Category Archives: B2B 3.0

The Eightfold Way of B2B 3.0

Last August, I introduced you to B2B 3.0, which promises simplicity for all, in the inaugural Sourcing Innovation Illumination that also explained how B2B 3.0 was the first technology to enable true B2B e-Commerce which consists of simple, fast, low-cost transactions at true market prices. Then, in the follow up Illumination, I explained how B2B 3.0 simplifies B2B for suppliers and that this is revolutionary because simplifying B2B for suppliers enables buyers and lowers costs for all. Then I brought it back to basics and explained how B2B 3.0 elevated e-Procurement to a new level and finally delivered on the promise e-Procurement providers have been failing to deliver on for a decade in the third Illumination. I also penned posts that explain how B2B 3.0 solves the supplier enablement problem, how B2B 3.0 enables an agile supply chain, and a post on how B2B 3.0 is the foundation of Integration-as-a-Service.

In short, I’ve given you a number of Illuminations and posts that describe B2B 3.0 and the benefits it brings but I have not yet given you a post that outlines the essential requirements of a B2B 3.0 technology … until today. In this post I will describe the eight requirements of a B2B 3.0 technology, illustrated with examples from companies that offer B2B 3.0 solutions, and explain why they are important. Just as I gave you the absolute requirements of a true strategic sourcing decision optimization solution in the wiki-paper, these will forever be the absolute requirements of any B2B 3.0 solution.

1 User-Driven
Self service capability, consumer-like usability, and no training required.
Like Coupa‘s On-Demand e-Procurement platform which, based on open-source, was the first platform to truly bring e-Procurement to the masses. (For more information, see Coupa Cabana Cafe Open for Business, The Coupa Sunflower Starts to Blossom, and The Sourcing Maniacs 2008 Vendor Tour.)

2 Content-Driven
The solution is structured around the content which is at least as important as the functionality.

Like Vinimaya’s B2B Search engine that helps companies create “virtual Internet supplier networks” where they can view products AND prices from different suppliers off of the supplier’s own websites side-by-side in real-time. (For more information, see The Next Wave in PCM, The B2B Search Engine, and The Sourcing Maniacs 2008 Vendor Tour.)

3 Community-Driven
The solution enables and simplifies collaboration among the user community.

Like Aravo‘s Supplier Information Management platform that centralizes all supplier information in an organization, allows everyone (with rights) in the buying organization and the supplier organization to access and maintain it in a collaborative fashion, and allows buyers to define initiatives, such as sustainability, based on the information. (For more information, see The Arrival, Supplier Information Management, and The Sourcing Maniacs 2008 Vendor Tour.)

4 Knowledge-Driven
The solution is capable of self-perpetuating improvements.

Like Apriori‘s Virtual Product Environments that allow users in the buying and supplying organization to collaboratively model and improve the VPE as time progresses to accurately monitor the capabilities of the supplier, market prices for raw materials, and overhead costs. (For more information, see The Introduction and The Sourcing Maniacs 2008 Vendor Tour.)

5 Distributed
Users, content, and functionality can be shared across the community which can accomplish tasks in pieces.

Like MFG.com‘s new marketplaces that allow users to locate suppliers, use and refine standard part RFQs, share feedback, and come together to discuss issues in forums. (For more information, see A Community in the Making, Exploding onto the Scene, and The Sourcing Maniacs 2008 Vendor Tour.)

6 Internet-Centric
The solution is designed to leverage the connectivity, content and community of the Internet with no redundancies.

Like Arena‘s PLM Solution which is built on the core internet protocols, employs an advanced security model that allows you to control access down to the IP address, supports a wide array of standard data formats, includes an ever-growing library of on-line training about PLM and the Arena solution, and allows buyers and suppliers to interact, securely, through the same platform. (For more information, see The Introduction.)

7 Services Architecture
The solution can be extended, augmented, and integrated with other service-oriented solutions quickly and easily.

Like Co-exprise’s Direct Sourcing Platform that was built from the ground-up to leverage the interent and all of the inherent capabilities it has to offer, to support and interact with over 1500 file formats, and to plug-in to standard office and manufacturing applications. (For more information, see Kick-Ass Direct PLM Sourcing Part II, Sourcing Lifecycle Management II, and The Sourcing Manaics 2008 Vendor Tour.)

