The Network Controller

Collaborative software applications alone will not give companies the means to model and manage their trading communities. The Network Controller at the center of the GT Nexus technology stack was designed to give companies and their systems administrators a control center for recruiting and instantiating trade and service provider partners — and for managing the relationship rules with those partners. Every company is on GT Nexus just once but can work across multiple business networks simultaneously as business dictates.

How is this possible? It takes a specialized technology layer devoted to the design and management of private trade and logistics networks on a single industry-wide community platform. A company "links" its suppliers and its logistics and financial service providers into a virtual and flexible business network by pulling from the broader base of community members already on the platform. (Learn more about the GT Nexus Community).

The company then legislates the roles and permission rules of its partners on this private network. A logistics service provider operating in one private network on GT Nexus will have a very specific set of roles and permission settings for the context of that particular business network. But the very same service provider can work on GT Nexus to support a completely new role and relationship in an adjacent business network with another customer. The Network Controller is a logical layer in the technology stack that legislates, manages and enforces the entity relationship rules of the actual "real world" business arrangement.

What's Good for One is Good for All

Business networks are virtual networks. They must be modeled and managed in such a way that every company on the broader GT Nexus platform can be there just once but participate in multiple business networks at the same time. When a process improvement or data link is made for one customer, it's good for all — across the network. That's the power of an industry-wide single network platform. Improvements made for one participant are multiplied a thousand-fold, instantly, for everyone on the network.

In a world where supply chain agility is not just a nice-to-have but a must-have, a robust and integrated network management facility is absolutely key. It's fundamental. The Network Controller tools and services within GT Nexus were not designed as an after-thought. They were designed at the center of the offering.

They make the dream of the agile business network finally possible.