We’re proud to wear the “radical” label and to be featured in Steve Denning’s book on Radical Management.

Happy reading.

These politically polarized organization always end up with characteristically polarized B2B eCommerce solutions.

When CIO’s are in charge, they push the technically “correct” solution which always means living harmoniously with their SAP system and all of the services (tax, freight, credit card, etc.) that are integrated with it.  Marketing demands for usability, merchandising and promotional capabilities etc., be damned.

When Marketing drives the project, they are quite dismissive about the value of integration and feel as if “re-keying” orders into SAP is a viable option.  Complexities associated with contract pricing, providing accurate inventory information are “details” that play second fiddle to furthering “brand recognition” into the marketplace.  So what if the website uses a different credit card service or tax calculating algorithm?

Corporate or Divisional Presidents are usually very financial oriented.  Their concerns are that this project either generates more revenue for them (profitably) or allows them to get rid of some headcount that will reduce their operating costs.  Fairly bottom line focused.

When it comes to B2B eCommerce, SAP has always been really good at catering to the CIOs of the world.  Their offerings (Internet Sales, CRM and now Web Experience) always focused on leveraging all of the data and business rules that were housed in SAP.  However, Marketing would lose out because if they wanted to change the look and feel of the website, or the user experience, they had to take a number and wait their turn in the seemingly endless IT Backlog.  Since they were competing against their IT staff’s need to consolidate warehouses, integrate new acquisitions and implement BI, where was the priority of the addition of new categories or product attributes or the establishment of a special sale going to land?

The more traditional eCommerce vendors like hybris, Volusion, ATG etc all have a very B2C pedigree and hence appeal directly to the Marketing department.  Consequently, they also have their B2B blind spots.  They are the ultimate managers of content and provide the elusive “Amazon-like” user experience.  However, when it comes to expressing the existing product and pricing rules that exist in SAP, the cost of the project begins to skyrocket.

Enter the marriage of Magento, b2b2dot0 and SAP.

For the first time in the history of this industry, we see all stakeholders enter B2B ecommerce planning workshops ready to defend their respected vested interests.  They are full of skepticism and mistrust and leave the workshop transformed into true partners in the endeavor.

Why?

Magento provides the Marketing Department with all of the functionality they’ve ever dreamed of to manage the user experience.  SAP, of course, provides all of the Order to Cash transactional support.  Thanks to the b2b2dot0 integration with SAP, Magento becomes way more than a standalone web channel with a delightful user experience.  Magento is now a front end to a true multi-channel experience for all of the corporation’s customers…B2C or B2B…power users or casual customers.

Marketing doesn’t have to beg for resources to get their job done and IT doesn’t have to do anything new (other than clean up data and processes) to support the corporation’s new eCommerce initiatives.  Of course, Corporate Presidents love the situation because their staff are finally playing nicely together and their customers all have an easier time doing business with them.

Happy employees, happy customers, more revenue, less cost.  Magento, SAP and b2b2dot0.

Peace.

Sam

Office Relief, a leading retailer of ergonomic office equipment, sells products that have configurable options.  For example, an ergonomic chair can be configured with different fabric colors, arms, and caster options.

The task at hand was to bring these configurable products online. But, the real challenge was less about technology and more about organizational ownership.

If the Marketing Department owned this project, the presentation would look great, but order management and business rules would be a mess.  If the IT Department owned the project, the business rules would be enforced, but it would (most likely) look like hell. And you could forget about cross-promotions, up-selling or social integration.

But what if we could give everyone what they wanted?

We did.

Design Constraints:

Our solution needed to work with the following constraints:

• SAP ECC
• Magento Community Version
• Each product, and each configurable option was a separate SKU in SAP
• No changes to the SAP configuration could be made
• The IT department had little or no time to devote to facilitating this task

Business Requirements:

• A user experience that showed product orders as one line item, with the options selected.
• An order placed in SAP that used existing, separate SKUs
• Post-order management that showed the customer a configurable product that tracks and ships as one item.
• Non-logged-in b2c customers needed to see configurable product options at standard pricing
• Logged-in b2b customers needed to see real-time, contract-dependent information from SAP like:
• pricing and terms
• product selections and options (colors, accessories, etc)
• shipping and delivery options

What We Did:

• Used Magento’s native display capabilities, and then customized it to show configurable options
• Gave the Marketing department the ability to:
• use Magento’s built-in marketing and cross-promotional features
• manage the main product images and descriptions as well as images and descriptions of each configurable option
• Added the ability to display contract-negotiated sets of options and prices for logged-in b2b users
• Used the existing SKUs, SAP configuration and business rules
• Extended SAP-based post-order management and tracking to the web for logged-in b2b users
• Required very little time or resources from the IT department

The Results:

• Increased sales
• Improved the online shopping experience for b2c and b2b customers
• Increased order management efficiency with configurable products

“Their idea is to come in and deliver on a project. Typically they’re very good at doing that,” Whittington said. “[But] folks would come off a project and go on to the next project, the next customer, and we’d lose some of that knowledge.”

