B2B e-commerce strategy will very likely revolve around Web

technology and communication. The Web is what forms the foundation of

B2B e-commerce, and facilitates the new level of cooperation that

exists between business partners. Your strategy is likely to involve a

very close level of integration between you and your business partners;

integration that will allow multiple business partners to create a sort

of "business Web," where you may be able to get into each others'

networks and access each others' databases. You're creating a whole new

value chain, where information from one partner may drive a process for

another partner; and direct access to that information is what makes it

happen quickly and automatically.

A B2B Web site is really the center of your business operation. Think

of it as a central office, where everyone meets to do business. Think

of it as a huge central repository, where all the business information

anybody will ever need can be accessed. I think of it like my wife's

handbag, which is the center of our household operations. There's the

equivalent of a Manufacturing Division in there (her granny's recipe

for chicken 'n dumplings), Creative Department (makeup), and Operations

(three months worth of to-do lists). If I need a receipt from office

supplies I bought last January, chances are she's got it in there.

The main components of a real B2B site are:

    * Information -- The Web site can act as a central clearing house

      for all sorts of information that your partners, resellers,

      customers, branch offices and remote workers may need to access

      from time to time. Besides information about your products that

      you may display on your Web site in static form, you may also use

      the Web site as a place to present dynamic information--

      information that constantly changes. This is where the next

      category, integration, comes in.

    * Integration -- If you have information on your network that you

      want to distribute to various partners, you could send it to the

      copy shop and mail it to them. And when something changes, you

      can mail them an update. Or, you could integrate the entire

      database of information with your Web site, so that when your

      partner wants to look up some information, they just have to go

      to your Web site, enter in the information they need, and a

      simple lookup application will travel across the Internet into

      your internal network, verify that they have permission to

      receive that information, retrieve the data from your database,

      and then send it back across the Internet and create a custom Web

      page to display it to that individual.

    * Applications -- The Web is being used more for application

      delivery, especially in a B2B environment. It's likely that

      you'll have business partners that you'll want to give certain

      applications to. These applications may be product configurators,

      database applications for looking up information, or other small

      applications designed to make doing business with you a little

      easier.

    * Connectivity -- Of course, the Web is a tool that connects

      everyone in the "business web." Virtual private networks and

      extranets are quickly replacing older means of communication,

      such as telephone, fax, and mail.

Information is what drives commerce, and if you're going to do business

electronically, you have to make information readily accessible.

There's a delicate balancing act that you must undertake, which on one

hand protects your proprietary information with various safeguards such

as authorization, authentication, encryption and access controls; but

on the other hand, you don't want to make that information so difficult

to get to that your partners will give up in frustration and go

somewhere else.

But how do you get the information from all the little silos of

information, and all the various databases that exist within your

internal network, out to your partners in other parts of the world?

That data has to get from your databases out to the Internet for that

to happen, and that usually means that an application has to exist on

your Web server, which allows your partner to request information. That

request is made through a software application, which communicates to

the Web server, and then passes the request back through to your

internal network, where the information is retrieved, sent back out to

the Web server, across the Internet and out to the partner. Most common

database management systems, such as Filemaker Pro, Access, and Paradox

have web-enabling functions built in, which allow you to transform your

data into HTML content and publish it to the Web. A more dynamic

approach is to use a Web catalog products like Selectica's ACE Product

Suite can automate the process of taking a request over a Web site,

checking an Oracle database on the back end for information, and then

returning it to the browser on the other side.

Another category of product called configurators go even further,

connecting your database with manufacturing and inventory systems,

letting you fine-tune your manufacturing process to produce only those

products that have been sold ("just-in-time" manufacturing), and to

modify the manufacturing process based on each customer request.