Trading partners who wish to conduct business electronically must agree on a unified architecture which considers all of the following options:

• Transport - Should we use HTTP, FTP, ebXML?
• Business Object Documents (BODs) - What does the data structure look like, flat files, XML?
• Collaboration - What are all of the scenarios and how will the messaging work?
• Authentication and Security - Should we use certificates, user ID and password, etc.?
• Discovery - How will I  know which transactions and versions you support & where will I find your service?
• Business Rules - How will I know what your proprietary requirements are?
• Change Management - How will I be able to plan for and accommodate changes?
• Reliable messaging - How will I confirm you received my message?
• Error Handling - How will individual error conditions be expressed and responded to?

Standards organizations have developed frameworks that make it possible for companies to successfully Interoperate (conduct business electronically), however the "Interoperability" collaboration process must be replicated over and over again, each time a new trading partner is added to the supply chain.

This approach results in multiple proprietary interfaces that have to be maintained by each trading partner. The entire process is also redundant and requires a large annual investment in IT resources.

PSP is a precise, narrowed and extended implementation of the STAR Standard that achieves "True Interoperability" between trading partners.

PSP eliminates the need for redundant implementations across the supply chain. Any company can implement the PSP specification one time, to be Interoperable with all other PSP certified trading partners.