Don’s bottom line is that he wanted a true relationship with a partner, as opposed to a resource to turn to, when he had staffing needs for a project.

For the record, while “partner churn” appears to be a very common phenomenon in the SAP Consulting Industry, we at b2b2dot0 have a 100% contract renewal rate.  That’s not only because our clients love the capabilities and reliability of our software, but they love the ongoing support and collaboration that is part of our DNA.

We’re different at b2b2dot0 for two reasons, our people and our business model.

From a people perspective, we take our work personally.  Work isn’t just a paycheck for us or a way to build a resume.  It might sound like a cliche, but this literally is our company and we all share in it’s success (and disappointments).

From a business model perspective, we remain the industry’s only pure-play Cloud provider of B2B ecommerce Websites for the SAP market.  That’s it.  That’s all we do.  And our contracts are all written so that our compensation only becomes meaningful if we can maintain our clients as clients for long periods of time.

So…if you want to organize a project to build yourself a B2B ecommerce website, you’ve got plenty of software companies and consulting organizations that would love to sell you their wares.  But if you want a true partner that will have your back over the long haul, you probably should be talking to us.

Sam

Here are a few of the “revelations” in the article:

“Five years ago online sales accounted for about 9% of revenue at Allied Electronics, a distributor of electronic components. Today that’s 41%.“

That is well in line with what we see in our client base and with the companies that we’re talking to that are looking to replace their existing eCommerce platforms.  Why is it such a surprise that the web is an important B2B sales channel?

“Among wholesalers, the category of electronic transactions that includes sales through web sites grew at 34% per year from 2000 to 2009, the U.S. Commerce Department says”

I must admit that that seems a little more aggressive than even I would have thought.  That’s good to know.

“”We’re seeing the b2c-ifying of b2b,” says Andy Hoar, a Forrester Research Inc analyst.”

We definitely see this every day!  So much so that people often misuse the term “B2C” simply to describe the usability of a website even though it clearly is a B2B business model as defined by personalized catalogs, custom pricing and shipping options and variable payment terms and options.

“But giving b2b Amazon-like appeal is just part of the job: b2b commerce sites must offer features not found on b2c sites—and often that requires custom development.  such as “…Showing availability by warehouse…a price calculator…and providing the name and phone number of the customer’s sales rep.”

Seriously?  Custom?  Wow!

“…Those projects can take years to roll out and cost millions of dollars.”

I’m amazed that the industry can grow at a rate of 34% per year and still have projects that are this big and take this long to roll out.  We prefer to measure time in weeks and months and we’ve never cashed a check larger than “tens of thousands” in size.  Maybe that’s why we’re growing faster than the industry average .

“But many b2b companies have recognized that purchasing agents also are consumers who are used to shopping online and expect to be able to shop the web at work, even if they’re buying coils of metal or tubs of solvents.”

 Amen!

“Many other b2b companies are coming to similar conclusions about the value of the web. All signs point to a significant increase in b2b e-commerce in the years ahead.”

We definitely think so.  We’re on track to facilitate the sale of over $500M of product over the web this year alone. 

By combining the accounting and logistics capabilities of SAP and the merchandising and usability aspects of Magento, we truly are blurring the lines between B2C and B2B more and more every day.  I wonder what we’re going to talk about at the next party we go to?

Sam

He is: very bright, has excellent technical, analytical and communication skills, an impeachable work ethic, is very passionate about what he does, is very in tune to the concept of “the customer” and is open and honest.

It’s that later trait that inspired today’s post.  At some point in the conversation, I asked him the single question that is at the heart of our Agile way …”What’s preventing us from making this work tomorrow?”  Here are the four reasons he gave me and my responses to them.

