Dell's B2B solution is a direct portal into Premier pages. Both B2B and Premier use the same catalog, hosted at Dell, to service the customer's shopping experience. Customers use an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) application that leverages the Internet to connect with Dell's online systems to shop and purchase from the customer's own catalog. Dell has connected to more than 20 different industry E-Procurement (ERP) tools and uses industry standard document protocols for the data format. Here is a partial list of E-Procurement systems that Dell can integrate with:
- Ariba
- Clarus/Epicor
- Commerce One/e-Scout
- EER
- Great Plains/Microsoft
- Lawson
- Microsoft (Biztalk)
- Oracle (custom)
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- Peoplesoft
- Peregrine
- Periscope/WFI
- PurchasePro/Perfect Software
- Rightworks/i2
- SAP
- Supply Access
- webMethods
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For B2B, four transactions are supported in the supplier hosted solution (see Figure 1):- "PunchOut" - authenticated access to the customer's catalog at Dell from the customer's Internet browser to facilitate shopping
- Order Requisition - shopping cart data pulled back into the customer's ERP system and workflow processing
- Electronic Purchase Order - sent back to Dell for automated order processing
- PO Acknowledgement - response returned to customer
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Supplier hosted solutions means Dell will host the catalog. Customers will access their own custom catalog to retrieve their personalized configurations. Sales representatives maintain these catalogs for both Premier and B2B customers. B2B supplier hosted solutions at Dell supports features like the following:
- Line item detail
- Pcard or purchase card
- Standard business lease
- Partial baskets, in which the quantity can be changed at the customer site
- Multiple catalogs, in which various departments can have their own catalogs
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Figure 1
Buyer hosted solutions are the most complex and require resources, time and effort to implement. In a buyer hosted solution, catalog information is exported to a spreadsheet or file and either sent to the customer directly for inclusion in their own system or moved to the E-Procurement vendor's network to be utilized and accessed there. Information can become outdated in an arrangement like this and the sales representative must send regular updates to keep the configuration and sales data fresh. Also, the customer bears a large burden of catalog maintenance, since they must import the catalog and ensure that items are accepted into their procurement application.
For further information about how your company can do B2B, please speak to your account executive or sales representative.
