Solutions For Buying

Another key business-to-business commerce application is buy-side or corporate procurement. Such uses let companies build applications that internal personnel can use for procurement. Buy-side applications provide a central point of control for procurement, helping organizations to manage spending and acquisition more efficiently, negotiate more competitive prices with vendors, and save time and money.

For example, a large insurance company could build an intranet site that would let executive assistants purchase office supplies for their areas. The application could provide a generic list of products and services from which users can select what they need, or it could provide an aggregation of catalogs from multiple vendors. The application could then place the order with the lowest-priced vendor or determine if the necessary goods have already been purchased and can be delivered from another location.

Most products focus on buying indirect goods--products and services that won't critically hamper your business if you don't receive them on time, such as office supplies. Procurement of direct goods--such as raw materials for discrete manufacturing operations--is often handled by enterprise resource planning systems and dedicated procurement personnel.

A big consideration for buy-side applications is whether they are usable. Buyers are often infrequent users who are internal to your company, so look for products that let you build rich, functional interfaces using technologies such as Java on the client side. In addition, the system should be able to capture all purchasing activities, which will prevent employees from going outside the system for purchasing. You may even want to integrate your expense-reporting system into your buy-side application, providing total central control on all spending.
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Of the vendors supplying tools for buy-side commerce, Ariba Technologies Inc. focuses only on buy-side applications and provides a rich feature set for these kinds of applications. Ariba, Netscape, and Trade'ex focus heavily on occasional users by providing easy-to-use interfaces. Microsoft provides a sample buy-side application, but making it fit your needs may require extensive custom development. Connect Inc.'s core competency comes from the company's integration services and its ability to roll customer-focused features into the underlying technology.