1. I’m afraid to put all of my eggs in one basket.
• Sometimes, a single basket is the best way to nurture a world class egg .  No bureaucracy, minimal administrative overhead, nothing but high class people to work with, everyone empowered and dedicated to building something that is bigger than they are individually.
• I get the fact that working for a small company could be risky from a financial perspective.  However, our solvency shouldn’t be in question.  We’ve been profitable for the last two years.  We have no debt and no outside investors.  Our software-as-a-service business model, combined with our management style, all but ensure our future success.
• Working for b2b2dot0 is a privilege not an obligation. If you “have” to work here, we probably don’t want to hire you.  We’re happy to engage you as a sub contractor from time to time, but working here won’t be the right thing for you.  We want you making the right business and technical decisions for the right reasons, not because you have to keep your job.
• Lastly, the day that we both decide that it makes sense for you to join our company, the decision will be obvious.  No one will have to agonize over it.  Let’s work together for awhile and build up the trust in one another.  That trust will fuel our relationship.
2. I’m afraid to lose my technical skills and expertise
• The real question is: are you willing to learn new technologies and acquire new skills?
• We are at the cutting edge of a new market, the “hybrid SAP applications” market.  This market is characterized by leveraging core SAP knowledge and skills to enable more usable interactions over mobile and web platforms.
• More specifically, we’re 100% focused on enabling eCommerce business processes in the SAP market and have embedded Magento into our platform.  Magento is the #1 open source ecommerce platform that was recently purchased by eBay.
• Our corporate expertise now lies in being experts in each of those platforms individually (SAP and Magento) and integrating the best of both of them to enable world class ecommerce business processes at an affordable cost.
  
3. What will happen to the product/assets that I’ve developed over the years?
• We love entrepreneurs because we’re entrepreneurs.  We’ve worked for the SAPs and IBMs of the world, and while we admire them, we see our opportunity in the speed and cleverness of our execution.  Let’s try and incorporate your assets into the b2b2dot0 portfolio.
• If they’re central to our growth plans, we’ll buy them from you.
• If they’re not additive to our business, we’ll help you create assets here that you could be equally proud of!
4. I want to make $400,000 per year.
• So do I!  Frankly, there is no reason why you can’t.  Let’s set that as a goal and back into a plan that will make that happen.  (I may elect to take half that pay and only work half the time )
• There are three ways to make money at b2b2dot0; 1)Base salary, 2)profit sharing and 3)equity.  I think it’s safe to say that no one at b2b2dot0 will be making $400K per year in base salary alone…in the foreseeable future.  b2b2dot0 has no immediate exit plans so cashing in on any equity earned is probably not a great wealth creating strategy either.  That leaves us with profit sharing.
• We run the business in an open book fashion and pay out profits quarterly.  Planning the $400K compensation is fairly easy.  Let’s plan the minimum revenue, and the maximum expenses, that will yield enough profit to create a payout that will equal the difference between your base salary and $400K.  That’s the way it works at b2b2dot0!

b2b2dot0 is a very special company that could be the perfect place to work for the right people.  However, we know that it isn’t for everyone.  We have no entry level positions.  We have no communal Foosball table or Friday beer parties.  What we do have is an ideal environment for the Agile minded, team spirited, client oriented, skilled professional who loves technology, eCommerce and is comfortable collaborating virtually.

We want people who take pride in what they do and appreciate being compensated for the results of their efforts…not just for their effort.

Welcome to b2b2dot0!

Sam

Precipitated by a seemingly simple need to move the internet feed into my house, from one room to my soon to be occupied new home office, I had to schedule a service call.  That’s how it began.  This is the ensuing timeline of events:

10:15 – I started an online Chat session with them which I thought would be the fastest way to schedule a service call.  Needless to say that was pretty useless.  Evidently, Time Warner looks at Chat sessions as another sales channel…as opposed to a way to provide customer services to existing customers (clearly a missed opportunity!).  Bottom line, the Chat Agent directed me to my local office…whose number, she said, I could find on their website.

For the record, the time on the website wasn’t a total loss because I saw they were offering a special to almost quadruple my bandwidth from 5Mbps to 20Mbps for only $5 per month.  I put the offer in my shopping cart, checked out and received an order confirmation within seconds.  Nice!  I could definitely use the added bandwidth!

10:45 – It dawns on me that I still haven’t solved the problem that I set out to solve…schedule a service call to move the Internet Cable coming into my house.  I ring up their 800 number and start talking to “Jessica” who is interacting with me in a very mechanical, script driven, manner.  So be it.  She politely asks me why I called and I tell her about the cable move.  She then jumps into “upsell hyperspace” trying to get me to buy their super duper Professional Bandwidth package (an additional $40 per month) that uses all of the latest technology and solves all of the legacy problems that the service that I’m currently on (and her company sold me) has.

