Changing the e-Procurement Landscape; Long-Standing Purchasing Issues Find Resolution with New e-Commerce Innovations

A significant breakthrough in e-commerce technology promises to deliver all of the buyer benefits of supplier PunchOut catalogs while eliminating the common hassles and potential risks.

A common problem for purchasing organizations that use e-procurement systems (such as Ariba, SciQuest, PeopleSoft, etc.) is getting suppliers 'onboarded' or 'enabled'.

Those terms refer to getting suppliers connected to the e-procurement system and their products, or catalog data, uploaded into the system. Another issue has been the process through which users of such systems locate and purchase the products uploaded by suppliers.

Supplier product/catalog data appear in a typical e-procurement system in one of two ways; as a line item (or 'hosted') catalog, or as a PunchOut catalog.

Hosted catalogs are stored on the buyer's side, appearing as line item listings on a page. Because of space constraints, these listings contain only basic, limited information.

By comparison, PunchOut catalogs are hosted on the supplier's side, presenting products in more of a user-friendly online catalog way. Each product listing can include all relevant photographs and full product details, having more space to display such information.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/438135#ixzz1aUGz7qDc