BIC Launches New Set of Web Standards with BIC Realtime

London, April 5th 2016

Book Industry Communication (BIC), the book industry’s independent supply chain organisation, announced today that it has launched a new set of industry standard APIs through its BIC Realtime initiative, previously known as BIC web services.

BIC Realtime is a suite of 19 business APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) created for retailers, suppliers and data providers in order to enable immediate data exchange and facilitate instant two-way communications relating to product metadata, ordering, fulfilment, finance and returns.

The new set of XML standards have been developed to enhance existing EDI capabilities within the book trade through the use of additional messages alongside traditional electronic data exchange. Using XML web communications, businesses will now be able to communicate with trading partners quicker and more effectively, getting real time replies to requests rather than having to depend on processing of data transactions in batches.

The standard business APIs now available via BIC Realtime are quick to develop, install and test. Additionally, businesses can deploy BIC Realtime solutions much more cost-effectively than traditional EDI, and trading partners will be able to support and communicate via BIC Realtime APIs swiftly and without weeks of testing.

Karina Luke, Executive Director of BIC commented: “BIC has been establishing standards and promoting best practice in the book supply chain for over 20 years. We have long been advocates of EDI and other industry standards, which help to improve and evolve workflows for publishers and their trading partners, and BIC Realtime is the latest initiative designed to advance our supply chain further. I look forward to seeing it become established and hope that retailers, suppliers and data providers alike will embrace the idea and together make ourselves a stronger and more efficient industry.”

BIC Realtime will be presented at BIC’s Building a Better Business Seminar 2016 on Thursday, 14th April at the London Book Fair. Click here for further information about this event. 

More information on BIC Realtime including use cases and message formats are available on the BIC website click here.

ENDS

Notes to Editors:
For more information, please contact: info@bic.org.uk 

For more information about BIC, see the ‘About BIC‘ webpage on the BIC website: www.bic.org.uk