RE: Trading Partner or Party - What's in a name

[sfuger@AIAG.ORG]

I agree with David Webber's suggestion that both should be in the glossary.
Party is certainly a more general term, but the trading partner is the one
that needs an agreement or profile set up.  Some parties might not.  Many
companies have problems using the word "partner" at all, since that word
contains legal implications that I'm sure Winchel can enlighten us about.
Traditionally, when we have had a Trading Partner Agreement in EDI, it has
been a contract of sorts, containing agreement about acceptability of the
electronic form of a document in place of a piece of paper.  I have had
vendors refuse to sign them! The "TPA" as Marty Sachs introduced it goes
well beyond that concept to include some really great information more
aligned with the concept of "trading partner profile" than "agreement."  

Sally

-----Original Message-----
From: David Burdett [mailto:david.burdett@commerceone.com]
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2000 3:12 PM
To: 'sfuger@AIAG.ORG'; ebxml-transport@lists.ebxml.org
Subject: RE: Trading Partner or Party - What's in a name


Sally

This suggests to me that Trading Partner, as far as the EDI community is
concerned, has a more specific meaning than I thought. I can quite imagine
that there could be "TPAs" between an "Intermediate Consignee" and a a
"Trading Partner". Do you think that Party would be a more acceptable
general term?

David

-----Original Message-----
From: sfuger@AIAG.ORG [mailto:sfuger@AIAG.ORG]
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2000 9:05 AM
To: David Burdett; ebxml-transport@lists.ebxml.org
Subject: RE: Trading Partner or Party - What's in a name


In EDI, the Trading Partners are the parties exchanging the document.  Other
parties, distinguished by the role they play, e.g., an Intermediate
Consignee or a Carrier, may be outside of the Trading Partners.  Many years
ago, we struggled with these terms in X12.

Any way, that's my two cents.

Regards,

Sally Fuger



-----Original Message-----
From: David Burdett [mailto:david.burdett@commerceone.com]
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2000 11:31 AM
To: ebXML Transport (E-mail)
Subject: Trading Partner or Party - What's in a name


Foks

We have two names for essentially the same thing - Trading Partner and Party
- does it matter?

My personal view is that there should be one, but which?

For my 2c here are my views on the pros and cons of each:
For Trading Partner:
* Well known term used widely within EDI to identify a company, business,
etc involved in trade
* Implies that commerce or business is involved
* Used by IBM in their Trading Partner Agreement

For Party:
* also a well known term used identify one of the companies, businesses, etc
involved in trade
* does not necessarily imply that Trade is involved.

IMO, I prefer Party to Trading Partner since a lot of the work we are doing
in ebXML, e.g. TRP and Core Components, can be used in a non commercial
context and to imply that it could be used only in a commercial context by
using *might* limit its use. On the other hand:
* the "b" in ebXML stands for "business" so maybe we should be explicit and
accept commercial only use as a constraint, and
* if TRP works, it will be used in none "trade" contexts since people won't
care they'll just want to take advantage of it anyway.

Thoughts?

David


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