8 Innovative
The technology goes beyond the “same old, same old” and the provider is constantly innovating to make it better.

Like BIQ’s industry-leading data analytics that goes so far beyond your average “spend analysis” solution that it doesn’t even fit in the same category anymore. As many cubes as you want – which can be built on transaction sets of up to ten million transactions in a few minutes of real-time on your laptop. Dynamic(ally derived) dimensions. Built-in statistical analysis and measures. Schneiderman diagrams and innovative tree-maps. Etc. (For more information, see New Horizons I, New Horizons II, and The Sourcing Manaics 2008 Vendor Tour.)

Integration-as-a-Service … What Does It Mean?

I recently stumbled upon an article published by Supply & Demand Chain Executive last summer on why “customer-facing integration demands a better approach” that claimed to provide a helpful guide to IaaS (Integration-as-a-Service) … and the last part in particular caught my attention. I’m a big fan of SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) because of it’s instant deployment nature in a manner that keeps the IT headaches with the provider (instead of transferring them to the customer who might not be very technically inclined), and I definitely think the -as-a-service paradigm is the way to go for many businesses who need to focus on their expertise and leave the rest to external experts. But is Integration-as-a-Service really achievable? There are many service companies that specialize in, and sometimes only do, integration … but given that every project is unique, can you really box it up? You can box the tools and the methodology but there’s still a custom configuration component that’s pretty hard to productize because it requires expertise and experience that only exists in a human head. So I read the article … and I was disappointed.

The article, which claimed that demand-side customer integration is much harder than supply-side because customer count can exceed supplier count by a factor of more than 50:1, especially in Fortune 500 companies, is essentially repackaging the marketplace concept, updating it to use a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), and calling it the wave-of-the-future and a strategic enabler. While I believe that CI will deliver the returns that the author is claiming — 29% revenue increase, 10% margin premium, and 99%+ order accuracy — the marketplace methodology being proposed still has many of the drawbacks that caused them to fail the first time around because it is still stuck in the B2B 2.0 world.

Those of you who have taken the time to download and read the B2B 3.0 Illuminations know that B2B 1.0 solutions failed because of high bandwidth, high integration, high network-access costs, and the extraordinarily high data maintenance costs and that B2B 2.0 solutions, that ushered in the first marketplace boom, failed because of dynamic content limitations, limited search, relatively high access fees, and limited connectivity to your supplier or customer base due to network specialization. It’s true that SOA reduces platform construction and maintenance costs, which should theoretically reduce access fees, that SOA allows for significantly better search capability, and that SOA allows for near-real time catalog updates under a push-model, but it doesn’t help with initial integration because a potential user still has to connect their systems and map their internal data formats to the hub, and it certainly doesn’t do anything about the inherent network restriction to “like” member companies. This means that a company may still have large up-front integration costs, will have to develop and monitor scripts to “push” their updated content onto the network or still update their content manually, and will have to be on multiple networks if it wants to reach the majority of its customers, since many customers, especially in retail spaces where margins are slim, won’t be able to afford to be on many networks. In other words, it’s FAIL all over again because SOA doesn’t fix the primary issues that caused marketplaces to fail the first time around.

Thus, although I think the concept of Integration-as-a-Service — interpreted to mean that you use a Software-as-a-Service vendor who specializes in integration platforms and integration projects to create a virtual network for you to do business with your suppliers, customers, and other trading partners — is a great idea, because an IaaS vendor will have the up-to-date tools, methodologies, and expertise required to quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively connect each of the systems used by the trading partners you connect with, I definitely don’t think a relaunch of the B2B 2.0 marketplaces is the way to go. I’d look at someone like Vinimaya (recently reviewed by the Sourcing Maniacs), with their B2B 3.0 platform that specializes in enterprise search and content management, for my content management and transaction needs; or someone like Integration Point (also reviewed by the Sourcing Maniacs), with their wealth of experience in integrating disparate (legacy) systems into their SaaS global trade visibility platform, for my trade documentation and trade management needs. Done right, IaaS is certainly a logical extension to SaaS, and achievable in the respect that a third party will do it for you, but it has to be B2B 3.0.

To find out more about B2B 3.0, check out the inaugural Sourcing Innovation Illuminations, now available for quick and easy download with No Registration Required!

1. Introducing B2B 3.0 and Simplicity for All
2. Simplifying B2B for Suppliers Enables Buyers
3. Content Enablement Technologies Enable e-Procurement 3.0

Back to Business Basics with B2B 3.0

All the experts finally agree — it’s a recession and we need to get back to basics if our businesses are going to survive. The question is, after years of irrational exuberance, do you remember what the basics are? I’ll give you a hint … good spend and supply management professionals practice them every day. That’s right, smart spending — backed by smart research, smart processes, smart people, and smart technologies — that delivers value to you and your customers is the basics of good business. And if you forget what that means, and can’t find any procurement professionals nearby, you can also just ask anyone born without a silver spoon in his or her mouth who had to work their way through University, work to get that first job, and work to get ahead. Having survived good times and bad, they’ll tell you that, no matter what, integrity, hard work, and an eye on communication, relationship management, and productivity is the way to go.

So what does this have to do with B2B 3.0? Well, in these times you have to spend less, do more, and provide more value if you want to keep existing business and have any chance at all in winning new business. This means that you need to step up your productivity, and this will require better processes enabled by better systems. However, if you are still in the B2B 2.0 world, better systems cost more money, and chances are you’ve paid too much for the systems you have as it is.

But if you embrace the B2B 3.0 world, you’ll find that better systems cost less, not more, and deliver more value than their old-school counterparts ever could. This is because B2B 3.0 solutions take advantage of the true power of the Internet and the new SaaS delivery model while 2.0 solutions are confined to expensive and proprietary networks and delivery models. B2B 3.0 solutions are built to be multi-tenant and leverage an economy of scale from the ground up, while B2B 2.0 solutions are still force-fitting classical architectures onto expensive hosted ASP delivery models. This also means that B2B 3.0 can leverage the power, knowledge, and innovation of the community it creates while 2.0 creates isolated user groups, who have to struggle just to exchange limited amounts of information.

Furthermore, B2B 3.0 is agile. It gives you visibility into your business, helps you organize your institutional knowledge in a central repository where everyone can take advantage of it, and enables the implementation — and maintenance — of best practices. This increases your productivity, and does so at a lower cost since true SaaS providers leverage economies of savings and pass those savings onto you, and allows you to spend more time on communication, relationship management, and finding new ways to bring even more value to your customers. In other words, unlike the technology evolutions that preceded it, B2B 3.0 is the first true technology revolution that lets you get back to basics.

To find out more about B2B 3.0, check out the inaugural Sourcing Innovation Illuminations, now available for quick and easy download with No Registration Required!

1. Introducing B2B 3.0 and Simplicity for All
2. Simplifying B2B for Suppliers Enables Buyers
3. Content Enablement Technologies Enable e-Procurement 3.0

The Sourcing Maniacs 2008 Vendor Tour Part 21: Vinimaya

Today’s post has been broken down into vacuity, vindication, and veil.


Vacuity

 

Wakko I never imagined a Stampede could be so much fun!
Editor’s note: the maniacs took a little detour through Calgary after finishing their visit with Upside Software in Edmonton
Yakko It sure is! But we should probably be getting back to our tour. After all, we still haven’t been offered a job!
Dot We’re not done yet?
Yakko We’re only at U!
Dot Precisely. Who uses V, W, X, Y, and Z anyway?
Yakko Well, I’ll admit that a lot of companies start with the early letters of the alphabet, presumably to come first in the listing or to take advantage of common power words, that usually start with M, N, R, S, T and other Wheel-of-Fortune favorite letters, but there are still a few companies left. I’m sure there are at least ten companies in the space that start with V.
Dot Precisely. Who uses V, W, X, Y, and Z anyway.
Yakko Verian Technologies, Vertical Net, and Viewlocity.
Dot Vertical Net is Bravo Solution now.
Yakko Okay, Vendormate.
Dot Touche! So who next. Any recommended by the doctor?
Yakko Let me check.
more flipping through the handy dandy notebook
the doctor mentioned a company called Vinimaya (rebranded Aquiire, acquired by Coupa) when we asked him who the innovative companies were.
Dot What do they do?
Yakko Catalog Management.
Dot Sounds so Web 1.0. What else?
Yakko Looks like they’re billing themselves as the B2B Search Engine now.
Dot B2B Google?
Anything else?
Yakko Looks like that’s it.
Dot Are you sure?
Yakko I think so.
Dot So what are we missing? the doctor says they’re innovative, but catalogs and search have existed for over a decade.
Yakko I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to go find out!
  the maniacs take off for Shelton, CT

