Slightly more than half of the respondents were suppliers (50.5%), followed by distributors (17%), retailers (12.5%) and solution providers (8%). The remaining respondents were manufacturers and governmental agencies. Respondents were allowed to indicate multiple problems and issues which brings the total of reported problems above the 100% mark.

Indeed, trading partner issues captured the top two slots bringing trading partner complaints overall to a whopping 80% of the problems reported. The second most common problem reported in the poll were issues related to communicating with trading partners (33%). Remaining trading partner issues include data floods, flawed data, insufficient effort in the testing process, and failure to initially provide all the requirements.

Communicating with applications/provider companies was a significant problem for 25.5% of respondents. Configuring applications came in close behind at 24.5%.

The top complaint regarding provider communications was "vendor slow to respond" both in regards to answering general questions and in technical support. One respondent reported the provider implemented a major upgrade while implementation was in process, disrupting the implementation by more than a year.

Beyond "poor to slow" provider response, most of the complaints in this area revolved around the blame game: providers insisting the problem lay with the complainant rather than the provider's technology or policies.

Third party use was cited as a problem by less than 5% of respondents. Those problems ranged from complaints about offshoring to difficulty in navigating the third party's system.

Only 8% had trouble actually installing applications and barely 19% had problems following guidelines. Ten percent had trouble selecting applications or providers.