A Game Plan For B2B E-Commerce

By Carol Evans
Among the many things sports has in common with business is that, just as a sports team must develop a strategic game plan before taking the field, sporting goods companies must take stock of where they are, where they want to be, and how they will compete before entering the business-to-business (B2B) stadium.
Collaborative Internet technologies, known as B2B solutions, are creating a tremendous opportunity for the sporting goods industry. B2B solutions employ Web technology as a global communications infrastructure, enabling access to massive amounts of data and allowing users to navigate and manage the data via the Internet.
Web-based software facilitates real-time Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR), procurement, content management, personalization and customer relationship management. New business models such as exchanges and portals leverage these technologies to provide Internet ìmarket spaceî for transactions, content, process management across partners, industry communities, and supply chain integration and visibility.
B2B solutions can promote improvements in several areas. For example, when designing new products, B2B applications can ease the sharing of data or help monitor the development process. Sourcing and buying opportunities can be opened through the use of collaborative tools like trading exchanges for the procurement of product components, raw materials, or even office supplies. Web-based tools also can be used to qualify vendors and verify compliance. In addition, B2B solutions can assist with inventory management and collaborative planning of promotions. Order management can be improved through Web-enabled tracking and by hastening the legal and financial approvals required to process orders.
Overall, B2B initiatives can lead to increased sales, customer satisfaction, inventory turns, the ability to deliver optimum levels of product, and improved information flow across the supply chain. Other benefits include a decreased cost of doing business with suppliers, lower product cost, shorter time to market, smaller inventory levels and tighter cycle times. These advances, however, pose a major challenge to manufacturers and retailers who fail to act quickly. Without an aggressive B2B plan, a team can easily strike out.
PEOPLE + PROCESS + TECHNOLOGY
Results from KSAís Annual Sporting Goods Survey indicate that 50 percent of retailers plan to use the Internet in the next three years for information exchange with retailers/vendors to further enhance collaboration, and 74 percent of manufacturers plan to do the same. In the same study, 92 percent of surveyed retailers said they plan to use the Internet for customer information and/or advertising and 95 percent of the manufacturers plan to do the same.
Review the key success factors below to determine how your team measures up and what you need to do to become an effective B2B competitor.
ìPeopleî requirements:
ï Secure senior management leadership and commitment
ï Embrace a culture of change
ï Maintain up-to-date technical and procedural skills
ï Retain knowledgeable team members
ï Practice strong team communication
ìProcessî requirements:
ï Develop cross-functional process improvements
ï Coordinate B2B initiatives with the business strategy
ï Standardize/simplify the processes and procedures
ï Emphasize the move to B2B is a continuous evolution
ìTechnologyî requirements:
ï Standardize information
ï Move to common data repositories
ï Integrate legacy systems with new point solutions
ï Enable collaboration and information sharing
Focusing on ìProcessî and ìTechnologyî will yield maximized sales through improved in-stock position, reduced inventory and cycle time and decreased overhead. High scores in ìPeopleî and ìTechnologyî can provide improved customer satisfaction and an enhanced work environment.
ROUNDING THE BASES
In an exclusive B2B survey conducted in April 2000, KSA identified the potential for tremendous savings from the softgoods supply chain. The savings translates to potential decreases in costs in all areas of the supply chain from product design, logistics and sourcing (2 percent decrease) to order management, procurement and replenishment (1 percent decrease). While these reductions may seem minimal, they can be achieved without significant process re-engineering. Analyzing and streamlining business processes concurrently with B2B implementation will yield even greater results.
Once you have decided to implement B2B, you must define your business strategy. Research where the Internet could be used to improve transactions with suppliers and customers. Analyze how much e-commerce your company is currently practicingóboth B2B and business-to-consumer (B2C)óand compare the current percentage to expected growth.
Next, identify and prioritize projects to address B2B-required processes and technology improvements. These projects and priorities will become part of the companyís framework for action, which consists of the following phases:
ï Prepare: Research relevant trading exchanges, develop data repositories, and evaluate data retrieval and collaboration tools.
ï Launch: Build on that foundation by joining a trading exchange or establishing Web-enabled information sharing with key suppliers and customers, using online auctions for supplies procurement, and using the Web to improve logistics and distribution functions.
ï Collaborate: Extend the information sharing further into the supply chain and begin building a true collaborative planning effort by sharing forecasting and replenishment data and promotional plans.
ï Evolve: Legacy replacements may be required and earlier initiatives expanded to include added partnerships.
To take full advantage of the B2B capabilities afforded by the Internet, the team must enhance communication and information sharing, define new partnerships, and improve cooperation and collaboration between buyers and sellers. Other requirements include instituting a mechanism for managing continuous business process evolution, keeping pace with technology/industry changes, and maintaining the appropriate skill level and training throughout the organization.
A winning B2B strategy involves a lot of hard work and communication. But the pitcher is warming up; use these B2B practices to hit the winning runs.