Microsoft suppliers’ suite to get manufacturers into sophisticated full on-line selling ‘out of the box’

Microsoft says it has solved the key barrier in the way of suppliers wanting to get into serious e-business – the financial, system integration, risk, time and people investment hitherto required. Its rather functionally-named ‘Solution for Supplier Enablement’ – due out next month and ready for implementation early in January 2002 – is an ‘out of the box’ suite of technology, software tools, services and guidance notes that allows suppliers to connect to any customer’s e-procurement system and/or web marketplace, with links initially into Ariba, Commerce One and Clarus. For manufacturers, the suite looks a deal sight more compelling than its hugely hyped Windows XP launch. With it you can quickly build electronic online catalogues (plural) to your spread of clients and potential customers wherever they are. You can also link them to online product configurators and your suppliers’ catalogues, with management of these effected online by them… The list goes on. It’s quite a departure from having to develop and manage separate systems for separate channels – and all without being locked into anything more proprietary than Microsoft itself. And the firm insists that SSE provides help at every level – even converting raw flat files ready for sucking up into a format ready for conversion into catalogue data. Importantly, Microsoft says it also provides for back-end integration into existing manufacturing enterprise systems and other applications (CRM, whatever) via a growing list of apparently straightforward ERP adapters – getting around what has hitherto been a serious and expensive issue. SSE’s product manager at Microsoft, Mark Buckley, says: “We have built a schema and definition that sits on top [of existing applications] to define the way companies do business and interact. We are enabling [enterprise application integration] as part of the Solution for Supplier Enablement so that we cover all sales channels with one technology suite.” Just as critically, SSE builds on existing Microsoft technologies that form the .Net infrastructure, including Windows 2000 Server, BizTalk 2000 Server, Commerce 2000 Server, SQL 2000 Server and the recently announced Accelerator Server series. And there’s a host of complementary software, like Microsoft’s host integration suite, its firewall and security offerings and so forth. So it’s all there – and there’s every likelihood you already have part of the solution. The result is Microsoft’s SSE gives you open and flexible e-procurement and B2B e-commerce at what are claimed to be significantly reduced costs and time scales. Early beta site Tier One/Two supplier adopters talk of less than 45 days – so fast return on investment (ROI) – and costs ranging from £13,000 to £260,000. Microsoft says its SSE these are the target market – Tier Ones and Twos which, it notes, are under pressure from customers, particularly in the automotive, defence, electronics, chemical and oil and gas sectors, to trade electronically. But clearly, more suppliers may well now find proper e-business – with all its potential for growth and better agility – considerably more viable than before. Tier Three and smaller manufacturers may well find the carrot of reduced operational costs (improved order accuracy, lower order processing costs and the rest) and seamless (from an IT and business process perspective) access to new revenue and selling channels (not actually so important) very attractive. “We have worked closely with a wide range of suppliers to understand the issues they face and ways they would like to optimise their businesses,” says Paul Burgum, Microsoft’s manufacturing industry manager. “Based on this feedback, we created a comprehensive solution that provides rich functionality, end-to-end customer support and enterprise-level reliability at a cost that makes it feasible for any size supplier to implement.” Microsoft’s early adopters, in which it includes US rubber stamp manufacturer MarkMaster, the $5 billion conglomerate BidVest Group, and office products maker TCS Corporate Services, are testimony to that. They say they are already experiencing increased sales, lower operational expenses and improved customer satisfaction. Jeff Odom, president of TCS Corporate Services, says “By implementing [the system], we were able to easily create unique catalogues and personalised content for each of our customers. We also provide our customers with a way to directly interact with our website and custom configure their orders. We’ve seen our customer satisfaction levels increase dramatically.” Philip Katz, managing director of mymarket.com for BidVest, says: “Since each of our customers conducts business in a unique way, it was important for us to be able to deploy a single solution that could … come to market in a reasonable time frame. The solution completely integrates our many supplier catalogues into our single customer portal, and automates our ordering processes, which were previously done manually.” MarkMaster, for example, used the system to automate its order processing, which amounts to 6,000 daily. COO Kevin Govin says: “Our new solution reduces the overhead and potential for errors caused by our old, paper-based order process by 90%, and reduces our internal order entry staff requirements by 50%, which should reduce our overall customer service costs by more than 30%.” In terms of costs, a starting price is around $24,000, although a lot depends on your existing infrastructure and the scale of its Microsoft-centricity. What you get is Windows 2000, SQL Server, Comerce Server, BizTalk Server and BizTalk Accelerator for Suppliers as a two machine configuration. At the other extreme, a nine machine configuration with the appropriate number of licenses and the Enterprise Edition of the same infrastructure would come in at around $420,000. Microsoft says the adapters for existing enterprise applications will be delivered by third parties and the ISVs themselves, with costs running from £2,000 to $20,000. As for delivery, Accenture, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young and Compaq Global Services are in the vanguard. Accenture’s B2B integration solution brings the Microsoft solution together with its B2B/CRM strategy and consulting practice which it says means a packaged approach, with fast business case and solution assessments. CGE&Y is offering Quick Connect for Suppliers, with business strategy consulting and implementation services and MS SSE for buyer-to-supplier integration. And Compaq has a suite of services and systems for MS SSE, including the Supplier Enablement Startup Package, with hardware, software and services to get suppliers up and running as quickly as possible.