As businesses grow, operations often become more and more complex as numerous product lines, production locations, and business divisions are developed. Along with the changes, the number of customers and suppliers expands as well. After a given point, managing the transactional flow of information across all external partners becomes difficult to keep up with. This is where web portals come in!
随着企业的发展，随着众多产品线、生产地点和业务部门的发展，运营往往变得越来越复杂。随着这些变化，客户和供应商的数量也在增加。在特定的时间点后，管理所有外部合作伙伴之间的交易信息流变得难以跟进。这就是门户网站的用武之地！
Portals are typically web-based, custom-made, and secure places on the internet that can be used to manage simple transactional communications with external business partners like customers and suppliers.
门户网站通常是 Internet 上基于 Web 的、定制的和安全的地方，可用于管理与外部业务合作伙伴（如客户和供应商）的简单交易通信。
There are three major benefits of using web portals. First, information across the supplier and customer base is centralized through a single channel. They provide a self-service facility for external business partners to address simple, yet necessary tasks. Lastly, they can be cost-effective and operationally efficient.
使用门户网站有三个主要的好处。首先，跨供应商和客户群的信息通过单一渠道集中。它们为外部业务伙伴提供自助服务便利，以处理简单但必要的任务。最后，它们具有成本效益和操作效率。
Now, let’s take a closer look at the two major types of portals, customer and vendor portals.
现在，让我们进一步了解两种主要类型的门户网站：客户门户网站和供应商门户网站。
Customer Portal
客户门户网站
First, customer portals are maintained by the vendors you purchase items and services from. A common example of a customer portal is the “My Account” page of an e-commerce site. Think back to a recent time when you used this facility. Once you log in with your credentials, you may have updated your contact information and payment method, browsed through your order history, or even tracked the status of an order. Instead of contacting the vendor, you were able to navigate these basic tasks on your own at a time most convenient to you. With all the time you saved, you may have even decided to spend some time browsing other things on the website.
首先，客户门户网站由你从中购买物品和服务的供应商维护。客户门户的常见示例是电子商务网站的“我的帐户”页面。回想一下你最近使用这个设备的时间。一旦使用凭证登录，你可能已经更新了联系信息和付款方式，浏览了订单历史记录，甚至跟踪了订单的状态。你不需要联系供应商，而是可以在最方便的时候自己完成这些基本任务。在节省的所有时间里，你甚至可能决定花一些时间在网站上浏览其他东西。
Vendor Portals
供应商门户网站
Vendor portals are the second major type of portals. These web portals are maintained by your customers or end businesses. Let’s say you are a small business supplying holiday merchandise to a large department store. As their supplier, you will be given access to their vendor portal. Once you log in to this portal, you can check the payment status of invoices, submit technical documentation, e-sign contracts, and even view inventory levels and demand forecasts if you are part of a vendor-managed inventory program with the customer.
供应商门户网站是第二种主要的门户类型。这些门户网站由你的客户或终端企业维护。假设你是一家向大型百货公司供应假日商品的小企业。作为他们的供应商，你将有权访问他们的供应商门户。登录此门户网站后，你可以检查发票的付款状态、提交技术文档、电子签署合同，甚至可以查看库存水平和需求预测（如果你是供应商管理的客户库存计划的一部分）。
While customer and vendor portals can support the growth of businesses, it is also important to consider the risk management and processes that must be established before integrating a web portal. Web portals are an investment and require periodic maintenance and enhancements. Protecting the confidentiality and data privacy of external parties on your portal is a huge responsibility that the business should be well prepared to handle. Robust cybersecurity measures also need to be in place when offering and maintaining portals to external parties.
虽然客户和供应商门户可以支持业务增长，但是考虑在集成web门户之前必须建立的风险管理和流程也很重要。Web门户网站是一项投资，需要定期维护和改善。保护门户上外部各方的机密性和数据隐私是一项重大的责任，企业应该做好充分的准备来处理。在向外部各方提供和维护门户网站时，还需要采取健全的网络安全措施。