To B2B or not to B2B

Charting a course for buy-side e-commerce in the university environment

MIT’s e-commerce components

Sell-Side (B2C/B) Web credit card initiative Internal providers support in SAP

Buy-Side (B2B) MIT credit cards, with approvals in SAP SAPweb – homegrown front-end to SAP ECAT – ties vendor catalogs with SAP SAP Internet Transaction Server and B2B

(coming)

MIT’s e-commerce (cont.)

Other initiatives in the works (?2?) Research grant proposals to

government agencies via EDI Very early discussions about other

uses for EDI

Our ECAT Design/Strategy Considerations

Vendor relationships Vendor capabilities – EDI, OBIIntegration with SAPAuthentication – digital certificatesAuthorizations and Approvals - in SAPReporting/reconciliation for departments

ECAT demo

(Note for CSG workshop web pages: below is a diagram of the ECAT model)

SAP

RequisitionSAPWeb

Requisition Authorizations

ApprovalsUser's Desktop Purch. Order A/P Payment

line item detail fororder processing

(OBI 850 order request) PO sent via Invoice sent via paper (for now)MIT EDI over the InternetEDI over the InternetVendor authentication 850 transaction 810 transaction

via x.509certificates

Vendor Shopping Vendor Vendor VendorCatalog Basket (optional Order A/R A/R

for recon- System System Funds Receiptciliationonly) shipment

order is shippeddirectly to customer

Discussion Questions

1. PREFERRED PARTNERSHIPSWhat is the role for preferred vendor partnerships? As content aggregators take over (or will they?), will individual supplier relationships become more or less important?

2. SOME VENDORS DON’T GET ITWhy do many vendors not understand the university environment? What can we do to help them understand? Or, do we need to change our business practices?

3. INTERNAL PURCHASINGWhat role do (should?) internal providers play in our strategy?

4. STANDARDS XML? EDI? OBI?Where are the standards going?How do WE get there?

OTHER QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION???