Many businesses do not use B2B eCommerce interfaces such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) or other methods to exchange electronic documents with suppliers and customers. There are many reasons for this. The primary reasons are inertia, resistance to change, inhibited by the technology, and not realizing the B2B eCommerce opportunity.
B2B eCommerce Definition. B2B eCommerce in its essence is an interface, an electronic interface between two or more businesses to exchange business documents. Common electronic business documents include purchase orders, shipment status, and invoices.
The Missed Opportunity Costs of Not Doing B2B eCommerce. Many businesses do not use B2B eCommerce interfaces such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) or other methods to exchange electronic documents with suppliers and customers. If you are a small business, this may be fine, but if you are a medium or large business this is costly. Not using B2B eCommerce costs businesses in a lot of ways. The three largest missed opportunity costs include increased labor to process business documents, increased time-to-market cycle, and increased payment cycle. These costs are not missed revenue opportunities, but are costs that go directly against the bottom line.
The B2B eCommerce Opportunity Questions. If you are not using B2B eCommerce, ask yourself the following questions.
- Could you decrease your administrative costs if you did not have to manually process purchase orders?
- Could you reduce your inventory and increase your order fulfillment rate, if you automatically exchanged electronic business documents with your suppliers and customers?
- Could you decrease the average time it takes to fulfill a customer order if you did not have to wait and process paper documents?
- Could you ship and receive products and orders faster, if you had electronic document interfaces with your transportation carriers?
If you answer yes to any of these questions, it is time for you to implement one or multiple B2B eCommerce interfaces with your suppliers or customers. Sometimes all you need to do is ask your suppliers or customers if they already do B2B eCommerce interfaces with other trading partners.
Take the Initiative to Identify B2B eCommerce Opportunities. With a little analysis and with a little help you should be able to identify specific B2B eCommerce interface opportunities that benefit your business. These are opportunities that will go right to your bottom line by reducing labor to process business documents, reducing time-to-market cycles, and reducing payment cycles. Read more about the benefits of B2B eCommerce.