 



Vindication

 

Dot Are we here?
Yakko Uhmm, I think so.
Dot I’ll knock.
tap tap-tap tap tap … tap tap
Smiling Man a smiling man opens the door
Howdy! How can I help you!
Yakko We’re a little confused. the doc said you were innovative, but we understand that you do catalogs and search.
Smiling Man That’s right!
Dot And how’s that innovative?
Smiling Man You need to understand, it’s not what we do, but how we do it.
Dot What do you mean?
Smiling Man To use the doctor‘s terminology, we’re B2B 3.0 all the way.
Yakko B2B 3.0?
Smiling Man Business-to-Business 3.0. We provide enterprise software technology that puts business users on the same footing as consumers who have had “3.0” technologies at their fingertips for years. B2B 3.0 is about connectivity that is open and free to all, content that is managed once in a non-redundant fashion by the content owner, and an open community where buyers and sellers can come together for short periods of time through virtual networks that allow them to conduct the business they need to conduct — when, and how, they need to conduct it. We provide the technology platform that, using the open connectivity of the internet, enables innovative content management that allows buyers and suppliers to engage in productive e-commerce.
Dot And how do you do that?
Smiling Man Through content unification. If you go back to the beginning, B2B 1.0 if you will, you had the catalog, which was different in every ERP, procurement, and sourcing application, and which had to be maintained by the buyer — who had to collect data from the supplier to populate their application. This led to stale data, and an inability to find new products in a timely fashion. Then the punch-out came along and helped to usher in B2B 2.0. This was a slight improvement, as the supplier was able to maintain their own catalog, which the buyer could connect to, but there were still issues. The catalog was only as fresh as the last supplier update, which could be months in the past as the supplier had to maintain a different puchout with different pricing for each buyer, and the buyer could only connect to, and search, one punchout at a time.
Dot So?
Smiling Man How do you get the best price?
Dot You review and evaluate all the options.
Smiling Man And how do you do that if you can only search one catalog at at time?
Dot You build a spreadsheet …
Smiling Man Don’t you buy a technology solution to help you with your job? Doesn’t having to build a spreadsheet hinder you? Why not just use Google and search each vendor site individually. It would be just as effective and save you money.
Dot True.
Smiling Man So buyer hosted catalogs don’t work, as they are always stale and don’t have the right prices, or products, and punch-outs don’t work as they restrict a buyer to one site at a time. Plus, both solutions often cost way more money than they’re worth. Sure you can get a catalog solution cheap, but how much is it going to cost you in salaries to keep it up to date? If you’re a large company, millions. And you might think punchouts are cheap, but a supplier has to pay someone to create a separate punchout with distinct pricing for each buyer, and then has to pay someone else to maintain that data. And who do you think pays for that overhead? That’s right, you!
Yakko So what’s the solution?
Smiling Man Our platform.
Yakko And how’s that work?
Smiling Man It’s a web-services enabled agent-based meta-search technology that can plug into any electronic product listing a supplier has at its disposal — be it punch-out, e-Catalog, a web-enabled database, or a plain old ASCII flat file — and integrate the listings into one consistent, coherent view for the buyer.
Wakko So it’s e-Bay for enterprises? A single view into all available products and services that you can search — by product name, characteristic, or price range — to find the best product to meet your need at the best price, right now?
Smiling Man That’s right Wakko! We enable buyers and suppliers to conduct commerce the way it was meant to be — simple, easy, and cost effective.
Yakko That’s it?
Smiling Man That’s it. We’re the first company to utilize the full power of the internet to let buyers and suppliers to conduct business using the technology they have available; we add the ability for both parties to define pricing and presentation rules that are applied in real-time on every search; and our powerful interconnectivity platform allows us to integrate seamlessly with all of the major platforms. What else would we need to do?
Yakko I can’t think of anything else.
Smiling Man Precisely! Sometimes you just have to keep it simple.