Whoa.  Slow down Jessica.  I just want to schedule a service call.  But while we’re at it, thirty minutes ago I did buy your “PowerBoost” bandwidth upgrade ($5 per month) from your website and I don’t want two guys coming out on two service calls.  Jessica, I want to point that out to you since you may not see the web order in your computer system yet.

That’s when Jessica gets indignant.  “Excuse me sir, but our systems are REAL TIME.  If you placed your order on the web, I’ll see it here.  Let me check.”  Pause.  Pause. Pause.  “Sorry Mr. Bayer, there is no record of that order in my system”.

Jessica, the order number from the order confirmation email that your website sent me about 30 minutes ago is 5780912.  So tell me Jessica, does the upgrade that I purchased on the website require an onsite service call?

“No Mr. Bayer, it doesn’t”.

Great.  Than how about we just schedule the service call to move the existing cable?

“No problem Mr. Bayer.  Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

No Jessica.  That will be all for today.  Oh, maybe there is one more thing.  You might want to suggest to your management that a REAL TIME INTEGRATED WEBSITE might actually help you do your job better.

11:00 – Have a nice day!

Sam

For 20 years, California-based Office Relief has been a one-stop shop for ergonomic needs with the largest selection of office ergonomic products available. Among Office Relief’s client list are some of the country’s most recognizable corporate names.

With e-commerce, looks are important, but functionality is everything – especially for a company like Office Relief that has long-standing and complex business-to-business relationships.

Prior to working with b2b2dot0, Office Relief had an ecommerce site that was difficult and expensive to maintain. The site also lacked any distinction between casual consumers and corporate clients. And, it was completely disconnected from SAP.

“In many ways, we felt like our old site was holding us hostage,” said Paul Blaubach, President and CEO of Office Relief.  “It was expensive to maintain because updates had to go through an external vendor, and it was impossible to get new products on the site quickly.  On top of that, new orders placed on our site triggered a long list of internal manual processes.”

“But, we feared that replacing our old site would be even more expensive and painful. Then, b2b2dot0 showed us how we could quickly move forward with a redesigned e-commerce site that was integrated with SAP and offered sophisticated b2b functionality.”

The new site, which launched in Oct 2011, was built using a combination of b2b2dot0’s configurable web platform and Magento, an open source ecommerce content management tool. The new site features:

• Real-time SAP data-integration
• Public b2c product catalogs
• Private, b2b product catalogs with customized price lists and complex b2b order management rules
• Centralized, easy-to-use content management for multiple microsites
• Powerful and flexible marketing tools

“Just a few years ago, if an organization used SAP and wanted to build a web-based sales channel, there were only two choices: build a custom web site from scratch or heavily customize existing software products. Both options were incredibly time-consuming and resource intensive.” said Sam Bayer, CEO of b2bdot0. “We take a different approach. Only b2b2dot0 leverages open-source technology, delivers it in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, integrates it with SAP, and uses an agile mindset.”

“Our core solution, in combination with the Magento platform, creates a unrivaled option for companies looking reduce the cost of e-commerce and make the most of their ERP investment.” Bayer added.  “As far as I’m aware, there aren’t any other solution providers that can deliver real-time SAP-integrated e-commerce, in less time, for less cost than we do.”

About b2b2dot0

b2b2dot0’s founders know web-based b2b eCommerce. We know SAP® systems. And we know how expensive and time-consuming implementing SAP software-based b2b eCommerce can be.  Our SAP software-integrated solution leverages existing SAP installations to provide seamless eCommerce functionality faster, less expensively, and with lower risk than building a custom website or heavily customizing existing software products. b2b2dot0 is based in Raleigh, NC, with satellite offices in Colorado, Illinois, and Switzerland.  For more information, visit, www.b2b2dot0.com.

About Office Relief

Office Relief is a leading supplier of ergonomic equipment nationwide. The company provides customers with a wide range of products from adjustable chairs, sit/stand tables and monitor arms, to peripheral products including keyboards, pointing devices, headsets, and more.  For more information, visit www.officerelief.com

Here is an excerpt of the requirement:

“Our US sales organization works with a non SAP ecommerce tool for sales of all materials. Every night (European time) a job is scheduled to send over the information about created orders and deliveries. As such orders get created in SAP.

Most often the delivery for these orders already occurred so they just want to deliver them out of SAP once the orders are created there. They do not want SAP to calculate the earliest delivery date based on ATP logic and routing because then they have to constantly set the delivery date in future during delivery creation.

