Implementing a B2B E-Commerce Program

Which Business Processes should you Automate? 

Procure to Pay, Order to Cash, Securities Trade Processing, Health Care Claims

• Supply Chain - Companies in the apparel & footwear; food & beverage; consumer packaged goods; pharmaceutical; medical/surgical supply; automotive; high tech; aerospace & defense and industrial manufacturing sectors use B2B technologies to share information with their supply chain partners. The most popular types of transactions include design specifications; product catalogs; inventory positions; point of sale data; purchase orders; advanced shipment notices; invoices and payments.
• Health Care - Payers such as private health insurers and providers such as hospitals and physician offices are among the most active users of B2B integration in the health care sector. The most popular transaction types include eligibility verification; referral authorizations; claims submissions; claims inquiries and remittance advices. There is also an increasing movement towards sharing electronic health records between care providers. These processes leverage B2B integration technologies as well. Common transactions include laboratory orders; laboratory results; radiology images and patient appointment scheduling requests.
• Financial Services - Investment managers, broker/dealers and custodial banks are among the most active users of B2B integration in the financial services sector. Popular transaction types include indications of interest; securities quotes; order executions; allocations; confirmations; affirmations; payment instructions; holdings reports and corporate actions. Commercial banks also use B2B integration extensively to support payment processing, letters of credit and credit card transactions.
• Transportation - Logistics providers such as 3PLs, 4PLs, freight forwarders, customs brokers, consolidators and transportation carriers specializing in ocean, ground, rail or air cargo use B2B integration technologies extensively. Popular transaction types include load tendering/booking, shipment instructions, export filings, import declarations, air waybills, shipment status updates and freight invoices.

Three Things You will Need 

B2B Gateway Software, Network Connectivity and a B2B Support Team

1. B2B Gateway Software - To engage in B2B e-Commerce with your business partners, you will need a specialized software package called an integration broker. Key functions provided by the software include 1) integration with your internal applications (e.g. ERP); 2) transformation of data from one standard (e.g. EDI, XML) to another and 3) the message delivery using specialized network protocols (e.g. AS2, FTP). There are lots of great integration software packages on the market from the large vendors such as Microsoft and IBM as well as B2B specialists such as Software AG, Axway and Seeburger. Historically, integration brokers have been licensed software packages deployed behind a firewall and managed by an in-house IT organization. However, specialized third party vendors now offer hosted integration brokers that they will operate on your behalf.
2. Network Connectivity - Next you will need to choose an approach to B2B connectivity. Today most B2B transactions are exchanged using secure network protocols such as AS2 or Secure FTP. You can either connect directly to your business partners over the Internet or utilize a specialized B2B network. B2B networks typically have a critical mass of businesses already connected to them, which can significantly reduce the time and cost of implementation. Your choice of network connectivity options will likely depend upon the sophistication of your B2B program. If you are a large company with hundreds or thousands of connections to business partners, you will probably want to select a hybrid approach. I recommend using direct Internet based connections for your largest business partners and using a specialized B2B network to reach large numbers of smaller business partners.
3. B2B Support Team - Third, you will need a technical support staff to manage the B2B gateway software and network connectivity. In addition to infrastructure management tasks such as security, disaster recovery and database administration, your B2B support team will need to perform specialized B2B activities such as on-boarding, mapping and communications. In my experience it is the people on your B2B support team that make the difference between a between a poorly executed and a well executed B2B program. If B2B e-Commerce is not a core competency for your organization consider outsourcing the function to a specialized B2B provider.