to be able to get visibility into the organizations on whom they depend and need to be able to delegate administration of people and resources to trusted individuals within the supplier organization if they want to have the agility they need. At the same time, they need to be able to govern those external users and what they are authorized to do. This requires regular processes to require those delegated administrators to attest to the validity of the users and the resources to which they have access for a complete audit trail and to ensure compliance The increase in number of external identities that need access to key resources over the last decade has only magnified these challenges. How does the Covisint Cloud Platform enable you to manage your most critical supply chain challenges? The Covisint Cloud Platform makes it easy to leverage data and turn threats into growth opportunities. The platform provides a comprehensive set of capabilities to connect and manage the people, systems, processes and things that span the extended enterprise. The purpose-built cloud platform is infrastructure agnostic, highly scalable and enables partners and customers to build applications that allow you to model scenarios, and develop senseand-react capabilities respond in real time to shifts in mission-critical factors, such as, demand, factory maintenance, or weather patterns. A Bird s Eye Perspective into Supply Chain Visibility - Companies that can easily access information about their suppliers make better procurement decisions. A global business needs a single point of access for its supplier information and its buyer-supplier communities. With a global view and a transparent supply base, international supply chain operators can identify reliable suppliers anywhere in the world. The Covisint Cloud Platform enables the enterprise to take full advantage of rapid globalization through secure integration with critical supply chain partners connecting disparate processes and diverse technology allowing supply chain activities to flow seamlessly. The platform makes it easy to connect systems and processes that span extended networks at the manufacturer and at suppliers. Supporting business communities and streamlining processes, the platform allows for rapid, secure, and flexible integration that insulates companies from the cost and complexity of changing document types, formats, communication protocols, network connections and system integration needs. Providing a solution for companies regardless of size or technology, Covisint offers machine-to-machine options, managed file transfer, WebEDI and.csv document-to-edi options. Additionally, Covisint leverages industry-leading mapping, routing, translation and network interconnectivity services to drive real-time, secure, and reliable B2B communications across your existing systems and processes. With the platform, organizations are able to reduce cost, lower complexity and improve visibility related to information and application sharing. As more physical components of the supply chain are connected, from manufacturing equipment to transportation and logistics to connected products, there is an entirely new opportunity to create greater visibility into the supply chain. As companies realize billions of data points can be aggregated from IT systems such as those that manage machines on the factory floor, partners (supply and distribution side), weather and natural disaster alert systems many are planning to incorporate an Internet of Things strategy. A unified output of data from sources across the value chain enables analytics that give you a comprehensive look at health, risk and profitability. The Cloud Platform is designed for and ready to support your Internet of Things initiatives. Architected to secure and manage any identity in complex networks of people, processes, systems and things, the platform delivers pervasive security with comprehensive, powerful and complete identity services. Reduce Risk Through Better Management - Disruptions in production, delivery, and environmental influence are inevitable and yesterday s supply chain strategies are no longer adequate. In order to contain costs and mitigate risk, supply chain leaders must gain insight into what s driving these trends and measure their exposure to risk. With a top down look at the entire value chain, downtime can be minimized, supplies can be rerouted, and disaster averted. Seamless, secure collaboration between multiple systems and partners allows manufacturers and suppliers alike to respond in real-time. The Covisint Cloud Platform mitigates many of the risks inherent in a diverse, globally distributed supply chain. Starting with comprehensive identity and access management capabilities we can ensure only the right people have access to the most trusted resources when they need them. Adding comprehensive tools for audit and attestation means that the enterprise can easily determine who has access to what resources at any time, as well as how they got access and when they actually accessed the resource. By using Covisint s Data Aggregation and Integration Services, enterprises can reduce risk by securely connecting disparate systems and processes and creating comprehensive auditability, tracing and tracking for all of their most trusted information as it flows through the platform. All Covisint products and services listed within are trademarks of Covisint Corporation. All other company or product names are trademarks of their respective owners Covisint Corporation. 2