Our US colleagues only mind of the stock levels which they constantly (every 10 minutes) update to their web based tool and which they want to be accurate all the time.”

So let me get this straight.  SAP has all of the information…Material lists, inventory, etc… and supports the requisite business processes…ATP logic, Deliveries etc…that the business requires, yet they have chosen to duplicate all of that in their standalone B2B ecommerce website??

Why?

Isn’t anyone concerned with the fact that they’ve now added a resource burden to maintain all of that information in two systems and…as the inquiry suggests…have to invest in making sure that they remain synchronized?

Actually, I know why.  Politics.

See this post for the research behind my conclusion.  I’m 99.9% sure that the US Business unit saw the need to “get on the web” and the folks in HQ who own SAP couldn’t quite fit it into their work schedule.  (Probably because they were too busy developing and supporting poorly designed “patches” to systems).  So the business unit goes ahead and builds their own website and drags IT kicking and screaming to support them with the “integration” into SAP.  The irony is that both organizations are now spending extra time and money to participate in a “forced conversation” with one another.  In this case, the unintended consequence of delivering orders in the ecommerce website first is that the CSR’s using SAP now have a harder time creating those deliveries manually.  Of course this spawns a project to change the posting process to relieve that burden…which will probably spawn another project to…and another and another.

That’s a total waste of human capital that could be applied to much more important business objectives.

By the way, I wonder how this company is managing the “post order entry” customer service requirements for tracking orders, reprinting invoices and reporting on historical purchases.  Let me guess…duplicate data in both the website and SAP and batch programs to synchronize the two.

What a waste.

The whole point of implementing SAP was to consolidate data into a central repository so that the entire enterprise could be working off of one set of business data and rules.  Why is it that when it comes to ecommerce websites, that that philosophy and architecture is so easily dismissed?

I guess if people can’t talk to one another in real time it’s no big surprise that the systems they support can’t either.

Sam

By now the arguments for their prediction should be familiar:

1. The internet is probably here to stay.  The “let’s wait it out because it could be a fad” days are behind us.  The dot.com era may have ended in a smug “I told you so” for some skeptical business leaders and IT managers, but now that the hype has finally settled, it’s time to get real.
2. Webshops save time and money.  According to the article, 50%-80% of quoting and ordering time can be saved and 100% of ordering errors can be prevented.  We agree.
3. B2C experiences set expectations for B2B.  It’s becoming harder and harder to ignore the discontinuity between smartphones that joyfully read your Amazon “we recently shipped your order” emails to you on the way to work and then getting to work and having to send a fax to place an order with your favorite industrial supplier.
4. I just hired my daughter.  Well, I didn’t actually hire her, but I did hire a fellow who is her age.  More and more of us baby boomers are being replaced with Gen-Xers and Gen-Yers.  The new generation will not tolerate the “old ways” of doing business.

So what’s holding the industry back?  We’ve conducted in depth interviews with over 50 SAP based Manufacturers and Distributors who range in size from $10M – $3B in annual revenue in the past three years and here is what we’ve learned:

1. 6% don’t need an ecommerce website. Frankly, these folks are kidding themselves.  No one wants to talk to a customer service representative unless they have to.
2. 49% have IT departments that are too busy.  Nothing pains me more than having to listen to business executives who get the cold shoulder from their IT departments.  I’ve been in this industry for over 30 years and unfortunately some things never change.  It’s the same old blah blah blah.  We’re too busy to add real value to our company’s customers because we’re: “integrating a new subsidiary”, “upgrading to a new version of SAP”, “implementing a new warehouse management system”, “building a new data warehouse”.  It’s phone, fax and email for another year!  What if we told you that we only need 30 hours of the IT team’s time to bring up a world class SAP integrated webshop?  Still too busy?
3. 32% want to build it themselves.  These are folks that think they can do it cheaper and faster themselves and would prefer to “control” the technology once it’s in production.  Unfortunately, these are the same folks that end up being part of the 49% of the IT departments that end up being too busy to work on projects that add real value to the business because they underestimated the effort to build and support their own homegrown systems.
4. 13% are focused on their customers.  These are the enlightened organizations that are thinking in terms of the business.  They are looking for the fastest, cheapest way to deliver real value to their customers.  They are leveraging their investments in SAP, taking advantage of open source products like Magento, and  investing in cloud based solutions to compress time.  These are our customers.

I know 2012 is going to be a great year!

Sam