 



Veil

 

  we join the maniacs an hour or so later at a diner
Dot So, are we done?
Yakko We’ve done WhyAbe, and the only other W company I know of is WeSupply, but they’re on the other side of the Atlantic.
Dot And the only X company I know of is Xign, but since they’re owned by a bank, we know they’re just payments, which isn’t that exciting.
Yakko I don’t know of a single company in the space that starts with Y!
Dot I guess that brings us to …
Yakko, Wakko, & Dot … Zycus!
Wakko Aren’t they based in India?
Dot They are. But don’t they have US locations?
Yakko They do, but they’re mainly sales offices, and the doctor says he hasn’t had any luck getting a response from them locally.
Dot I guess we’re done for now, then.
Yakko It’s probably for the best. I’m feeling a chill in the air, and I don’t like the cold as much as I used too.
Dot We did get awfully used to the wonderful year-round weather in the valley, didn’t we?
Yakko We did. Let’s go home for the winter. We can start a new tour next year … and maybe, armed with our superior knowledge from this tour, we’ll even find a job!
Wakko And in the mean time, I can be Califorina Dreamin’.
Yakko, Wakko, & Dot All the leaves are brown
And the sky is grey
I’ve been for a walk
On a winters day
I’d be safe and warm
If I was in L.A.
California dreamin’ …
  the maniacs fade into the distance

I don’t know about you, but I think they deserve a 21-gun salute for their efforts. Twenty-one posts and one hundred and thirty pages of amazing content that is so rich that you have to read it multiple times to thoroughly extract all of the nuances is more than some blogs give you in an entire year (or lifetime)! Rest up maniacs, you deserve it!

 

e-Procurement is All about Content

e-Procurement, the counterpart to e-Sourcing that starts where e-Sourcing ends and ends where e-Sourcing begins (as outlined in It’s Sourcing AND Procurement), is the “e” implementation of the procurement cycle that is concerned with the requisitioning, receiving, and reconciliation of received goods, as opposed to the analysis, auction, and strategic award that takes place in a sourcing cycle.

The basic cycle, which consists of up to 9-steps depending on the complexity of the buy and organizational policies, always consists of an order, an invoice, and payment. The order is made based upon organizational needs, the invoice is reviewed based upon the order that was made and the goods that were received, and payment is made based upon terms and conditions … and all three phases rely heavily on content. Before you can place an order, you need to know what the organization needs, what potential suppliers have to offer, what demand-supply matches are acceptable, and what the total cost of ownership of each option is. This is all content. Before you pay an invoice, you need to match it to the original order (were the goods ordered), to the goods received (which goods were actually received), and to the agreed upon prices and rates (in the contract or purchase order). This is all content. And before you can make a payment, you need to know who you’re paying, the payment methods they accept, their unique identifying information for the payment method chosen, the amount of time you have to pay, any discounts or penalties for paying early or late, and, if relevant, when the currency exchange might be in your favor. This is all content.

Good e-Procurement technology captures all of this data, makes it easily accessible and searchable, and organizes the data into information that knowledgeable individuals can use. But great e-Procurement technology, like that built using B2B 3.0 technology, goes even further! While good e-Procurement technology will capture the information it needs to do its job, great e-Procurement technology will make it easy to share that information between related applications through unified content exchange technologies. While good e-Procurment technologies will allow you to connect to different external catalogs through punch-out, great e-Procurement technologies will pull all of the relevant information into a single unified view that allows you to compare your different options side-by-side in an apples-to-apples comparison. And while good e-Procurement technologies are GUI-based, great e-Procurement technologies are feature rich and integrate all of the different user friendly technologies — including graphics, sound, and video — into a single application.

To read more about how modern e-Procurement is enabled by next-generation content-management technologies, check out the latest Sourcing Innovation Illumination on How Content-Enablement Enables e-Procurement 3.0.