In the previous installment I discussed the revolution and changes that e-catalogues have under gone in the last few years as well as the benefits and advantages of Hosted Catalogues. In this installment, I would like to discuss Punch Out Catalogues or Round Trips as they’re called.
With Punch-Out Catalogues, the data and catalogue administration is managed by the supplier and the level of buyer customisation is usually correlated to the buyers influence and the deal they can work.
Lack of Control
Supplier catalogues can offer more functionality, but one of the greatest challenges is the lack of control over what is presented and the UI of that catalogue. Navigating to a Punch Out catalogue is the same for all suppliers, but once you are there, you enter the supplier site and must know how to navigate that particular catalogue to find what you want.
With both Hosted and Punch Outs, the buyer accesses the catalogues through their own purchasing system, selects the item that they wish to purchase and essentially “brings back” all the attributes necessary to fill out a PR or PO. These documents are then routed internally for spend approval and submitted back to the supplier for purchase. It is important to note that catalogues do not need to be associated with an e-marketplace and can still be effective by using mail or fax communications.
Yet another advantage of using e-catalogues is in the business rules related to PR/PO approval. These rules can be automated and the threshold for PR to PO to supplier release can be streamlined. It should not be necessary to apply the same approval scrutiny with catalogue generated PR’s vs. off catalogue spend, because catalogue items have already been vetted and price validated. Following the practice of ‘prescriptive bureaucracy’, catalogues should make it very easy to do the right thing and make it increasingly painful to go against desired policy.
Dynamic Interface
Interfacing with catalogues has also become increasingly dynamic. The features and functionality found in Google and Amazon are now available in many modern catalogue solutions. As in Google, items can be searched for by product groups, attribute, or related item. The system can provide hints or reminders and like items can be compared.
- Like Amazon, shopping carts can be created, saved, shared and reused.
- The information from which to select a product or service is also enhanced.
- Images can be displayed and even flash demos viewed.
- Attachments can be made available for download including PDF spec sheets, MSDS and more.
In reality, the attributes available are almost unlimited, next we may even see carbon contribution and other sustainability information included for download and processing. e-Catalogues can also be used to requisition from internal warehouses and don’t necessarily require a supplier interface.
Interesting Future
The future is even more interesting. New advances using federated search protocols and web crawling algorithms are converting supplier content into a preferred buyer formats almost automatically. The criticism around UI mentioned above with Punch Out catalogues is solved. New technology will import supplier data and convert that to buyer information, which maintains the same user experience for all catalogues, regardless of the format in which the supplier presents it. The same result can be achieved today, but requires an additional service from the catalogue or e-business supplier.
Additional advances are also lowering the threshold for real time information exchange. We have all heard about the linkage between supplier inventory levels and up to date shipping information by large multi-billion dollar organisations and their suppliers; these systems were quite complex and expensive, putting them out of reach for most organizations.
Now new catalogue tools can put this information in the hands of a much wider variety of companies without the expense or need to hard wire your systems directly to each and every supplier.
Today’s catalogues are now even better at solving the fundamental problem of directing our buyers to approved products. They are exponentially easier to use and content rich as well as cost effective for most organizations and are accessible through most any purchasing system. With e-catalogues, Procurement can finally begin to feel comfortable that the savings we work so hard to negotiate will finally hit the bottom line.
Tags: hosted e-catalogues