Mark Morley, Industry Marketing Director

B2B Challenges Across the Global Steel Industry

Slide 2 | © 2013 GXS, Inc.

The Steel Industry has Some Interesting B2B Challenges

• B2B Network Consolidation – M&A activity across the industry has

led to a requirement for B2B network consolidation

• Ageing Workforce Across the Steel Industry – B2B resourcing

issues are starting to occur due to the fact that many steel industry

workers are nearing retirement

• Back Office Integration – continued requirement to integrate to back

office systems, e.g ERP

• SME Enablement – B2B adoption, especially across small to medium

sized steel companies is relatively low within the steel industry

• Improved Visibility of Steel Shipments – improve visibility into steel

shipments and stock levels held at steel storage and service centres

• Industry Trend to Adopt Green Business Processes – required to

develop green and sustainable steel production and business

processes

Slide 3 | © 2013 GXS, Inc.

B2B Network Consolidation

• Extensive M&A activity amongst the

large steel producers has led to an

increase in B2B platform consolidation

activity

• The shift from regional to global steel

production has led to a need for global

connectivity and on-boarding support

• Ongoing need to streamline B2B

processes across the steel value chain

Slide 4 | © 2013 GXS, Inc.

Ageing Workforce Across the Steel Industry

• High proportion of the workforce in the

global steel industry is nearing

retirement. This will potentially lead to

a shortage of B2B professionals within

the industry

• Limited recruitment of younger ICT

employees, due to the image of the

industry, means that there will be a

skills gap within many steel

companies

Slide 5 | © 2013 GXS, Inc.

Back Office Integration

• Steel companies are looking to

improve visibility across their

extended enterprise and streamline

business processes in order to lower

operational costs

• Steel companies, as with companies in

other industries, are trying to improve

B2B integration to other back office

systems such as ERP platforms

Slide 6 | © 2013 GXS, Inc.

SME Enablement

• B2B technology adoption, especially

across small to medium sized steel

companies is relatively low when

compared to other industries

• Most steel companies are looking for

B2B solutions which are quick to deploy,

simple to use and easy to maintain on an

ongoing basis

Slide 7 | © 2013 GXS, Inc.

Improved Visibility of Steel Shipments

• The global nature of today’s steel

industry means that it is more

important than ever before to keep

track of steel shipments

• Steel companies need to provide true

end to end visibility in order to for

example support ‘Just-In-Time’ type

production processes

• Steel producers need to improve real

time visibility of inventory held at steel

storage depots

Slide 8 | © 2013 GXS, Inc.

Industry Trend to Adopt ‘Green’ Business Processes

• Many countries around the world have

signed up to reducing their carbon

emissions

• Steel companies will be forced to find

more sustainable methods for

producing steel and managing their

business processes

• This could provide the stimulus to

replace outdated paper based

transactions with electronic business

transactions

Slide 9 | © 2013 GXS, Inc.

Conclusions

• The global steel industry is continuing to restructure and increased adoption of B2B technologies would allow steel companies to:– Consolidate legacy B2B infrastructures and

automate manual, paper based processes

– Provide true end to end visibility of steel

shipments anywhere in the world

– Ensure that all trading partners are able to

interact with a B2B platform by way of easy to

use and quick to deploy B2B solutions

Slide 10 | © 2013 GXS, Inc.

Thank You

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