3 Identity Lifecycle Management In a Complex Partner Ecosystem Users Admin Delegated Administration Authorization Management Automated (De) Provisioning Administrator Application Local Administration Request/Approve Audit/Attestation Registration/Approval Automated (De) Provisioning SSO / MFA SAML / WSFed Covisint Platform SSO / MFA SAML / WSFed Token Consumer WAM Application SAML OAuth API Users Admin Mobile App Authentication Provisioning/Sync (SPML, Custom) Covisint IDSync Directory (AD/LDAP ) Improve Relationships with Your s Through Better Collaboration The Covisint Cloud Platform handles the complexity of connecting disparate processes, managing security, and modeling the relationships between organizations, people, systems and things across the extended supply chain. The result is an enhanced ability to share trusted information with suppliers, and improved communication to increase collaboration toward optimal outcomes. The Covisint Cloud Platform was formed as a global exchange for auto manufacturers to collaborate securely across an extensive ecosystem of OEMs and their multi-tiered supply network, providing mission critical support to the supply chain. Today, the platform connects people, systems, processes and things it enables scenario modeling, advanced analytics and insights that revolutionize manufacturing in all industries through rapid innovation, supply chain agility and operations excellence. Beyond pure data and process integration capabilities the Covisint Cloud Platform provides a full set of capabilities to communicate and collaborate with suppliers including full internationalization and user interface support in 12 languages, document collaboration, messaging, discussion forums and collaboration sites. In addition, the open, developer-friendly, enterprise-class platform facilitates the rapid development and deployment of new capabilities in Connected Supply Chain, Identity Management (IdM), and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions enabling the enterprise to capitalize on the ability to securely identify, authenticate and connect users, devices, applications and information. Increase The Security of Your Supply Chain Without Compromising On Agility and Innovation - A foundational element of secure collaboration across an extended supply chain is a secure, scalable capability to manage the identities of all the external organizations and people that comprise the extended supply chain. The Covisint Cloud Platform provides a robust set of tools needed to manage all of the identities that touch your enterprise. While most solutions simply provide single sign-on (SSO) for users to access cloud applications from inside the enterprise, outward, the Covisint Cloud Platform helps manage, automate and govern the complex network of external identities that need outside-in access to internal applications and resources. Advanced identity features such as delegated administration, authorization management, and automated provisioning have been designed and hardened over years of experience with some of the largest global companies to secure information flow amongst complex, multi-level networks of products and people that reside external to organizations outside-in. The platform is able to act as the system of record for all the enterprises external supply chain users and organizations, or integrate with existing systems, synchronizing user profile and authorization information. Covisint is able to support a wide range of user and authorization provisioning scenarios including: Synchronization with enterprise directories (LDAP, AD, etc.) Provision users and entitlements (applications authorizations) to enterprise Web Access Manager (WAM) Synchronize user profile information and privileges to legacy or cloud applications Support for a wide range of implementation patterns and protocols including Just in Time provisioning on first federation, out of band synchronization, SPML, SCIM, and custom implementations using Covisint s IDSync and IDBridge components Self-service tools allow the enterprise to allow external organizations to register, build and populate their own organizational hierarchies of users. The external organization is able to define its own organizational hierarchy on the platform without effort or involvement from enterprise administrators. Once the enterprise administrator has delegated administrative capability to a user at an external organization, that external organization can add users, and also add additional delegated administrators within that organization. These capabilities for self-service administration and delegation make it possible for the enterprise to: Streamline the process for managing access to resources Reduce administrative workload for the enterprise administrators Increase security related to validating requests and user registration by placing the decision-making capability closest to local knowledge Enable delegated administrators to manage multiple applications from multiple different security domains All Covisint products and services listed within are trademarks of Covisint Corporation. All other company or product names are trademarks of their respective owners Covisint Corporation. 3

4 These identity governance features are most important and useful when managing large groups of external users and are the best in the industry. Covisint s delegated administration features allow the business partner s administrators, those that know the users the best, to manage their users access while still giving your administrator oversight. Configurable workflows allow the process for users to gain access to applications to be as simple or complex as your policies require. Covisint s attestation capabilities keep administrators on task to verify that users and organizations have the access they should. This protects your business from a policy and regulatory standpoint and also helps ensure information is only in the hands of people that should have it. Covisint provides a set of automated tools and workflows for automated quarterly and annual user and application audits. These tools require delegated administrators to review and attest to both the validity of user accounts and the applications granted to those users. Even though the enterprise administrator has no visibility into whether a particular user is still employed by a supplier, or whether they should or should not have access to a particular application, that enterprise administrator can delegate the administration of a supplier s users and their access to applications, and then enforce governance through these automated tools. As organizations grow and evolve, those same delegated administrators can manage merging of divisions or managing user lifecycles. For the enterprise, the platform also provides the capability to merge organizations and manage authorizations and access throughout the lifecycle of those external organizations. The combination of data exchange, identity management, and IoT services ensures that bi-directional exchange occurs between the right constituents (across legal entities or your supply chain or your dealer network, for example). The ability to apply fine-grained authorization access controls to people, systems and applications outside your organization