B2B: Corporate Express Goes Direct

Computerworld - When you have consolidated computer systems from 500 corporate acquisitions, you get pretty good at IT integration.
Indeed, nothing so distinguishes IT at Corporate Express Inc. as the degree to which it seamlessly links major supply systems -- its own and those of customers and suppliers. The $5.5 billion, Broomfield, Colo.-based vendor of office supplies for the business market has, in essence, become an extension of the procurement systems of its largest customers.
"Integration is one of our core competencies," says CIO Lisa Peters, who has seen her IT shop grow from 12 people to more than 300 in the past nine years.
Corporate Express has for years taken orders for furniture, paper, computer supplies and other office products by telephone, fax and electronic data interchange. In 1997, it began offering customers Internet-based procurement via a simple CD-ROM catalog. Now, more than half of its 75,000 daily orders arrive electronically, most as XML transactions through a richly featured Web portal called E-Way.
The smallest of Corporate Express' 30,000 customers, which typically lack their own automated procurement systems, log onto E-Way and conduct purchasing transactions much as a consumer might at Amazon.com. These buyers have also placed many of their unique procurement rules into E-Way, so that, for example, E-Way checks budgets, buyer authorizations and other controls for customers.
But 750 of the company's largest customers -- which account for some 80% of its sales volume -- have a more direct connection to E-Way. Corporate Express has integrated E-Way into the processing fabric of their internal procurement systems. That involved integrating with some 40 different commercial packages from companies ranging from Ariba Inc. to Commerce One Operations Inc. and eScout LLC. These customers start to build orders locally, but then bridge to E-Way by leveraging the integration features offered by each vendor's product. For example, Corporate Express uses PunchOut for integration with Ariba, RoundTrip for Commerce One, ConnectScout for eScout and so on.
Although customers can maintain their own versions of the Corporate Express catalog, more often the catalogs are maintained by and at Corporate Express. Every catalog is tailored to its user's format, terminology and buying practices.
"E-Way knows all the customer rules -- for example, that they don't buy desks from us, so desks will be blocked out," says Wayne Aiello, vice president of e-business services. "E-Way actually becomes the customer's system, so every customer has to be examined and treated differently."
Corporate Express is doing about 10 new customer integrations per month. They take 10 to 20 days --