By Lizette McIntosh, supplier enablement manager at MarketSite Africa
Today suppliers' biggest challenges are numerous and include the following:
* Maintaining their current customer base and attracting new business by making their products and services available through more channels.
* The ability to create an electronic catalogue once and publish it in many formats like, hard copy brochure, CD-ROM and electronic on-line selling, which is required for all the different methods of reaching their customers.
* Minimising incremental costs by using channels that reach more customers in a more cost-effective way.
Other challenges include the need to drive new business, and to quickly take advantage of new markets, effectively sell through multiple channels and attract and retain customers. Suppliers also face the problem of allowing potential customers to find them and to rapidly connect with new trading partners. All this needs to be done in the context of minimal incremental effort and cost while remaining empowered. Other issues include:
* Exposing the full value proposition to customers;
* Making their products and services available;
* Differentiating product offerings; and
* Promoting their brand.
In addition, there is the added problem of retaining customers and keeping pace with increased automation demands. With the Internet they need to address the request from customers for 24/7 visibility and availability and to find ways to easily satisfy information requirements. To remain competitive they need to provide differentiated value in comparison to other suppliers and to expand their customer base by offering more than the competition. They also need to electronically tailor their relationship with customers.
To a large extent an e-marketplace can help suppliers with meeting all these requirements.
An e-marketplace is an Internet destination that is built on an inter-enterprise commerce platform, that supports complex, collaborative business processes, resulting in greater efficiencies and cost savings for all participants.
Some buyers who use e-procurement software may use the services of an e-marketplace. An e-marketplace supports complex business processes online, resulting in greater efficiencies and cost savings for all participants. One of these processes offered as a service is the routing and distribution of purchase orders from buyers to the relevant suppliers. This offers the supplier a means to offer the company's products to those buyers and in this case the supplier does not need a Web site nor require any software other than a normal browser to access their orders online. Browser software is generally included with most computers today as a standard application.
To get started you will have to create a product and price list in a specific format that will be hosted on the e-marketplace. Your buyer can then access this product catalogue by making a copy of it on his intranet.
When your buyer places an order, he/she accesses the catalogue within his own intranet, sends the order through to the e-marketplace and the system then compares the pricing in the order to that of the catalogue residing on the hub. If any differences occur, the system marks the order accordingly, and when the supplier opens the order, he is able to see the difference.
You can the access your orders by logging onto a specific Internet address which is hosted by the e-marketplace. Normally a supplier is trained on how to manage the orders in accordance with the specific business processes of the buyer.
An e-marketplace usually levies a monthly transaction fee or annual subscription fee for the secure handling of transactions and hosting of the supplier's catalogue
Lizette McIntosh can be contacted on: (011) 770 8800 or e-mail: Lizette.Mcintosh@marketsiteafrica.com
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