The same company is your supplier in SAP and your client in Salesforce. Two onboarding teams, two tool stacks, two compliance programs, two master records that never agree. Procurement onboards suppliers in four weeks via a portal. AR onboards clients in six weeks via emails and PDFs. When a partner asks 'are you my supplier or my customer?' you say 'both' — but operationally you treat them as strangers in each direction.
Pre-built unified workflow: partner invited via one branded portal → flow adapts to type (supplier path = KYB + bank + insurance; client path = KYC + terms + billing; bidirectional = both) → policy gates configured per partner type and risk tier → master data syncs to vendor systems AND customer systems as appropriate → multi-entity activation across the group. One front door, two paths, one master record per partner.