Sometimes it amazes me how little has happened in the last 10 years in regard to B2B eCommerce. One of the biggest challenges is with large businesses exchanging electronic business documents with “mom and pop manufacturers worldwide”. Many large retailers, manufacturers, and service providers have deployed extensive B2B eCommerce networks, but has it really helped small and medium businesses join the “B2B revolution”?
The B2B eCommerce Supplier Challenge. It almost makes me cry when I come across a small supplier that is trying to be EDI compliant with a Big Box retailer. These suppliers have to incur all types of expense and grief to meet the EDI requirements of a Big Box retailer.
Sometimes the suppliers get help from a compassionate Big Box retailer that provides a free EDI client communications application. The challenge with this is that many suppliers have to hook up with three or more Big Box retailers. Now, the supplier, big or small, has to wrestle with different B2B eCommerce technologies like XML, EDI, Secure FTP, AS2, and so on. Besides this they have to make sure the electronic documents and their business processes are compliant with their various business customers. Most of these suppliers do not have an IT staff, so they end up outsourcing the EDI work at great expense, muddle through it, or just give up.
Most of these suppliers just want to receive an electronic purchase order, and then send an electronic advance shipment notice, and then provide an electronic invoice to their business customer. Does B2B eCommerce have to be this hard?
A B2B eCommerce Solution for Suppliers. In a perfect world, it would be great if all “mom and pop” suppliers had free EDI communications client software that could hook up with any large business trading partner. This way a supplier could use the same software to exchange electronic documents. Today suppliers must use multiple B2B eCommerce solutions to hook into multiple, proprietary B2B eCommerce networks.
Is a Standard B2B Client Software Too Simple? The basic B2B processes between all suppliers and retailers are fairly simple – 850 < -> 856 < -> 810 (purchase order, advance shipment notice, invoice). A free EDI communications client software program could have one standard data format for all suppliers. Large businesses could then map to the standard format or provide the client software a map to create an EDI document to their specifications. The supplier could then just use the B2B client software, select “Big Box 1 850 Purchase Order”, and start generating EDI documents compliant with their business customer.
If I was Bill Gates, I would just give away free client EDI communications software to all suppliers, and then let all the big manufacturers, retailers, and service providers integrate with it for free. Am I dreaming …