Ribbon Communications utilizes outsourced inventory management and integration model. Its customer Service Level Agreements (SLAs) require the company (and its supply chain partners) to have enough inventory on-hand to fulfill customer orders around the globe immediately. This is complicated by the fact that Ribbon Communications offers multiple base platforms of its solution with more than 20 different configurations. Keeping all the necessary inventory to fulfill customer demand on hand would pose a financial and logistical burden for any company.Ribbon Communications has fully virtualized its product portfolio, enabling the company to benefit from the economics of a software-based business model-higher profit margins and fewer inventory risks - and lessen the impact of a capital-intensive, small margin model required in hardware. However, hardware is still an important aspect of the Ribbon Communications solution. Many customers still expect fully engineered systems with support, locked-down bill of materials (BOMs) and firmware management included.Ribbon Communications saw an opportunity to change the way it managed its supply chain operations in a way that benefited its customers and themselves. But it needed the right partner. One that could help it coordinate and integrate the hardware and related service and support requirements of its solutions and take on the economic and supply chain implications that went with them. One that could also assure its customers were getting the same, highly engineered, and high-performance solution Ribbon Communications expected.