Users take B2B projects one small step at a time

Computerworld - NEW YORK -- A down economy may have slowed the corporate charge toward a Web-based business-to-business trading world, but companies continue to invest in targeted online supply chain operations.

Speaking last week at an i2 Technologies Inc. customer show here, LeRoy Allen, an e-commerce vice president at apparel maker VF Corp., said his firm had slowed its efforts to link with other companies because it decided to prepare its own one-to-one back-end systems for an e-commerce boom.

"Sharing incorrect information or bad information with our customers and suppliers just didn't seem like a good idea," Allen said.

In February, Greensboro, N.C.-based VF's jeanswear division, which includes brands such as Wrangler and Lee, went live with a reorganized supply chain that gives real-time production information concerning its 52,000 jeans stock-keeping units (SKU), 103,000 bills of materials and 980,000 orders and forecasts.

Most important in terms of e-commerce, Dallas-based i2 supplied a conduit through which a customer using a Web-based procurement engine, such as Buyer from Mountain View, Calif.-based Ariba Inc., can query VF's jeanswear division to get real-time information about inventory and capacity.

Allen said that linking all 500,000 of VF's SKUs, 75 distribution centers and 100 manufacturing centers into the system will take years, but he stressed the importance of a steady march forward. "You can't do it all in one day," he said.

In fact, business-to-business office supplier Corporate Express Inc., a subsidiary of Amsterdam-based Buhrmann NV, plans to take two years to construct a new online storefront to replace the in-house model it built in 1996.

Guy Manuel, the company's North American vice president for e-business, said the new storefront will enable Broomfield, Colo.-based Corporate Express to do more of the analytical work necessary for e-commerce.

He said that using trend analysis, adapting to changing procurement needs, implementing business rules and providing real-time control over expenditures were pipe dreams when Corporate Express first built the storefront for its customers.

"We've delivered online inventory and billing, but we have to create a way to share more information with our customers, and this storefront is the first step," Manuel said.

Overall, he said, Corporate Express plans to spend more than $88.5 million on business-to-business technology.

"We're probably a couple of years away from full collaboration, but we're installing the technology that should allow us to link with multiple companies when that time arrives," Manuel said.

Kip Martin, an analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based Meta Group Inc., said business-to-business projects with definitive returns on investment are the only way to proceed.

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