TheAgileStartup

Reinventing the Web Channel to Maximize Sales and Customer Satisfaction

When the Oracle speaks you have to listen. 

So when "Reinventing the Web Channel to Maximize Sales and Customer Satisfaction" by Oracle's recently purchased ATG product line came across my inbox, I had to read it...and boy am I glad that I did.  It's wonderful! (For your convenience, you can download a copy here)

Integrating Magento with SAP for B2B and B2C ecommerce

Content is king. 

That's the conclusion we've come to as we enter our fourth year of business at b2b2dot0.  Real time integration into SAP are the table stakes when deploying a B2B Webshop. 

Paymetric and b2b2dot0 Enable SAP Webshop Credit Cards

This is one of those matches made in heaven.  It just makes so much sense!

eCommerce websites and credit cards are like bread and butter.  Each is good by itself, but they are so much better together.

Shipping Error Management - Making the Best of a Bad Situation

It's not something to be proud of. 

No manufacturer wants to pack and ship a "less than perfect" order.. but they do.   On a daily basis, customers open up their shipments to find parts that are short-shipped, totally missing, defective, or that weren't ordered altogether.  And these shipping errors have very real consequences!

B2C eCommerce in an SAP Integrated World

I'm not sure why, but over the past several weeks the marketplace has repeatedly drawn us into conversations about the B2C (business to consumer) business model.  That got me to thinking about what the B2C model actually is...from a business, technical and SAP perspective...and how it differs from the B2B (business to business) model that is our namesake...b2b2dot0.  Most importantly, it got me to thinking about what we have to do to in order to support these business models...in an Agile way.

Today I start a series of posts on this topic. 

ThinkStrategies' Evaluation of b2b2dot0's SAP Hybrid Cloud Offering

Several weeks ago, Jeffrey Kaplan of ThinkStrategies published a challenge to Cloud Vendors for 2010 in eCommerce Times.  I thought it would be fun to see how we stacked up against them, so here goes.

Placing Spreadsheet Orders Directly into SAP

If you think of yourself as a car company, you're destined to produce nothing but cars.  However, if you think of yourself as a Consumer Electronics Company, as Fast Company magazine just dubbed the Ford Motor Company, you're free to produce cloud enable entertainment centers that can take you places.

What is SAP's CRM Really Being Used For?

Last October, SAP announced that they were offering free CRM licenses to the market.  Coincidentally, over the course of the next several months, we heard of many defections away from SAP CRM and a couple of others where it was evaluated and dismissed as an unaffordable B2B eCommerce offering for the mid-market. 

So that got me to wondering...who was actually using SAP's CRM and what were they really doing with it? 

b2b2dot0 Goes to Budapest

b2b2dot0's Executive Management team just concluded our second annual Management Retreat.  We rented an apartment in Budapest for a week in order to celebrate our accomplishments, get a bunch of things done, and lay the groundwork for the upcoming year and beyond.  Today's blog post will share the highlights of our week together.

b2b2dot0's Email Service - Conclusion

New Product Development is a messy business.  The textbooks all make it sound like its a nice orderly linear progression from "concept to cash".  Maybe it appears to be linear in hindsight, but on a day to day basis it's anything but.

To Email or Not to Email, That is the Question.

It always starts out innocently enough. 

Something irritates one of our clients and they give us grief about it.  Internally, we complain that they complain and then we lament over the fact that they don't appreciate all of the great things that we do do for them.  We close our lament sessions with the same question: Why do they always have to focus on the negative???

Looking Backwards and Forwards 2

Looking Backwards

The overall theme for the last quarter was "languages". And we did implement an additional language (French) including the required infrastructure to translate the app efficiently in all it's aspects: buttons, labels, messages etc. Pretty soon we're going to add several more languages, among them even one with a non-Roman alphabet: Russian (which makes Chinese and Japanese feasible as well).

B2B vs B2C. What's the Difference?

One of our clients just received an order for $504,000 worth of products through our website.  That would be a lot of books, CD's and shoes that you'd have to put into a shopping cart!  I'd also say that few of us have that sort of credit limit on our credit cards :-)

Looking Backwards and Forwards

With the new quarter already started, let's have a look back at what we've achieved and a look forward at what's planned.

Why We Love Customer Focus Groups

A couple of  weeks ago, we staged our second Customer Focus Group on our soon to be released eInvoice capability for SAP.  I've been thinking about it ever since and wanted to share with you what that event looked like from my eyes.

Inside the tornado

There is never a dull moment here at b2b2dot0!  Every so often I like to stop for a moment and take stock of where we're at and what we're doing.  This feels like one of those moments.

"Our customers aren't our secretaries!"

"They are NOT going to rekey their orders into our SAP integrated eCommerce website for us.  Their purchasing systems generate faxes and emails and that's what they are going to continue to send to us."  I heard this story...yet again...this week and wanted to weigh in on this topic.

Saving Costs in a Down Economy

Companies invest in SAP Integrated B2B sell-side eCommerce websites for two reasons.  Either they want to: (1) provide their customers a better order management experience or (2) they want to save on internal processing costs.

A Tale of Two Texts

Order header texts that is.  It's seems obvious that when a customer comes to an SAP integrated B2B sellside ecommerce website that he should be able to include textual information with his order.

SAP eInvoice Focus Group 1

We're hosting a virtual Focus Group on February 3rd to demonstrate, and get feedback on, b2b2dot0's electronic invoicing functionality for SAP.  We're hoping to release this capability on March 17th. Please join us if you'd like to learn more about what we're up to, care to influence our direction or just want to see what others in the industry are thinking about when it comes to electronic invoicing.

The Quarter of the Catalog

While we're constantly working on improving our service, we like to have at least one major theme to focus on per quarter.  The fourth quarter of 2008 was designated the "Catalog Quarter".

Back to the Future...when real time isn't.

How can you tell when an eCommerce website is out of sync with its back office inventory and financial system?

Is outsourcing your eCommerce website right for you?

Outsourcing your eCommerce website is not for everyone.

Specifying requirements for a new product capability

How do you go about specifying the requirements for a new capability when you really don't know what you want, it hasn't been done before and the technology is foreign to you?

We're LIVE!

Actually, our first production order was processed on September 8, 2008. That's 229 days after the official incorporation of b2b2dot0, Inc on January 28, 2008.