ensures that trusted information gets to the right people and things at the right time. What Covisint does, better than anyone else, is provide the tools needed to model and manage the extremely complex organizational hierarchies of your business partners. This ensures they have timely yet secure and authorized access to the information needed to do business with you. Covisint Provides an End-to-End Solution for Managing Your Most Critical Supply Chain Challenges Get the big picture in real-time. Flexibility, scalability and operational transparency are more important than ever in this new era of disruptive complexity. The Covisint Cloud Platform enables our partners and customers to create connected supply chain solutions that link disparate people, systems and things which allow them to work together via seamless integration. The solution is cloud-based and provides on-demand connectivity and communication to organizations of any size or location. We realize that securely sharing reliable B2B information across increasingly complex technology systems and platforms can be difficult and expensive. The Covisint Cloud Platform enables the enterprise to respond quickly to changes in the ecosystem with comprehensive, secure tracking of value chain initiatives. In addition, it is easily scalable to handle massive volumes of transactions generated by many different systems. Covisint operates the largest B2B platform in the world, enabling automotive manufacturers and Tier 1 s to securely exchange trusted information across an entire industry. The Covisint Cloud Platform connects 85,000 companies including over 530,000 supply chain users with single sign-on access to over 500 applications provided by diverse manufacturers and suppliers. With one ID on the Covisint Cloud Platform, users can access multiple, different and secure supplier portals and applications across these manufacturers and suppliers. Moreover, the companies managing portals and applications are able to delegate administration of access to applications and portals to administrators at those suppliers. For example, one such manufacturer is able to administer a supplier portal supporting 50,000 different supplier businesses and nearly one hundred thousand users, with access to hundreds of applications all managed by only 2 administrators. Beyond managing all of the identities across an entire industry exchange, the Cloud Platform connects systems from tens of thousands of businesses in over 80 countries, moving millions of messages per month. The Covisint Cloud Platform enables an enterprise to respond quickly to changes in their ecosystem with comprehensive, secure tracking of value chain initiatives, via best-in-class capabilities. The Covisint Cloud Platform provides the capabilities to transform how an enterprise interacts with its supply chain, with real-time insight and connectivity across all touch points - people, systems, process and things. Covisint provides all of the tools for the enterprise or trusted third parties to develop new capabilities and solutions to innovate and accelerate supply chain initiatives. Companies who adopt the Covisint Cloud Platform can then easily and rapidly move from concept to workable product, having the tools they need to become a responsive enterprise. Covisint Cloud Platform Why a purpose-built platform? It s all about speed. Why build apps from scratch by using general purpose PaaS and SaaS point solutions that have to be stitched together manually, and then maintained? The truth about building applications from general-purpose components is that this process is slow and error-prone. The Covisint Platform enables enterprises to create frameworks for managing the complex relationships between identities and critical business resources. Developers have access to SDKs and a comprehensive suite of RESTful APIs, making it easy to quickly build and customize IoT and identitycentric solutions or applications according to specific needs. By removing the headache of managing security, and modeling the complex relationships between people, systems, process and things, developers can move from concept to product as quickly as possible Purpose-built Cloud Platform for Identity & the Internet of Things (IoT). There are three foundational technologies, delivered via an infrastructure agnostic PaaS that enable these platform capabilities: 1. Securely sharing trusted information with identity and access management 2. Integrate and aggregate complex data, to and from internal systems of record 3. Connect manufacturers and customers to their products with advanced IoT services These capabilities allow the business to provide exceptional customer experiences, sharpen core competencies, and transform operationally. The Covisint Difference Differentiation is in the Solution a cloud-based PaaS unlocks customer and partner led development and faster innovation in the application layer. Infrastructure agnostic and highly scalable to meet the privacy, security and performance demands of increasingly global businesses. Purpose-built for solutions that connect people, processes, systems and things enables faster innovation in the platform capabilities and your solutions. Offered as a cloud service to drive operational simplification and reduce costs for customers through economies of scale. All Covisint products and services listed within are trademarks of Covisint Corporation. All other company or product names are trademarks of their respective owners Covisint Corporation. 4

5 Covisint provides an open, developer-friendly, enterprise-class cloud platform to facilitate the rapid development and deployment of Internet of Things (IoT), Identity Management (IdM), and B2B collaboration solutions. Our platform enables users to securely identify, authenticate and connect users, devices, applications and information, and has been successfully operating globally at enterprise scale for over 12 years. Today, the Covisint platform enables more than 3,000 organizations to connect with more than 212,000 business partners and customers, and supports more than $4 billion in ecommerce transactions annually. Covisint Corporation Detroit Frankfurt London San Francisco Shanghai p covisint.com All Covisint products and services listed within are trademarks of Covisint Corporation. All other company or product names are trademarks of their respective owners Covisint Corporation.