E-commerce needs to move to collaborative commerce

Knowledge management, a key driver behind many e-business projects today, must become collaborative in order to support the move from straightforward e-business to collaborative commerce.

"E-commerce is having to become collaborative," says Marco Palatini, executive director: Business Development, Open Text Corporation, on a recent visit to SA to address Dimension Data customers.

Open Text, a technology partner of Dimension Data, is a leader in the collaborative knowledge management market, with 42% of the worldwide market.

"While amazon.com`s business model is very simple," says Palatini, "collaborative commerce, at the other extreme, needs a sophisticated knowledge management platform.

"For example, if a government goes out to market with a tender, an enormous amount needs to happen before and after the tender is awarded. Much of this is about collaboration. Architects, lawyers and suppliers are among the parties involved, and they need meetings, proposals, plans and finally specifications. All of a sudden there is a community out there.

"The move from simple e-commerce to collaborative commerce represents a move along the value chain into a much higher sphere," he says. "This is where e-business becomes true e-commerce."

A collaborative commerce platform needs to encompass the actual business-to-business transaction, as well as the pre- and post-transactions, such as ongoing maintenance. It also needs to make provisions for systems including supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP) and e-procurement.

"When a company makes the transition from simple e-business to real business-to-business, it is suddenly not so simple," says Palatini. "This is the market that Open Text addresses, by providing an open, collaborative commerce platform."

Open Text`s leading solution, Livelink, has recently been upgraded to include portal integration, XML for data interchange and communications with wireless applications such as WAP and palm pilots.

Sophisticated knowledge management systems have traditionally only been available to Global 2000 companies. Now, however, application service providers (ASPs) have recognised the gap, and are providing the hardware, software and networking infrastructures to enable small to medium sized enterprises to take advantage of them as well. Open Text is partnering with a number of ASPs in Europe to give these companies cost-effective access to its solutions.

"Global 2000 companies, many of whom do not want their partners and suppliers behind their own firewalls, are also using ASPs to host the servers and applications they use for external communications," says Palatini. He believes there is a gap in the South African market for this kind of service.

Looking to the future, Open Text is currently working on the first true virtual team collaboration project in the world.

"Our idea is to be able to set up an entire community, with all the necessary tools, for any major project, such as an oil rig construction," says Palatini. "We will provide a hosting partner, all the applications and set up the virtual community within a day."

He notes that technology vendors must supply technology that is way before its time.

"If we start developing where the market is now, there is no value. We recognised the value of XML two years ago. Now that it is really here, our solutions are delivering it. Right now, we have moved on, and are building the software that people will be asking for tomorrow."

Open Text`s LiveLink solutions address business challenges by supporting dynamic collaboration and removing the barriers that prevent strategic business processes from reaching their maximum potential. They enable organisations and individuals to share knowledge, collaborate on projects and improve business processes - across an ever-expanding network. People can work together regardless of geographical location, and teams can organise and manage themselves to meet the challenges facing the organisation.

LiveLink includes document management, search technology, project collaboration and business process automation, the major aspects of daily office work